Glenn Thompson: “I recognize the passage of the 19th Amendment providing women the right to vote. After Congress passed the 19th…”

“I recognize the passage of the 19th Amendment providing women the right to vote. After Congress passed the 19th Amendment in 1919, three-fourths of the 48 State legislatures were needed to ratify the new amendment. This past Monday, June 24, marks the 100th anniversary of Pennsylvania becoming the seventh State to ratify the 19th Amendment. Women first organized and fought for suffrage on the national level in July of 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention in New York. But Pennsylvania was a center of women's rights even before the Seneca Falls Convention occurred. Famous suffragist Lucretia Mott joined with a diverse group of Pennsylvania women to organize the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1833. In 1840, the society sent Mott as a delegate to the World Anti- Slavery Convention in London to protest the exclusion of women at the convention. Organizations like this were formed all across the Commonwealth to focus their attention on raising awareness of the women's suffrage cause. The decades of effort on the local and national level by women's suffragists resulted in Congress finally passing the 19th Amendment. Today women play a pivotal role in our government. The 2018 elections brought a record number of Pennsylvania women to the ballot box, and a record number were welcomed to political office across the United States. Mr.…”