League of Women Voters of the US history

In 1921, the League's first major national legislative success was the passage of the Sheppard-Towner Act, providing federal aid for maternal and child care programs

The League’s platform was ambitious and progressive, advocating, for example, support for the Cable Act supporting independent citizenship for married women, which became law in 1922, ensuring that a woman’s citizenship did not rely on the status of her husband’s citizenship.

Belle Sherwin, one of the leaders of the Cleveland League of Women Voters, became president of the national organization in 1924.

In Colorado, the League of Women Voters (LWVCO) was organized in 1928.

5, 1933, Pasadena, Calif.), American reformer and public official, a strong influence on behalf of woman suffrage and an important figure in securing and enforcing labour standards both in California and at the federal level.

In 1939, the League of Women Voters worked with the Ohio Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs and the National Women's Party to oppose passage of the Dunn Bill.

Harry Truman invited the League of Women Voters to serve as a consultant to the US delegation at the United Nations Charter Conference in 1945.

The famous Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960 were created and moderated by television news agencies.

By 1964 southern leagues supported desegregation and black voter rights.

The LWV sponsored the United States presidential debates in 1976, 1980, and 1984, but pulled out in 1988 after refusing to go along with the demands of the major candidates’ campaigns. It had to compete for members and political influence with organizations such as the National Organization for Women (NOW). The League reversed its position on the ERA and, after 1974, became a major partner with NOW in championing the amendment.

That national campaign ended in 1982, but LWV continues to push for ERA ratification today.

In 1984, the Massachusetts State League brochure included information about the Communist Party presidential slate with Angela Davis as the vice-presidential candidate.

So why did the League stop sponsoring Televised National Presidential Debates? The short answer to the question is that in the 1988 election, the Democratic and Republican parties, jointly, decided to run the debates themselves.

Susan E. Whitney, Seventy-Five Years Rich: A Perspective on the Woman’s Suffrage Movement and the League of Women Voters in Georgia . Atlanta, GA: League of Women Voters of Georgia, 1995.

When the 2000 election exposed the many problems facing the election system, the League began to work on election reform.

2 | Primary Sources on Slavery | Winter 2004

7 | Women's Suffrage | Spring 2006

18 | Abraham Lincoln in His Time and Ours | Winter 2008

26 | New Interpretations of the Civil War | Winter 2010

35 | America’s First Ladies | Spring 2013

44 | Alexander Hamilton in the American Imagination | Winter 2016

47 | American Women in Leadership | Winter 2017

February 14th, 2020, marks 100 years that the League of Women Voters has empowered voters and defended democracy.