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1 | HOUSE RESOLUTION
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2 | WHEREAS, Illinois is a proud leader in the story of women's | ||||||
3 | suffrage in the United States of
America; and
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4 | WHEREAS, The efforts of millions of American women, | ||||||
5 | starting in the nineteenth century, played a
decisive role in | ||||||
6 | winning the right to vote; many of these women lived and fought | ||||||
7 | for suffrage in
Illinois, making the Prairie State a nationwide | ||||||
8 | leader in the successful effort; and
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9 | WHEREAS, Illinois women's rights advocates included Jane | ||||||
10 | Addams, Frances Willard, and Ruth
Hanna McCormick; and | ||||||
11 | WHEREAS, Jane Addams's fight for the rights of all people | ||||||
12 | helped her win the Nobel Peace Prize
in 1931; and
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13 | WHEREAS, After founding the Women's Christian Temperance | ||||||
14 | Union (WCTU), Frances Willard
was honored by her fellow | ||||||
15 | Illinoisans and by members of Congress by having a statue | ||||||
16 | placed in the
national Statuary Hall in the United States | ||||||
17 | Capitol in Washington, D.C.; when the statue was erected
in | ||||||
18 | 1905, it made her the first woman honored among America's | ||||||
19 | greatest individuals; and | ||||||
20 | WHEREAS, After fighting successfully for women's suffrage |
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1 | in Illinois and nationwide, Ruth Hanna
McCormick herself ran | ||||||
2 | for an at-large seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and, | ||||||
3 | in 1928, became a Republican
congresswoman from Illinois, | ||||||
4 | before becoming the first woman nominated by a major party for | ||||||
5 | the U.S. Senate in 1930; and | ||||||
6 | WHEREAS, Women like Addams, Willard, and McCormick faced | ||||||
7 | many opponents but fought hard
and recruited other fighters to | ||||||
8 | help carry the torch, and, in 1913, Illinois became the first | ||||||
9 | state east of
the Mississippi to grant women the right to vote; | ||||||
10 | and | ||||||
11 | WHEREAS, Starting in 1914, Illinois women were extended the | ||||||
12 | right to vote for local and countywide offices,
creating a | ||||||
13 | strange halfway point as Prairie State election officials | ||||||
14 | handed short-sheet ballots to
female voters that only listed | ||||||
15 | the races for which they were allowed to vote; and | ||||||
16 | WHEREAS, Organizations led by the Illinois Equal Suffrage | ||||||
17 | Association, headed by Chicago's
Grace Wilbur Trout, demanded | ||||||
18 | an equal ballot for women; and | ||||||
19 | WHEREAS, With the entry of the United States into World War | ||||||
20 | I, women workers became an
essential part of the war effort, | ||||||
21 | and many men in Illinois and nationwide recognized there
was | ||||||
22 | not a moral case for denying women the right to an equal vote; |
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1 | and | ||||||
2 | WHEREAS, In May 1919, Illinois Republican Congressman | ||||||
3 | James Mann sponsored the Nineteenth Amendment to the
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4 | Constitution of the United States, the Woman's Suffrage | ||||||
5 | Amendment, and persuaded his colleagues
in the U.S. House and | ||||||
6 | Senate to send it to the states for ratification; and | ||||||
7 | WHEREAS, Outsider-activists, such as Grace Wilbur Trout, | ||||||
8 | and political insiders, such as Ruth
Hanna McCormick, had | ||||||
9 | already prepared the Illinois General Assembly for receipt of | ||||||
10 | this
pioneering constitutional document; and | ||||||
11 | WHEREAS, On June 10, 1919, Illinois lawmakers in | ||||||
12 | Springfield made the Land of Lincoln the first
state in the | ||||||
13 | nation to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. | ||||||
14 | Constitution, the constitutional amendment that granted the | ||||||
15 | right to vote to women in all elections nationwide, including | ||||||
16 | federal
elections for offices such as U.S. President; and
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17 | WHEREAS, With the help of political efforts and publicity | ||||||
18 | organized in press centers, such as
Chicago, by activists, such | ||||||
19 | as Addams and Trout, and political figures, such as McCormick,
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20 | the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified nationwide in less than | ||||||
21 | eighteen months; this made it
possible for American women to | ||||||
22 | vote for President in the election of 1920 and, again, in every
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1 | election since; and
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2 | WHEREAS, Illinois remembers the work
carried out by | ||||||
3 | fighters for women's votes one hundred years ago; therefore, be | ||||||
4 | it
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5 | RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE | ||||||
6 | HUNDRED FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that | ||||||
7 | we commemorate the approaching l00th anniversary on June 10, | ||||||
8 | 2019, of the ratification by the State of Illinois of the | ||||||
9 | Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; | ||||||
10 | and be it further | ||||||
11 | RESOLVED, That we remember in this commemoration the hopes | ||||||
12 | and dreams of the hundreds of
thousands of Illinois women of | ||||||
13 | all political parties who organized themselves, from the 1870s | ||||||
14 | into
the 1910s, into the half-century-long effort to win the | ||||||
15 | right to vote in America; and be it further
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16 | RESOLVED, That copies of this resolution be presented to | ||||||
17 | the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum in
Chicago, to the Frances | ||||||
18 | Willard House Museum and Archives in Evanston, and to the | ||||||
19 | Robert R.
McCormick Foundation/Cantigny Park in Wheaton in | ||||||
20 | commemoration and observance of the
differences between, and | ||||||
21 | the united desires of, the pioneer fighters for women's | ||||||
22 | suffrage in Illinois.
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