Many states granted women the right to vote in state and local elections in advance of the ratification of the Constitutional amendment. They included Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Idaho, Washington, California, Oregon, Montana, Arizona, Kansas, Alaska, Illinois, North Dakota, Indiana, Nebraska, Michigan, Arkansas, New York, South Dakota, and Oklahoma.
Doctor and mountaineer Cora Smith Eaton King planted a “Votes for Women” flag at the top of Mount Rainier, in Washington state, in 1909.
Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan were the first states to ratify the 19th Amendment, all on June 10, 1919, six days after it was approved by Congress.
Tennessee was the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment, the number required under the U.S. Constitution to make it law.
Alice Paul, of the National Women’s Party, designed a “ratification banner,” on which she sewed stars for each state that ratified the 19th Amendment. When she reached 36 stars, it was complete.
Mississippi was the last state to ratify the 19th Amendment in 1984.
A statue celebrating Tennessee’s role in the ratification of the 19th Amendment was dedicated in Nashville’s Centennial Park in 2016. It was done by Alan LeQuire and depicts suffragists J. Frankie Pierce, Carrie Chapman Catt, Abby Crawford Milton, Anne Dallas Dudley, and Sue Sheldon White.