The United States ratified the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote in August 1920. Some women voted in the November 1920 election, marking the first time American women could participate in a presidential contest.

Women in New York City cast their first presidential votes in November 1920. The candidates in the 1920 U.S. presidential election were Republican Warren G. Harding with running mate Calvin Coolidge and Democrat James Cox with running mate Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Black, Asian, Latina, and Indigenous women were subjected to overt racism, violence, and prejudicial lawmaking that hindered or barred their access to rights afforded to many white women in the 1920s. Voter intimidation and discriminatory policies kept many Black women from voting after the 19th Amendment was ratified.

The government often denied Native American and Asian-American women citizenship, preventing them from voting after ratification of the 19th Amendment. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 and voting rights amendments in 1975 allowed some Black women and other women of color to cast ballots.

Women protested for the right to vote for nearly a century before the 19th Amendment was passed in 1920. Women who protested for the right to vote faced arrest, jail time, and harassment.

The Seneca Falls Convention took place in 1848. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott spoke on the need for women's suffrage at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention.