On September 30, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson stood before the Senate to call for the passage of the 19th Amendment. For him, the mission of WWI to “make the world safe for democracy” mean that Americans needed to fulfill that promise at home:

Both of our great national parties are pledged, to equality of suffrage for the women of the country. Neither party therefore, it seems to me, can justify hesitation as to the method of obtaining it, can rightfully hesitate to substitute federal initiative for state initiative, if the early adoption of the measure is necessary to the successful prosecution of the war and if the method of state: action proposed in the party platform is- of 1916 is impracticable within any reasonable length of time, if practicable at all. And its adoption is, in my judgment, clearly necessary to the prosecution of the war and the successful realization of the objects for which the war is being fought...

Are we alone to refuse to learn the lesson? Are we alone to ask and take the utmost that women can give,--service and sacrifice of every kind,-and still say that we do not see what title that gives them to stand by our sides in the guidance of the affairs of their nation and ours? We have made partners of the women in this war; shall we admit them only to a partnership of sacrifice and suffering and toil and not to a partnership of privilege and of right?

Wilson’s declaration that a federal constitutional amendment was needed and NOT simply state-by-state referendums granting women the right to vote was a stark contrast to his stance just a few short years earlier. 

Indeed, while the excerpt above shows Wilson to be a champion of women’s suffrage, it's delivery in 1918 only underscores the fact that Wilson was delayed in adopting a pro-suffrage ideology, both in thought and – again—in action.

Wilson’s evolution on Women’s suffrage continues to captivate historians to this day. As a professor and while President of Princeton, Wilson expressed his wholesale, misogynistic rejection of the notion, writing to his friend,

"[...] women, whether by nature or circumstance, draw their conclusions about public affairs from logical reason, whereas safe and wise conclusions in such affairs can be drawn only from experience - experience of the world - such as women have not had and cannot have unless drawn entirely into the open and safe-guarded in no way. Married women could never get the necessary experience unless the present constitution of the family and the present division of duties between husband and wife is to be absolutely altered."

He hesitatingly expressed support for women’s suffrage, but as a new leader in the Democratic party, he towed the party-line and insisted that suffrage was a matter that should be left up to the states. This states-right’s stance was decidedly rooted in Jim Crow and the hold of Southern Democrats on the party. Since the end of Reconstruction, southern states had successfully upended the democratic achievements of the 15th amendment which secured the right to vote for all male citizens of the United States, regardless of race. One after the next, southern state legislatures institutionalized the disenfranchisement of African Americans through literacy tests, grandfather clauses, and countless other degrading means – including fierce violence and intimidation – to wrest away Black voting rights. A federal Amendment for women’s suffrage could undermine Jim Crow laws. What is more, many women suffragists were themselves opposed to a federal amendment, believing in the greater political expediency of a state-by-state approach. 

Wilson’s move towards supporting a federal constitutional amendment can, as he noted in his speech, largely be attributed to his view that women’s crucial role in the war effort proved that they deserved the “privilege and right” of suffrage. Not to mention the fact that his three daughters were activists for the suffrage cause.

HOWEVER, it was far more than the war effort that pushed Wilson towards alliance with (some) suffragists. Rather, it was the keen political intelligence and organizing of the women themselves that allowed suffragists to claim their right to vote -- NOT the benevolence of a thankful (male) commander-in-chief. 

After more than 60 years of political maneuvering, suffragists found renewed energy on the eve of Wilson’s inauguration. On March 3, 1913, Alice Paul, a leader in the National American Women’s Suffrage Association (NAWSA) who would later go on to direct the more militant organization, the Congressional Union (CU), organized a march for suffrage in the nation’s capital. This march on Washington was conspicuously scheduled for the day before Wilson’s inauguration and on the date of his arrival to D.C. And so, instead of the fanfare expected for a new President, Wilson stepped of the train at Union Station to a paltry crowd. The rest of the city had gone to instead to witness the spectacle of the suffrage march. This tepid welcome to Washington quickly soured the President on the suffragists, and particularly Alice Paul.  

Though Wilson did vote for Suffrage in a 1915 New Jersey referendum, leading activists grew frustrated with his inaction on a constitutional amendment, especially in light of his war rhetoric championing democracy abroad. In 1917, to garner the President’s and, more importantly, the press’ attention, Alice Paul led CU activists in a picketing campaign outside the White House declaring “Mr. President- How Long Must We Wait!” These brave women endured abuse from passersby and the police. Their harsh treatment in jail, which included torture through force-feeding, captured the disgust of a shocked nation. 

Wilson’s disdain for the militant CU and his inaction in support of those jailed ultimately pushed him towards a closer alliance with the comparatively less radical suffragist leader, Carrie Chapman Catt of the NAWSA. Catt’s political relationship with Wilson and the NAWSA’s politically savvy support in the war effort pushed Wilson towards his impassioned 1918 speech.

The Wilson House 2020 exhibition, Suffrage Outside: The 19th Amendment at 100 documents how women were not granted the right to vote, they seized it.