Tennessee Makes it 36!

After fourteen long months, Tennessee became the thirty-sixth state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment and join The Suffragist’s “Honor Roll.” Ratification easily passed the state Senate, but the House repeatedly delayed its vote, breathing life into a desperate last-ditch campaign by opposition forces. Plying representatives with liquor and food, antisuffrage lobbyists flipped an influential newspaper editor and the House Speaker, among others. On August 18, 1920, freshman Representative Harry Burn, wearing an antisuffragist red rose, shocked everyone by switching sides. He had promised his suffragist mother that he would support the amendment if the vote was close.