LWV Article for The Bottom Line News and Views February 2020
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It was a particularly hot day on August 18, 1920 in Nashville. If Tennessee voted to ratify the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, women of the United States would finally be granted the right to vote. Ratification looked dim. First term legislator, Harry Burns, from the eastern mountains — an anti-suffrage district — had been a reliable anti-suffrage voter throughout the two months of intense lobbying around ratification. That day he headed to the floor to vote, then opened up a letter just received from his mother. It was brief. It just said, “Dear Son: Hurrah and vote for suffrage and don’t keep them in doubt…. Don’t forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt… with lots of love, Mama”. He switched his vote to favor the franchise for women.
And so it was, by only one vote, that Tennessee became the 38th state to ratify women’s suffrage.
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