Women's suffrage petition

A petition to the Ohio Senate and House of Representatives to "[strike] the word MALE from that portion of the State Constitution defining the qualifications of an elector." Note that men and women signed in separate columns. In such petitions, women's signatures were invalid, as they had no legal right to vote. In 1912, the Ohio Constitutional Convention elected to bring to a vote the question of removing the words "white male" from the state constitution with regard to voting rights. Women's suffrage in Ohio was defeated in a special election in 1912 and again in 1914 and 1916 before a resolution narrowly passed in 1917 allowing municipal voting by women in Columbus. In 1920, the 19th Amendment passed, extending the vote to women and prohibiting state and federal government from denying suffrage on the basis of sex