In the early 1900's a movement known as progressivism, arouse in the United States. During their tenure, presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson, instituted a set of new institutional reforms to improve American life by expanding democracy and achieving economical and social justice.

Progressivism's most successful policy was the nineteenth amendment passed in 1916 and ratified in 1920 which granted women full voting rights. Beginning in the mid-19th century, several generations of woman suffrage supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practiced civil disobedience to achieve a change in the American Constitution. By 1916 almost all of the major suffrage organizations were united behind the goal of a constitutional amendment. Political balance began to shift in favor of the vote for women when New York adopted woman suffrage in 1917 and President Woodrow Wilson changed his position to support an amendment in 1918. On May 21, 1919, the House of Representatives passed the...