Women’s Equality Day is a day proclaimed each year by the United States President to commemorate the granting of the vote to women throughout the country.

Women in the United States were granted the right to vote on August 26, 1920, when the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution was certified as law. The amendment was first introduced many years earlier in 1878. Every president has published a proclamation for Women’s Equality Day since 1972, the year after legislation was first introduced in Congress by Rep. Bella Abzug (D-NY). This resolution was passed in 1971 designating August 26 of each year as Women’s Equality Day. Following is the full text of the resolution:

Joint Resolution of Congress, 1971 Designating August 26 of each year as Women’s Equality Day:

WHEREAS, the women of the United States have been treated as second-class citizens and have not been entitled the full rights and privileges, public or private, legal or institutional, which are available to male citizens of the United States; and

WHEREAS, the women of the United States have united to assure that these rights and privileges are available to all citizens equally regardless of sex;

WHEREAS, the women of the United States have designated August 26, the anniversary date of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, as symbol of the continued fight for equal rights: and

WHEREAS, the women of United States are to be commended and supported in their organizations and activities,

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that August 26 of each year is designated as “Women’s Equality Day,” and the President is authorized and requested to issue a proclamation annually in commemoration of that day in 1920, on which the women of America were first given the right to vote, and that day in 1970, on which a nationwide demonstration for women’s rights took place.

A useful website providing much additional information on Women’s Equality Day is the website of the National Women’s History Project. The Project’s theme for Women’s Equality Day 2016 is Working to Form a More Perfect Union: Honoring Women in Public Service and Government.

The Montague Law Library currently has these books and many others on this 2016 Women’s Equality Day theme:

Woman suffrage and the origins of liberal feminism in the United States, 1820-1920 / Suzanne Marilley.
Call no. JK1896.M37 1996
In demanding equal rights and the vote for women, woman suffragists introduced liberal feminist dissent into an emerging national movement against absolute power in the forms of patriarchy, church administrations, slavery and false dogmas. In their struggle, these women developed three types of liberal arguments, each predominant during a different phase of the movement: freedom of equality, freedom from fear, and freedom of personal development.

Constitutional context : women and rights discourse in nineteenth century America / Kathleen S. Sullivan.
Call no. KF478.S85 2007
While the United States was founded on abstract principles of certain “unalienable rights,” its legal traditions are based in British common law, a fact long decried by progressive reformers. Common law, the complaint goes, ignores abstract rights principles in favor of tradition, effectively denying equality to large segments of the population.

The nineteenth-century women’s rights movement embraced this argument, claiming that common law rules of property and married women’s status were at odds with the nation’s commitment to equality. Conventional wisdom suggests that this tactic helped pave the way for voting rights and better jobs. In Constitutional Context, Kathleen S. Sullivan presents a fresh perspective.

In revisiting the era’s congressional debates, state legislation, judicial opinions, news accounts, and work of political activists, Sullivan finds that the argument for universal, abstract rights was not the only, or best, path available for social change. Rather than erecting a new paradigm of absolute rights, she argues, women’s rights activists unwittingly undermined common law’s ability to redress grievances, contributing heavily to the social, cultural, and political stagnation that characterizes the place of women and the movement today.

Women and the United States Constitution : history, interpretation, and practice / edited by Sibyl A. Schwarzenbach and Patricia Smith.
Call no. KF478.A5W654 2003
Women and the United States Constitution is about much more than the Nineteenth Amendment. This provocative volume incorporates law, history, political theory, and philosophy to analyze the U.S. Constitution as a whole in relation to the rights and fate of women. Divided into three parts―History, Interpretation, and Practice―this book views the Constitution as a living document, struggling to free itself from the weight of a two-hundred-year-old past and capable of evolving to include women and their concerns.

Law, gender, and injustice : a legal history of U.S. women / Joan Hoff.
Call no. KF4758.H64 1991
In this widely acclaimed landmark study, Joan Hoff illustrates how women remain second-class citizens under the current legal system and questions whether the continued pursuit of equality based on a one-size-fits-all vision of traditional individual rights is really what will most improve conditions for women in America as they prepare for the 21st century. Concluding that equality based on liberal male ideology is no longer an adequate framework for improving women’s legal status, Hoff’s highly original and incisive volume calls for a demystification of legal doctrine and a reinterpretation of legal texts (including the Constitution) to create a feminist jurisprudence.