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Suffrage Facts & Worksheets

Suffrage is a right to vote given in assent to a proposal or in favor of the election of a particular person or persons or political group.

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Suffrage is a right to vote given in assent to a proposal or in favor of the election of a particular person or persons or political group.

See the fact file below for more information on the suffrage or alternatively, you can download our 21-page Suffrage worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

EARLY RISE OF SUFFRAGE

  • The word suffrage dates back to the 13th century and originates from Medieval Latin suffragium meaning “support, ballot, vote; right of voting; a voting tablet”.
  • In ancient Greece, the right to vote was held only by adult, male citizens who owned land. This property qualification was adopted in the succeeding centuries.
  • Wealth, tax, and social class also determined the right to vote in countries ruled by monarchs.
  • In Early Europe, religious denominations were soon denied civil and political rights including the right to vote.
  • Roman Catholics were denied the right to vote from 1728 to 1793 in Great Britain and Ireland.
  • In the late 1700s the right to vote in the United States was denied to Jews, Quakers, and Catholics. Other states only allowed protestants to vote.
  • Other countries, such as France and Ireland, prohibited all army personnel from voting.
  • In some countries, minorities were not given the same rights as the dominant race. Natural-born citizens were eligible for election to higher political positions.
  • The basic qualifications for suffrage are similar, with minor variations per country. Usually only adult citizens, aged 18 and above, are eligible to vote.

SUFFRAGE AROUND THE WORLD

  • Canada’s right to suffrage was documented in 1871, initially denying non- Canadians the right to vote. The voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 by 1970.
  • Universal suffrage for men was introduced in France on August 11, 1792.
  • The Indian Constitution introduced universal suffrage for all adult citizens aged 21 or older in 1951-52.
  • After World War II, Japan instituted Universal Suffrage in 1947.
  • Suffrage rights in Australia began in 1855 for male British subjects.
  • Female suffrage began in 1899 and the Aborigines finally secured their rights to suffrage by 1965.
  • The 1918 constitution of Norway gave male landowners or officials above the age of 25 full voting rights. This was lowered to 18 by 1978.
  • The United Kingdom (Kingdom of England) introduced suffrage to select men beginning 1265.
  • Property ownership determined the right of British men to vote and this went on until the 20th century.
  • By 1918, all men over 21 and some women over 30 won the right to vote, and in 1928 all women over 21 won.
  • The first legitimate voters in South Africa were 85% white. It was only in 1994 when every South African citizen over the age of 18 were given the right to vote.
  • American suffrage in the 17th-century Thirteen Colonies was often restricted by property qualifications or a religious test.
  • When the first United States Constitution was approved, it did not define who was eligible to vote, allowing each state to decide.
  • Only white men were originally allowed to vote. Women and non-whites were not allowed to vote.
  • But by the entry of the 15th, 19th, 23rd, 24th and 26th amendments, every citizen aged 18 and above eventually obtained the right to vote.

WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE

  • Ancient Greece and Republican Rome as well as some democratic countries in Europe excluded women from voting by the end of the 18th century.
  • Women’s voting rights became an issue in the 19th century, and the struggle was fiercely debated in Great Britain and the United States.
  • Outside these two countries, women had already earned the right to vote in national elections in New Zealand (1893), Australia (1902), Finland (1906), and Norway (1913).
  • Members of militant women’s organisations, called suffragettes, fought for the right to vote in public elections, known as women’s suffrage.
  • The women’s suffrage movement in the United States began with the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, convened by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott.
  • Suffragists utilized strategies such as marches, quiet vigils, and yearning strikes, to name a few.
  • Finally, Soviet Russia (1917), Canada, Germany, Austria, and Poland (1918), Czechoslovakia (1919), the United States and Hungary (1920), Great Britain (1918 and 1928), Burma (Myanmar; 1922), Ecuador (1929), South Africa (1930), Brazil, Uruguay, and Thailand (1932), Turkey and Cuba (1934), and the Philippines (1937) allowed women to vote.
  • After World War II, France, Italy, Romania, Yugoslavia, and China gave voting rights to women. In 1949, full suffrage was introduced in India, and in 1956 in Pakistan.
  • More than 100 countries joined the support for women’s suffrage and to date, Saudi Arabia (2015) and other Middle Eastern Countries have begun to allow women to vote.

Suffrage Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about the suffrage across 21 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Suffrage worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about the suffrage which is a right to vote given in assent to a proposal or in favor of the election of a particular person or persons or political group.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

  • Practicing Suffrage
  • The Process
  • Grounds to Choose
  • Public Concerns
  • A Public Notice
  • Passionate Pankhurst
  • The Suffragettes
  • Checklist of Rights
  • In Honor of…
  • Youth Suffrage

Frequently Asked Questions

What does suffrage mean?

Suffrage refers to the right to vote in public elections granted to qualified individuals. The word can be traced to the Latin word suffragium which meant “ballot” or, simply, “a vote.”

Why is suffrage important?

Suffrage or the right to vote is important because this is what allows individuals to be involved in choosing the people who they want to constitute their government and whose decisions will have a significant impact on their lives.

When did the idea of women’s suffrage start?

Women had not enjoyed voting rights for a long time in different countries. In the United States, the struggle for women’s suffrage began in the mid-19th century with the dawn of women’s rights movement.

Who were the suffragettes?

The suffragettes were the female militants who fought for women’s rights to vote by organizing marches, heckling politicians, and other acts considered civil disobedience. When women in Britain had still been denied the right to vote in 1903, the suffragettes in the country were also known to have engaged in hunger strikes while they were imprisoned in an act of resistance.

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Link will appear as Suffrage Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com - KidsKonnect, July 27, 2023

Use With Any Curriculum

These worksheets have been specifically designed for use with any international curriculum. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards.

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