Suffragist Protest in 1876

On July 4, 1876, five members of the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) staged a dramatic protest during the U.S. Centennial Celebration at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Led by Susan B. Anthony, the women bypassed ceremony officials and presented their Declaration of the Rights of the Women of the United States to Vice President Thomas W. Ferry before reading it aloud to the assembled crowd.

Co-written by Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Matilda Joslyn Gage, the declaration was modeled on the Declaration of Independence and argued that women, like the American colonies a century earlier, had been denied fundamental rights and equal representation. Declaring women to be "free and independent citizens" entitled to equal political power, the protest became one of the defining moments of the Centennial celebration and helped inspire the movement that ultimately led to the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution