"A Taste of Politics: Women's Suffrage in New Jersey 1776 to 1807"

Happily, the story of the disenfranchised women would eventually be a successful one. After the first women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York, organized the women's movement in 1848, several important attempts were made to procure suffrage again for New Jersey women. In 1858, Lucy Stone of Orange, New Jersey, refused to pay her taxes because she was not granted the representation to go along with them.^Note She was able to address the New Jersey legislature on March 6, 1867, and petition them to enfranchise women and black men.^Note At the polls in 1868, 172 women tried to vote, but their ballots were ignored.^Note

In 1887, women were again granted the right to vote in New Jersey, but only in elections for school officials.^Note Even voting in the so-called "women's sphere" was ruled unconstitutional by the New Jersey State Supreme Court seven years later and the right to vote was once again taken away.^Note Mary Philbrook, the first woman lawyer in New Jersey, and her client, Harriet Carpenter, brought the state to court in 1911, claiming that the law of 1807 and all laws thereafter were unconstitutional since the original New Jersey constitution granted suffrage to "all inhabitants."^Note The State Supreme Court and the Court of Errors and Appeals decided against the women in 1912.^Note With the ratification of the 19^th Amendment in 1920, women were finally able to achieve equality in voting.