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Sandbox for: Women's suffrage in states of the United States

South Carolina
Women's suffrage in South Carolina began as a movement in 1898, nearly 50 years after the women's suffrage movement began in Seneca Falls, New York. The state's women suffrage movement was concentrated amongst a small group of women, with very little support to no support from the state's legislature.

A prominent figure in South Carolina's women's suffrage movement was Virginia Durant Young, a temperance campaigner who expanded her efforts to push for votes for women in South Carolina elections. Among the objections she argued against was a claim that, because polling booths were often located in bars, the act of voting would take women into unpleasant situations. South Carolina's first women's suffrage movement was closely tied to the temperance movement lead by the Women's Christian Temperance Union. Young, with several other suffragists, formed the South Carolina Equal Rights Association (SCERA) in 1890.

In 1892, described as a "staunch male supporter," General Robert R. Hemphill, a state legislator, introduced an amendment for women's suffrage. This amendment was voted down 21 to 14. During the 1890s a number of laws were revised to extend women more property rights. Virginia Durant Young died in 1906, and with her death came the end of SCERA and other efforts within the state for women's suffrage.

Women's suffrage finally came to South Carolina through the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment after its passage in 1919. South Carolina accepted the implications of the Nineteenth Amendment, but at the same time passed a law excluding women from jury duty within the state. South Carolina finally ratified the Nineteenth Amendment in 1969.

Suffragist Virginia Durant Young's former home was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 8, 1983.