Introduction +thesisWomen's rights were one of the major social changes that began to attract media attention and peak activity during of the 20th century. Women's rights had been in the making since the 18th century. Some of the first documented words about women's rights appeared in a letter to John Adams from his wife Abigail Adams. During the drafting of the United States Constitution (18th to 19th centuries), she wrote to her husband and asked him to "remember the ladies." The first state to allow women to vote in the United States (before the writing of the Nineteenth Amendment) was New Jersey. However, there were restrictions on the right to vote. Some of these restrictions included being a widow, being wealthy (owning property), and having to be over thirty years old. Unlike the beginnings of women's rights in the United States, it would still take about two centuries in Britain for women to begin to gain certain legal rights. Before the turn of the 19th century into the 20th century, women's emancipation had progressed slowly. Some of these rights came into existence for very different reasons. Most of them concerned how women were treated at home and how they handled domestic problems during the Victorian era (1837-1901). Women were not allowed to seek legal divorce from their husbands on any grounds. However, when their husbands divorced them, they lost their children, their family assets and all the property they owned. In many cases, husband and wife separated instead of divorcing, because it was considered scandalous in the eyes of society to divorce one's spouse. W...... middle of paper ......Ragette movement in Edwardian Britain: some reflections. " Women's History Review 22 (2013): 576-590. Soomo Publishing, “Bad Romance: Women's Suffrage” Youtube. Online video clip, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYQhRCs9IHM (accessed February 20 2014). British Red Cross. http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who-we-are/History-and-origin/First-World-War (accessed February 23, 2017). 2014). “Women's Suffrage: in Great Britain. » infoplease http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/history/woman-suffrage-in-great-britain.html (accessed March. 6, 2014).