SHELBURNE FALLS — In November 1920, just months after the 19th Amendment was ratified, roughly 37% of the people who cast their ballots in the presidential election were women, according to the University of California at Berkeley Library.

A century later, that number has nearly doubled, according to the Pew Research Center, as 68% of voters who participated in the 2020 presidential election were women.

Voting rights have come a long way for women, and the topic was recently highlighted by the Shelburne Falls Area Women’s Club and the Franklin County League of Women Voters. On Wednesday, the groups invited Helena Alves of Deerfield Teachers’ Center to present a history of women’s voting rights in America.

The program took attendees on a journey through different time periods, exploring who had the right to vote at what time. In the early 1700s, “there’s not a woman to be seen” at the polls on Election Day, Alves said, something that would change as the women’s suffrage movement swept the nation.

Alves explained that voting rights were set individually by each state and were “arbitrary.” Two people of the exact same age, gender and socio-economic status could have differing rights to vote based on what state they lived in.

For example, an unmarried or widowed woman who owned property in New Jersey could vote in 1789, but a woman of similar status just north in New York would be unable to vote.

Sometimes, those rights were taken away. That same New Jersey woman who could vote in 1789 was unable to vote come 1807, when the state revoked the right for unmarried or widowed women to vote.

Slowly but surely, women earned the right to vote, Alves said, beginning with the right to vote in school committee elections. In 1838, Kentucky passed the first statewide suffrage law that allowed female heads of households to vote in elections deciding on local taxes and school boards.

While Wednesday’s program at the Shelburne-Buckland Community Center focused on the women’s suffrage movement across the country, Alves also discussed Massachusetts’ significant contributions to the movement.

One of the first national women’s rights conventions was held in 1850 in Worcester, welcoming more than 1,000 participants from 11 states. Additionally, in 1866, the first meeting of the American Equal Rights Association was held in Boston.

In 1868, Caroline Seymour Severance established the New England Woman’s Club, which is considered the “mother of women’s clubs.” Alves recounted. Renowned suffragette Susan B. Anthony was also born in Adams in 1820.

In 1879, Massachusetts gave women the right to vote in school committee elections, and author Louisa May Alcott was the first woman to register to vote in Concord. Efforts continued until June 1919, when Massachusetts became the eighth state to ratify the 19th Amendment.

While all women ultimately gained the right to vote, and have kept it for more than a century, women’s voting groups continue efforts to support women at the polls.

The Franklin County chapter of the League of Woman Voters was established in 2016 to help people register to vote and educate them on candidates and ballot questions.

Through hosting candidate meet and greets, sharing voting guides and explanations of ballot questions, and organizing registration events and other community engagement events, the league works to give voters the tools they need to be informed voters, regardless of gender or party.

Chapter President Marie Gauthier said voting is one of the most important things a person can do for their community.

“We all do so much, but one of the bare minimum things you can do for your community is show up with your vote,” Gauthier said.

Early voting begins on Oct. 19. Election Day is Nov. 5.

Reach Madison Schofield at 413-930-4579 or mschofield@recorder.com.