The story of voting in the United States has been one of both expansion and restriction. Over time, many new groups won the vote—e.g., those without property, African-American men after the Civil War, women in 1920—but there were also continual efforts to regulate and restrict the expansion of the franchise. For example, in the late nineteenth century, Southern states developed mechanisms to keep African Americans out of the voting booth. And progressive reformers sought ways to reduce the influence of growing numbers of immigrant voters and the political machines that mobilized them. At the same time, American women engaged in a struggled for access to the vote, that did not come to fruition until 1920. These are all threads in the history of voting in America.
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