The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is a proposed U.S. constitutional amendment guaranteeing equal legal rights regardless of sex, first drafted by suffragists like Alice Paul in the early 1920s after the 19th Amendment, passed by Congress in 1972, but never ratified by enough states.
The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is a proposed amendment to the Constitution that would ban legal discrimination based on sex. After women won the vote with the 19th Amendment in 1920, activists like Alice Paul argued that suffrage alone wasn't enough. Women still faced unequal treatment in divorce law, property rights, and employment. So in the early 1920s, they drafted the ERA to wipe out those legal distinctions in one constitutional stroke.
Here's the twist that makes the ERA a great APUSH term: it has a two-act story. Act one is the 1920s, when the amendment was proposed but went nowhere, partly because even some women's groups worried it would erase labor protections for female workers. Act two comes fifty years later, when second-wave feminists revived it. Congress finally passed the ERA in 1972 and sent it to the states, but a conservative countermovement (led most famously by Phyllis Schlafly) stalled ratification, and it fell short of the 38 states needed. The ERA was never added to the Constitution.
The ERA lives in Topic 7.8 (1920s) in Unit 7: Progressivism to WWII, 1890-1945. It supports learning objective APUSH 7.8.B, which asks you to explain developments in popular culture, including the essential knowledge point that 'cultural and political controversies emerged as Americans debated gender roles' in the 1920s. The ERA is the political face of that gender debate, the same debate the flapper represented culturally.
It's also one of the best continuity-and-change terms in the whole course. The push for women's legal equality runs from Seneca Falls (Unit 4) through suffrage (Unit 7) to the ERA fight of the 1970s (Unit 8) and the conservative backlash (Units 8-9). If you can trace the ERA's arc, you've basically built the spine of a women's rights LEQ.
Keep studying APUSH Unit 7
19th Amendment and Women's Suffrage (Unit 7)
The 19th Amendment (1920) gave women the vote, and the ERA was the proposed next step. Suffragists who saw voting as the beginning, not the end, of equality drafted the ERA almost immediately afterward. Think of the 19th Amendment as the door opening and the ERA as the attempt to walk all the way through.
Alice Paul (Unit 7)
Paul went from militant suffrage organizer to author of the ERA. She's your go-to example of an activist whose career bridges the suffrage victory and the longer fight for full legal equality.
Second Wave Feminism (Unit 8)
The ERA sat mostly dormant until 1960s-70s feminists made ratification a central goal. Congress passed it in 1972, which is why the ERA shows up in two different units. Same amendment, fifty years apart, two very different political moments.
1920s Cultural Controversies (Unit 7)
The ERA debate is the legal-political twin of the flapper. While ads and movies were selling 'modern womanhood' as a lifestyle, the ERA asked whether the law itself should treat men and women identically. Both belong to the same 7.8 debate over gender roles.
The ERA itself is more likely to appear in multiple-choice and short-answer questions about 1920s gender debates or 1970s feminism than as the main subject of an FRQ. No released FRQ has used the term verbatim, but it's exactly the kind of evidence that strengthens a continuity argument in an LEQ or DBQ about women's rights movements.
For Topic 7.8, expect stimulus questions about changing gender roles. One Fiveable practice question, for example, gives you a 1926 cosmetics ad captioned 'Be Modern, Be Free' and asks how it reflects the historical situation. The ERA is the perfect contextualization move there. You can show that 'freedom' for women in the 1920s wasn't just bobbed hair and short dresses; it was also a live political fight over constitutional equality. Knowing the ERA also failed to advance in the 1920s lets you complicate the picture, which is what the higher rubric points reward.
The 19th Amendment (ratified 1920) is in the Constitution and does one specific thing: it bans denying the vote based on sex. The ERA is broader and was never ratified. It would guarantee equal legal rights regardless of sex across the board, covering things like property, divorce, and employment. Quick check: 19th = voting, ratified; ERA = full legal equality, proposed but never adopted.
The Equal Rights Amendment is a proposed constitutional amendment guaranteeing equal legal rights regardless of sex, drafted by suffragists like Alice Paul in the early 1920s.
The ERA grew directly out of the suffrage victory, since activists believed the 19th Amendment alone could not end legal discrimination in divorce, property, and employment.
In APUSH, the ERA is evidence for Topic 7.8's essential knowledge that Americans debated gender roles in the 1920s (APUSH 7.8.B).
Congress passed the ERA in 1972 during the second-wave feminist movement, but it fell short of the 38 state ratifications needed and never became part of the Constitution.
The ERA is a top-tier continuity-and-change example because it links 1920s suffragists, 1970s feminists, and the conservative backlash that defeated ratification.
It's a proposed constitutional amendment guaranteeing equal legal rights regardless of sex. It was drafted in the early 1920s by suffragists like Alice Paul, passed by Congress in 1972, and never ratified. In APUSH it appears in Topic 7.8 as part of the 1920s debate over gender roles.
No, not fully. Congress passed it in 1972, but it never got ratifications from the required 38 states, so it was never added to the Constitution. That failure, driven partly by conservative opposition like Phyllis Schlafly's campaign, is itself testable material.
The 19th Amendment (1920) is ratified and only protects women's right to vote. The ERA is unratified and much broader, banning sex discrimination in legal rights generally. Don't swap them in an essay; one is voting, the other is full legal equality.
It lacked political support, and even some reformers opposed it because they feared it would erase Progressive-era labor protections written specifically for women workers. That split within the women's movement is a great example of the cultural and political controversies the CED highlights for the 1920s.
Both. The CED places it in Topic 7.8 (1920s) as part of the gender-role debates, but its congressional passage in 1972 connects it to second-wave feminism in Unit 8. Using it across both periods is exactly the cross-period thinking LEQs reward.