On May 1, 1915 in Netherlands, the International Congress of Women agreed on its bill on world peace and women's right to vote.
This congress came about because a Dutch women's suffrage organization invited women's rights activists around the world to come together in a peaceful group during a time of world-wide war, World War I. More than 1,200 women from 12 countries were there. This International Congress of Women asked for non-stop talking about how to have world peace until there was peace between the nations who were fighting each other. What they meant was that all those nations that were not fighting should meet together and talk about what each nation in the war should do to bring peace. Each warring nation gave this conference their ideas about how to have peace. On May 1, 1915, the conference told the nations that were fighting against each other what they had to do to end the war. One thing these nations had to do was to give women equal rights and to let women vote because women can keep war away.
The congress also started the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), and Jane Addams was its first president. She had been one of the people who began the Chicago social service organization Hull House, and she was the leader of the American part in the congress. The American women who were in this congress asked President Woodrow Wilson to lead the peace talks between the fighting nations of Europe, but he did not want to. None of the other nations followed their ideas of peace, so the war went on. However, in 1920, the United States finally gave women the right to vote!
