Events & Resources
Webcasts
- Social Movements Changing America: Legacies of the 19th Amendment
An event celebrating Law Day 2020, "Social Movement Changing America: The Legacies of the 19th Amendment" was jointly hosted by the Law Library of Congress and the American Bar Association. Kimberly Adams moderated a panel discussion featuring Martha S. Jones, Thomas Saenz and Julie Suk. - Searching for Suffrage at the Library
In honor of Women's History Month, Kimberly A. Hamlin discussed her new book, "Free Thinker: Sex, Suffrage and the Extraordinary Life of Helen Hamilton Gardener." The book details Gardener's life as a "fallen woman," who confronted restrictive social mores at an early age, and tracks her growing activism for women's rights that culminated in the passage of the 19th Amendment and her appointment by President Wilson as the highest ranking female civil servant in the federal government. - Martha S. Jones on Black Women and the Suffrage Movement
Historian Martha S. Jones discusses her recent book: "Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All," which tells the history of Black women activists that is too-frequently left out of accounts of the struggles for racial and gender equality in the U.S. Jones writes about trailblazing activists like Maria Stewart, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper and Fannie Lou Hamer and the political battles they fought against unjust systems. - Erica Armstrong Dunbar at the 2020 National Book Festival
Erica Armstrong Dunbar discusses her book "She Came to Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman," a lively, informative and illustrated tribute to an American heroine whose fearlessness and activism still resonate today. - The 19th Amendment at 100: A Conversation with Judy Perry Martinez
In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Law Librarian of Congress Jane Sanchez interviews American Bar Association President Judy Perry Martinez on the impact of the fight for women's voting rights. The curator for "Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote," Janice Ruth, gave a tour of the exhibition's highlights. - One Hundred Years of Women Voting
Christina Wolbrecht, co-author of the 2016 book "Counting Women's Ballots: Female Voters from Suffrage through the New Deal," joined Jane Junn, of the University of Southern California and Dr. Colleen Shogan for a discussion of 100 years of women voting. - The Impact of the Women's Suffrage Movement Today
The Law Library of Congress commemorated Human Rights Day with a panel discussion on the women's suffrage movement and how it impacts women's rights today with author Corrine McConnaughy and journalist Elaine Weiss. - Elaine Weiss on her book The Woman's Hour
- The Suffragists' Playbook (For teens)
In search of a passionate cause? Take a few tips from the suffragists who led the longest and least-known movements in American history in Lucinda Robb and Rebecca Boggs Roberts' new book, "The Suffragist Playbook: Your Guide to Changing the World" (Candlewick). From the 2020 National Book Festival. - Leave it to Abigail: The Revolutionary Life of Abigail Adams (For kids & families)
In "Leave It to Abigail!: The Revolutionary Life of Abigail Adams" (Little, Brown), Caldecott-winner Barb Rosenstock and artist Elizabeth Baddeley tell the story of one of the greatest founding mothers, Abigail Adams, wife and helpmeet of President John Adams, and mother of President John Quincy Adams. From the 2020 National Book Festival - Finish the Fight: The Brave and Revolutionary Women Who Fought for the Right to Vote (For kids & families)
In "Finish the Fight!: The Brave and Revolutionary Women Who Fought for the Right to Vote" (Versify), Veronica Chambers tells about the women who were at the forefront of the fight to claim their right to vote 100 years ago. That includes Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, of course, but also many others you may never have heard about and women from diverse backgrounds -- Black, Asian, Latino, Native American and more.
Classroom Resources
- Women’s Suffrage Primary Source Set
- Lesson Plans (Suffrage Strategies: Voices for Votes, Suffragists and Their Tactics, Women’s Suffrage: Their Rights and Nothing Less)
- Idea Book produced in collaboration with the History Channel.
- Blog posts from Teaching with the Library of Congress
Publications
- Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote
The official illustrated companion to the exhibition, published by Rutgers University Press. - Women Who Dare: Women of the Suffrage Movement, Janice E. Ruth and Evelyn Sinclair
First published in 2006, this edition of the series chronicles the history of the struggle for voting rights for women.
Crowdsourced Transcription
An online crowdsourcing campaign to transcribe documents within the Library’s unique suffrage-related collections to make them more searchable and accessible will be ongoing during the exhibition. For more information visit the By the People website at crowd.loc.gov and become a virtual volunteer.
Digitized Collections
- Web Guide: 19th Amendment
- American Women: A Gateway to Library of Congress Resources for the Study of Women’s History and Culture in the United States
- Susan B. Anthony Papers
- Carrie Chapman Catt Papers
- Frederick Douglass Papers
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers
- Mary Church Terrell Papers
- National American Woman Suffrage Association Papers
- Women of Protest: Photographs from the Records of the National Woman’s Party
- Women’s Suffrage in Sheet Music
Read More About It
- Baker, Jean H., ed. Votes for Women: The Struggle for Suffrage Revisited. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
- Cooney, Robert P. J., Jr., in collaboration with the National Women’s History Project. Winning the Vote: The Triumph of the American Woman Suffrage Movement. Santa Cruz, CA: American Graphic Press, 2005.
- Finnegan, Margaret Mary. Selling Suffrage: Consumer Culture & Votes for Women. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.
- Flexner, Eleanor, and Ellen F. Fitzpatrick. Century of Struggle: The Woman’s Rights Movement in the United States. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996.
- Keyssar, Alexander. The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States. New York: Basic Books, 2009.
- Library of Congress. Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2019.
- Lunardini, Christine A. From Equal Suffrage to Equal Rights: Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party, 1910–1928. New York: New York University Press, 1986.
- Roberts, Rebecca Boggs. Suffragists in Washington, D.C.: The 1913 Parade and the Fight for the Vote. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2017.
- Ruth, Janice E., and Evelyn Sinclair. Women of the Suffrage Movement. San Francisco: Pomegranate, 2006.
- Stevens, Doris, and Marjorie Julian Spruill. Jailed for Freedom: The Story of the Militant American Suffragist Movement. Chicago: Lakeside Press/R. R. Donnelley & Sons, 2008.
- Terborg-Penn, Rosalyn. African American Women in the Struggle for the Vote, 1850–1920. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998.
- Tetrault, Lisa. The Myth of Seneca Falls: Memory and the Women’s Suffrage Movement, 1848–1898. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2014.
- Weatherford, Doris. A History of the American Suffragist Movement. With foreword by Geraldine Ferraro. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, ca. 1998.
- Weiss, Elaine F. The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote. New York: Viking, 2018.
For Young Readers
- Bausum, Ann. With Courage and Cloth: Winning the Fight for Woman’s Right to Vote. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2004.
- Conkling, Winifred. Votes for Women!: American Suffragists and the Battle for the Ballot. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Young Readers, 2018.
- Kops, Deborah. Alice Paul and the Fight for Women’s Rights: From the Vote to the Equal Rights Amendment. Honesdale, PA: Calkins Creek, an imprint of Highlights, 2017.
- Rappaport, Doreen. Elizabeth Started All the Trouble. Los Angeles; New York: Disney Hyperion, 2016.
- Rockliff, Mara. Around America to Win the Vote: Two Suffragists, a Kitten, and 10,000 Miles. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press, 2016.
- Stone, Tanya Lee. Elizabeth Leads the Way: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Right to Vote. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2008.