The Strategies of Suffrage: Mobilizing a Nation for Women's Rights

In 1848, more than 300 attendees gathered in Seneca Falls, New York to discuss women’s rights. That meeting catalyzed an organized, national movement. In the decades that followed, suffragists gathered, discussed, spoke, wrote, performed, paraded, and protested to give American women the right to vote. They waged a determined battle for greater agency, one that united women across barriers of race and class while also revealing social tensions and racial prejudices that persisted in American society.  

This exhibit explores the women’s suffrage movement from the hosting of the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 until the ratification of the 19^th Amendment to the Constitution in 1920. It focuses on the visual and verbal appeals activists used to promote their message to the public. The publications, photographs, advertisements and ephemera displayed here document the strategy and struggle of this suffrage movement.     

Acknowledgements 

This exhibit was made possible with collections and support from the Lucy Hargrett Draper Center and Archives for the Study of the Rights of Women in History and Law. In addition, we thank our curator, Sidonia Serafini; Mary Linnemann, who assisted with scanning and graphics creation; Dr. Nan McMurray, who served as an outside reader for the script; Amber Prentiss and Kathleen Kern, our tireless fact checkers; Zakkary Greene, who assisted in the production of graphics; and Celia Clark, who assisted with object retrieval and overall organization.

Unless otherwise identified, all items featured in this digital exhibit are part of the collections of the Lucy Hargrett Draper Center and Archives for the Study of the Rights of Women in History and Law at the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library.