Voting is the most basic right of a citizen and the most important right in a democracy. When you vote, you are choosing the people who will make the laws. For almost a century and a half of our nation’s history, women were barred from exercising this fundamental right. This film explores the long, difficult struggle for women to win the right to vote. It’s about citizenship, the power of the vote, and why women had to change the Constitution with the 19th Amendment. The film includes primary sources and commentary from historians, legal scholars, and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Anthony Kennedy.
Modern Women Persuading Modern Men: The Nineteenth Amendment and the Movement for Woman Suffrage, 1916–1920
In “Modern Women Persuading Modern Men: The Nineteenth Amendment Completes the Movement for Woman Suffrage,” Jonathan Soffer explains how Carrie Chapman Catt’s “Winning Plan” achieved what over half a century of struggle had failed to achieve: women’s full political citizenship. Free registration for students and teachers required to access resource.
Suffragists and Their Tactics
Students will work primarily with two American Memory Collections, Votes for Women – The Struggle for Women’s Suffrage and Votes for Women: 1848-1921, to understand how the suffragists of the early 20th century changed the requirements for voting in America.