Celebrate and Commemorate 100 YEARS of Women's Right To Vote!
A Toast to Tenacity: Votes for Women Then and Now
August 26 - 12-1pm
Join Off Square Theatre, Jackson Hole Historical Society and Museum, Wyoming Women's Action Network, and ThinkWY/Wyoming Humanities for a virtual Toast to Tenacity on Women's Equality Day. August 26 marks 100 years since the enactment of the 19th Amendment, memorializing women's inherent right to vote. The program will include a reading of a 1920's suffrage propaganda play, a reading of the Declaration of Sentiments, historical photographs, a Toast to Tenacity, and discussion around the work that remains. Join us for this important celebration and spark dialogue on how we can further advance equality in the Equality State!
Written and directed by Caldera Productions and co-produced with Wyoming PBS. With the national campaign for a women’s suffrage amendment stalled, the thinly populated Wyoming Territory in 1869 became the first democracy in the modern world to recognize a woman’s unqualified right to vote. Colorful frontier characters, a volatile mix of motives, and the caprice of history drive this story of a neglected chapter in America’s past. For more information, please click below.
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The story of women's suffrage is a story of voting rights, of inclusion in and exclusion from the franchise, and of our civic development as a nation. Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence, a poster exhibition from the Smithsonian, celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment and explores the complexity of the women's suffrage movement and the relevance of this history to Americans' lives today.
The crusade for women's suffrage is one of the longest reform movements in American history. Between 1832 and 1920, women citizens organized for the right to vote, agitating first in their states or territories and then, simultaneously, through petitioning for a federal amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative, Because of Her Story is one of the country’s most ambitious undertakings to research, collect, document display and share the compelling story of women. It will deepen our understanding of women’s contributions to the nation and the world. More information about the initiative is available at womenshistory.si.edu.
Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence is organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service in collaboration with the National Portrait Gallery. This project received support from the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative.
Download the full poster exhibition for classroom and public space exhibits here
Please see information contained within for Smithsonian requirements and installation guides.
The concept of intersectionality was used in Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence to create a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the complex, more than 80-year social movement that led women to the right to vote.
Kimberlé Crenshaw: What is Intersectionality? YouTube video in which Crenshaw describes intersectional theory (2 minutes)
in·ter·sec·tion·al·i·ty
/ˌin(t)ərsekSHəˈnalədē/
noun
1. the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.
- Oxford Dictionaries, Oxford University Press
"through an awareness of intersectionality, we can better acknowledge and ground the differences among us"
“Intersectionality” was coined in 1989 by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a civil rights activist and legal scholar.
Many of the Smithsonian’s museums and other educational institutions have developed materials to commemorate the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, and to broaden our understanding of U.S. history through the stories of women. Below is a sampling.
National Portrait Gallery
Votes for Women exhibition website
Votes for Women collection search results
American Women’s History Initiative
Explore the historical record of the accomplishments of American women here.
Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence on the Smithsonian Learning Lab
A collection of text, education prompts and images related to the poster exhibition
Preferred browser: Google Chrome
National Museum of African American History and Culture
Blog posts, collection story*, event and news about women’s suffrage
Collection search results for women’s suffrage
* Staff interpretations of collections
National Museum of American History
Women’s history resources
Woman suffrage search results
Woman suffrage collections search results
History Explorer suffrage search results
Smithsonian American Art Museum
“Who Tells Your Story? Exploring Women and Identity?” video
“Remaking the Rules: Exploring Women Who Broke Barriers” video
“Persisting and Resisting: Exploring Women as Activists” video
National Museum of the American Indian
Native American Women online resources
Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum
Women’s suffrage search results
National Postal Museum
Women’s suffrage collections search results
Research articles on women in the U.S. Postal System
Women on Stamps virtual exhibition
League of Women Voters
Women’s suffrage search results
Library of Congress
Teacher resources, lesson plans and primary source sets
Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote exhibition website
National Woman’s Party (NWP)
NWP collections
NWP exhibits
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
Rightfully Hers: American Women and the Vote exhibit
Women’s Rights page
Woman Suffrage educator resources
Woman Suffrage primary sources and teaching activities on DocsTeach
19th Amendment online featured documents
Below are a few of the many articles worth reading. These and others are curated and collected by Vision 2020 on the News page of the Women 100 website, which is searchable by category or keyword.
New York Times – 100 Years of Voting Hasn’t Done What We Thought It Would
Smithsonian Magazine – What the First Women Voters Experienced
Washington Post – The Black sorority that faced racism in the suffrage movement but refused to walk away
Tribal talk discusses a variety of topics such as environment, water and more concerning the Wind River Indian Reservation.
The tribe discusses issues involving water and environment on the reservation.
The tribe discusses the education needs of the tribe.
Interviews with the tribe to discuss what it means to be a Native American.
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