Thread by @smithsonian

How did women win the right to vote? It's a big story. So big, no single exhibit can tell it. Follow #HerVote100 today to explore three exhibits in Washington, D.C. We'll share stories from @librarycongress @USNatArchives and @smithsoniannpg. #Suffrage100 #BecauseOfHerStory

For #HerVote100, we're marching with @librarycongress, @smithsoniannpg, @NMAAHC, @amhistorymuseum, @OurPresidents & @USNatArchives.
We're marking anniversaries related to the 19th Amendment and the path to women's suffrage (the right to vote). #Suffrage100 s.si.edu/2QNAyOf

First stop: #ShallNotBeDenied at @librarycongress. Open through Sept. 2020, it has documents from personal collections of suffragists. loc.gov/suffrage #HerVote100

We can start at the beginning. The 1776 New Jersey state constitution granted suffrage to ALL residents meeting requirements like age and property—meaning likely white, affluent women could vote. In 1807, state law restricted voting rights to men. #HerVote100 #Suffrage100

Seneca Falls is considered the first U.S. convention exclusively on women’s rights. The first to consider women’s rights was the 1837 Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women, which several African American women attended. No known African American women attended Seneca Falls.

The anti-slavery movement was a training ground for women who went on to lead the fight for the vote, Sojourner Truth among them. Born into slavery in New York, Truth wrote this "Book of Life" autobiography to share her fight for freedom and women's causes. #HerVote100

Dolls for the vote? To gain support for women's suffrage, organizations tried a variety of marketing tactics, from selling suffragist dolls kids could stuff with cotton to cookbooks celebrating the states that allowed women to vote. #HerVote100 #Suffrage100

Suffrage banners transformed streetscapes into colorful spaces of female empowerment. During parades, banners identified who was marching and why. When picketing, they were simple but effective rhetorical devices to convey disapproval and pressure politicians. #HerVote100

When women were still waiting for the vote in 1917, suffragists picketed in front of Wilson's White House. They were attacked and their banners ripped. See a scrap from a banner at @libraryofcongress, similar to this yellow piece in our @amhistorymuseum’s collection. #HerVote100

Suffragists also began "watchfires of freedom," burning copies of the president's speeches. Pennsylvania suffragists mailed kindling from a Revolutionary War battlefield to Washington, D.C., to add to the fires. 🔥 #HerVote100

When the National Women's Party heard in Aug. 1920 that the last state needed had ratified the 19th Amendment, they unfurled a flag with 36 ⭐️s for each state that ratified. Despite the milestone, African American women and many women of color were barred from voting. #HerVote100

Here we are on Pennsylvania Ave. In 1913, 5,000 women marched here the day before Pres. Wilson's inauguration.

Suffragists had debated whether African American participants should walk in a segregated section. Some white suffragists called for a segregated parade. #HerVote100

Alice Paul, organizer of the parade, received these messages, now in @librarycongress. Nellie Quander of Alpha Kappa Alpha—the nation’s oldest black sorority—asked for a place in the college women's section. White suffragist Anna Howard Shaw insisted on inclusion. #HerVote100

Suffrage leader Ida B. Wells joined the parade and marched alongside the all-white Illinois delegation. Five African American suffragists you should know, from our @NMAAHC: bit.ly/2GiOLAF #HerVote100 #BecauseOfHerStory

We’ve arrived at @USNatArchives where “#RightfullyHers: American Women and the Vote” highlights the relentless struggle of diverse activists throughout U.S. history to secure voting rights for all American women. It’s open through Jan. 3, 2021. museum.archives.gov/rightfully-hers #HerVote100

Many southern anti-suffragists feared that giving women the right to vote under the Constitution would undermine white supremacy and efforts to bar African American men from voting. This postcard lists threats anti-suffragists saw in woman suffrage. #HerVote100 #Suffrage100

Why would women oppose their own enfranchisement? In the long struggle for votes, American women became increasingly active outside the home. Some anti-suffragists argued women’s political participation would corrupt their moral virtue and disrupt the social order. #HerVote100

Emily Barber petitioned Congress, pointing out that she earned only a third of a male teacher’s pay at her school in 1879. During the 19th century, more women left home to find employment. Many called for the vote as self-defense from unsafe working conditions. #HerVote100

In partial suffrage states, women could vote in some elections such as school board. Inventors created devices that restricted voting by gender. In Lenna Winslow’s patent, women entered through the “ladies” side of a turnstile and certain ballot items were concealed. #HerVote100

Parades: a very visible strategy to advocate for the vote. Organizers of the 1913 D.C. suffrage march attempted to segregate the parade, but some women of color walked alongside white women. Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin (Chippewa) marched with fellow female lawyers. #HerVote100

Mabel Lee, a Chinese American suffragist, led a group of Chinese and Chinese American women in a 1912 New York City suffrage parade. Barred from becoming a U.S. citizen because of her race, she remained unable to vote after passage of the 19th Amendment. #HerVote100

This map shows the role of states in determining whether women could vote. The 19th Amendment was more quickly ratified by western states, where millions of women were already fully enfranchised, and most northern states where partial suffrage was common. #HerVote100

Starting in 1878, a woman suffrage amendment was proposed at every session of Congress for 42 years. On Aug. 18, 1920—by one vote—Tennessee became the 36th and final state needed to ratify the 19th Amendment. From Congress passing this joint resolution to ratification: 14 months.

Puerto Ricans gained U.S. citizenship in 1917. But the 19th Amendment only applied to states. Voting rights were not extended to all Puerto Rican women until 1935. #HerVote100 #Suffrage100 #RightfullyHers

Politics, but make it fashion. Women have been an important electoral constituency since winning the vote. Campaigns often target women voters, and women voters have been proud to show support for their candidates. #HerVote100

Last stop for #HerVote100: @smithsoniannpg! “Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence” features women and organizations often overlooked in the complex narrative of voting history. See it through Jan. 5 and explore on @googlearts: bit.ly/2Ksr3DX #BecauseOfHerStory

Writer and suffragist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper addressed both racism and women’s oppression. Like Frederick Douglass, she argued voting rights for black men should be prioritized because they represented “a question of life and death.” #HerVote100 #BecauseOfHerStory

Competing priorities—who should get the vote first, African American men or, separately, white women—split the suffrage movement. Lucy Stone shifted her focus from abolitionism to lead the American Woman Suffrage Association. Portrait by Sumner Bradley Heald. #HerVote100

Anna Elizabeth Dickinson was the “girl orator” of the Civil War era, a 19th-century influencer for women’s rights. At the height of her popularity, she earned $23,000 annually (about $477,000 today)—more than the income of male contemporaries like Mark Twain. #HerVote100

African American women did not have the privilege of a single-issue focus. Mary McLeod Bethune founded a school, with African American women teachers, to provide students with the tools they needed to become community leaders. #HerVote100 #BecauseOfHerStory

Suffragist branding was strong in the early 1900s. Images on utilitarian objects showed suffrage was fashionable AND practical. Socialite suffragist Alva Belmont designed and ordered ceramics like this set from English manufacturer John Maddock. ☕️ #HerVote100 #BecauseOfHerStory

Anna Julia Haywood Cooper, born into slavery, helped pioneer a path for educated black women when she graduated from Oberlin College in 1884. Her first book, “A Voice from the South by a Black Woman of the South,” had ideas of inclusion and equality that were radical for 1892.

Victoria Woodhull ran for president on a third-party ticket in 1872. By then, her support of “Free Love” had made her a social outcast in some circles. #HerVote100 #BecauseOfHerStory

“The 19th Amendment doesn’t wrap things up with a pretty bow,” says @KCLemay, @smithsoniannpg historian and co-coordinating curator of the American Women’s History Initiative. Many women were still unable to vote.

In 1946, Felisa Rincón de Gautier—who campaigned for Puerto Rican women’s suffrage—was appointed the first woman mayor of San Juan, replacing a mayor who had resigned. Then she ran and won. She was reelected four more times, serving until 1968. ©1991 Antonio Martorell #HerVote100

The 19th Amendment did not remove racist Jim Crow laws. In 1961, Fannie Lou Hamer went to vote in Mississippi but failed a literacy test. Hamer spoke at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, galvanizing Pres. Johnson to sign the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
📷: Charmian Reading

As a Japanese American from Hawaii, Patsy Takemoto Mink overcame prejudice to be the first woman of color elected to Congress in 1965. She shaped the Voting Rights Act and passage of Title IX. Her white jacket alludes to suffragists before her. #HerVote100 #BecauseOfHerStory

Thanks for joining us and @librarycongress @USNatArchives @smithsoniannpg @amhistorymuseum @NMAAHC for our three-exhibit #HerVote100 social media tour! Want to help write more women into history? Join us to improve women’s representation on Wikipedia: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia…