Teaching With Documents:
Woman Suffrage and the 19th Amendment
Background
Beginning in the mid-19th century, several generations of woman suffrage supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practiced civil disobedience to achieve what many Americans considered a radical change in the Constitution. Militant suffragists used tactics such as parades, silent vigils, and hunger strikes. The records of the National Archives and Records Administration reveal much of this struggle.
As the 150th anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 approaches, historical documents and a script that the National Archives commissioned about the decades long struggle entitled Failure is Impossible serve as valuable teaching tools.
The Script
Introduction to Failure is Impossible
The Documents
A Resolution Proposing an Amendment to the
Constitution
December 7, 1868
Petition to Congress
December 1871
Memorial to Congress from The American
Woman Suffrage Association
February 6, 1872
Petition from Susan B. Anthony to U.S.
Congress
January 12, 1874
Petition for Woman Suffrage Signed
by Frederick Douglass, Jr.
1877
Association of Army Nurses of the Civil War
Letter to U.S. House Judiciary Committee
May 1, 1917
Petition, Anti-Suffrage Party of New York
World War I, ca. 1917
Photograph, Kaiser Wilson poster
November 19, 1918
Ratification of 19th Amendment, Tennessee
August 24, 1920