collection connections
By Popular Demand: "Votes for Women" Suffrage Pictures,1850-1920

single file for printing

"Votes For Women" Suffrage Pictures, 1850-1920, features portraits of leaders in the suffrage movement, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Julia Ward Howe, and Mary Church Terrell. The collection also highlights images of suffrage parades and women picketing for the right to vote.

This online illustrated reference aid is part of the "By Popular Demand" series. It is a pictorial partner for the text documents in "Votes for Women" Selections from the National American Woman Suffrage Collection, 1848-1921.

One Hundred Years Toward Suffrage: An Overview

The Civil War and Reconstruction, 1850-1877
Development of the Industrial United States, 1876-1915
Emergence of Modern America, 1890-1930

African American Perspectives, 1818-1907
American Life Histories, 1936-1940
America's First Look into the Camera: Daguerreotypes, 1842-1862
California as I Saw It: First Person Narratives, 1849-1900
Civil War Photographs, 1861-1865
Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920
Taking the Long View, 1851-1991
Touring Turn-of-the-Century America, 1890-1920
"Votes for Women," 1848-1921
Women Come to the Front: Journalists, Photographers, and Broadcasters During World War II
Words and Deeds in American History

Read More About It! - A bibliography
Selected Bibliography

For help with search words, go to the "Votes for Women" Suffrage Pictures Name and Subject Index, or Votes for Women Subject or Author Index and the Synonym List.

For help with search strategies, see Finding Items in American Memory.

Subject terms such as abolition, union, child labor, etc. are not assigned to the images in this collection. Therefore, to find images of women who worked for other rights in addition to suffrage, you must search for them by name.

You can see images in the collection without a special viewer. Additional high-resolution archival quality images are available and need a special viewer. For help with viewers, go to American Memory Viewer Information.

This collection of images is best used in conjunction with its companion collection "Votes for Women:" Selections from the National American Woman Suffrage Collection, 1848-1921. To facilitate this usage, the section below follows closely the content and format of the U.S. History section of the "Votes for Women" Collection Connection.

Chronological Thinking

Kentucky Governor Edwin P. Morrow signing the Anthony Amendment, January 6, 1920.

Using Timeline: One Hundred Years Toward Suffrage on the collection home page, students will find a listing of events in the fight for woman suffrage. These events range from Abigail Adams' letter to her husband in 1776 asking the writers of the Declaration of Independence to "remember the ladies," to 1923, when the Equal Rights Amendment was first proposed. Students can find examples from the collection that illustrate events on the timeline.

Lucy Stone, ca. 1840 - 1860.

Students can also browse through the 20 portraits in the collection and use visual clues to determine when the photographs were taken in relation to one another. The quality, type, and setting of the photograph in addition to the women's style of fashion all suggest an era in which the image was created. Search on the subject term portrait photograph to a retrieve a list of these twenty photographs.

Anna Howard Shaw, ca. April 3, 1920.

2) Historical Comprehension

A major objective of suffrage events in the 20th century was to gain publicity. Sometimes these events were intentionally flamboyant to attract the press and, thereby, get coverage for the issues. Students can search on parades, pageants, and demonstrations to see what steps the suffragists took to attract attention.

Florence F. Noyes as "Liberty" in suffrage pageant in front of the Treasury Building, Washington, D.C., March, 1913.

3) Historical Analysis and Interpretation "Votes For Women" Suffrage Pictures, 1850-1920 chronicles the life of a political cause, that of woman suffrage. There are extensive images of women in the act of struggling for women's rights. The images of anti-suffrage movements are more limited. Search on speaker, vote, anti-suffrage and cartoon to see how women worked to gain their rights and those who opposed their efforts.

Election Day!, ca. 1909.

4) Historical Research Capabilities

This collection, while extensive in its coverage of suffrage, is limited in its coverage in anti-suffrage movements. Students can conduct research to identify the gaps in the available record, and then elaborate imaginatively to construct a sound historical interpretation.

5) Historical Issue Analysis

For experience in issue analysis, students might reconstruct opposing positions for debates. Suffragists also prepared for debate by reviewing arguments of both pro- and anti-vote activists and practicing speeches before an audience. Once students have written out their arguments, they can re-enact a debate concerning suffrage or other women's issues of the day.

Search on public speaking to see where suffragists spoke out for their rights.

1) Women in the News

Students can use the collection to practice both persuasive writing and news story writing. After viewing images of an event, students can do research using other resources. They can pretend they were organizing the event with the goal of gaining media attention. By developing slogans for signs, writing the event-day speeches, and editorials for the local newspapers, students can develop ways to draw attention to their event. Students might also write news stories about the event. Students can use photographs from the collection to illustrate their stories, and create captions for them as well.

Suffrage Parade, New York City, May 6, 1912.

Students might search the collection on parades, pageants, and demonstrations to find images of events such as the May 16, 1912 Suffrage Parade in New York City.

2) Generations of Women's Rights

Suffragists' work to win the vote spanned many generations. Students can write journal entries for different generations of women whose lives were affected by this movement. They might choose historical figures or common citizens of a certain social, economic, or political group, or from a specific geographic region.

3) Biographies

The people who made woman suffrage their ambition had varied experiences of working for that right. Students can research and write biographies for one of these individuals.

For example, students might search on Susan B. Anthony, Mary Church Terrell, or Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

4) Amending the Constitution

Legislative language must be written very precisely. As seen in the debate for woman suffrage, anti-suffragists could turn to the language of the U.S. Constitution to argue their position that only men should vote. Students can read the Constitution and its Amendments to see how an individual word can greatly effect the laws of a nation and the lives of its citizens.