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Election Day, c1909

Lesson One: Analyzing Primary Sources

Broadside on suffrage parade, NY City, April 1911

Procedure

1. Discuss the definition of a primary source found in What Are Primary Sources? and list examples of primary sources that you produce during a routine day.
2. As a group, use the Material Culture Analysis Guide and examine the primary source documents of your time period.
• 1840-1869 (Group 1)
  • Clark Sisters
  • Song of the Shirt (1845) (excerpt)
  • On Dancing: Its Uses and Abuses (excerpt)
  • The Husband's Commandments
  • Advice to Young Ladies
• 1870-1899 (Group 2)
  • The apotheosis of suffrage
  • Letter from Alexander Graham Bell to Mabel Hubbard Bell, October 5, 1875
  • Letter from Mabel Hubbard Bell to Alexander Graham Bell, October 13, 1875
  • Letter from Alexander Graham Bell to Mabel Hubbard Bell, October 18, 1875 (excerpt)
  • Letter from Mabel Hubbard Bell to Alexander Graham Bell, October 23, 1875
  • Woman's Rights (excerpt)
• 1900-1920 (Group 3)
  • Election Day
  • Are Women People? A Book of Rhymes for Suffrage Times (excerpt)
  • Woman Suffrage Co-Equal with Man Suffrage
  • The first Picket line
3. Within your group discuss the conditions experienced by women and how women were viewed during your time period.
4. Share your findings with the class using the format of the Material Culture Analysis Guide.

Extension

Collect primary sources from women who lived during the 1960s. Show them to the class and explain what they reveal about the time period.