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Women have been agents of change throughout American History.
Students will work primarily with two Library of Congress collections, Votes for Women - The Struggle for Women's Suffrage and Votes for Women: 1848-1921, to understand how the suffragists of the early 20th century changed the requirements for voting in America.
Students will be able to:
Six classes
(1 class period): Go to Votes for Women - The Struggle for Women's Suffrage and browse to find a photo of one of the following suffragists:
Print the photo in a large format.
Work with a partner to complete a Primary Source Analysis Tool for each of your photos. Before the students begin, select questions from the teacher's guide Analyzing Photographs and Prints to focus and prompt analysis. Then answer these additional questions.
Return to Votes for Women - The Struggle for Women's Suffrage. Explore the links to suffrage parades, picketing, and cartoons. Choose and print two images (in a large size) which you think might represent one or more of the characteristics associated with the suffragist you selected in Activity One.
Work with a partner to complete a Primary Source Analysis Tool for each of your selections. Before the students begin, select questions from the teacher's guide Analyzing Photographs and Prints to focus and prompt analysis. Then answer these additional questions:
Individually, go to Printed Ephemera: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera and search to find the two broadsides, "Votes for Women" and "Woman Suffrage Co-Equal with Man Suffrage." Students may print these out for easier study.
Read the text of both and answer the following questions.
(Teacher option: some classes might benefit from either a small group or whole class discussion of the broadsides before writing answers to the questions. Another alternative, depending on the level of the students and time available, would be to have students choose either question 1 or 2, and to have all students answer question 3. Answers may be presented to the class, as time permits.)
Explore the Women's Suffrage primary source set and select an item making an argument about women's suffrage.
Individually, complete a Primary Source Analysis Tool for your document and then answer the following questions in a discussion paper, using specific examples from the articles and photos you have studied. Be sure to explain how each example supports your analysis.
(Teacher option: students might benefit from discussing the article with other students who have analyzed it. Also, if time permits, students might peer review written responses before submitting their papers for teacher evaluation.)
Claire McCaffey Griffin