Reading and Writing Workshop
Women and the Suffrage Movement
Workshop Overview
This workshop explores the suffrage movement through key events, figures, and challenges. Each session pairs historical readings with creative and analytical writing exercises. Participants will engage with primary sources and memoirs from suffragists, particularly those in the public domain.
Session 1: The Fight for the 19th Amendment
Theme: The journey to women’s suffrage, from Seneca Falls to the 19th Amendment’s ratification in 1920.
Readings:
Session 2: African American Women and Suffrage
Theme: The overlooked contributions of Black women to the suffrage movement and their struggle for full enfranchisement.
Readings:
Session 3: Post-Suffrage Era – Expanding Women’s Rights
Theme: The continued fight for women's rights after the passage of the 19th Amendment, focusing on labor, education, and reproductive rights.
Readings:
Final Workshop Activity: Reflect & Create Final Project: Choose a historical suffragist and write a fictionalized memoir entry from her perspective, incorporating real events and public domain sources. Participants can share their work in a final reading session.
This workshop provides historical depth while encouraging creative engagement with women's history.
Workshop Overview
This workshop explores the suffrage movement through key events, figures, and challenges. Each session pairs historical readings with creative and analytical writing exercises. Participants will engage with primary sources and memoirs from suffragists, particularly those in the public domain.
Session 1: The Fight for the 19th Amendment
Theme: The journey to women’s suffrage, from Seneca Falls to the 19th Amendment’s ratification in 1920.
Readings:
- "The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I" by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage (1881)
- "The Woman’s Bible" by Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1895)
- "Jailed for Freedom" by Doris Stevens (1920) (Firsthand account of suffragists’ arrests and hunger strikes)
- Creative Writing: Write a fictionalized first-person diary entry of a suffragist protesting outside the White House in 1917.
- Analytical Writing: Compare Stanton’s views in The Woman’s Bible to arguments used against suffrage in the 19th century.
Session 2: African American Women and Suffrage
Theme: The overlooked contributions of Black women to the suffrage movement and their struggle for full enfranchisement.
Readings:
- "Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells" by Ida B. Wells (1928)
- "A Colored Woman in a White World" by Mary Church Terrell (1940)
- Speech: "Address Before the National American Woman Suffrage Association" by Mary Church Terrell (1898)
- Creative Writing: Rewrite a scene from Wells’ or Terrell’s life as a fictionalized short story from a modern perspective.
- Persuasive Writing: Write a speech arguing for the inclusion of Black women in the mainstream suffrage movement.
Session 3: Post-Suffrage Era – Expanding Women’s Rights
Theme: The continued fight for women's rights after the passage of the 19th Amendment, focusing on labor, education, and reproductive rights.
Readings:
- "What Eight Million Women Want" by Rheta Childe Dorr (1910) (Discusses women’s rights beyond voting, including labor and economic equality)
- "Woman and the New Race" by Margaret Sanger (1920) (Explores reproductive rights and birth control)
- "The Social Evil in Chicago" by The Vice Commission of Chicago (1911) (Examines issues affecting women’s lives post-suffrage)
- Essay: Argue whether the women’s movement of the early 20th century effectively addressed economic inequalities.
- Poetry/Short Story: Write from the perspective of a working-class woman in 1925 facing new societal expectations post-suffrage.
Final Workshop Activity: Reflect & Create Final Project: Choose a historical suffragist and write a fictionalized memoir entry from her perspective, incorporating real events and public domain sources. Participants can share their work in a final reading session.
This workshop provides historical depth while encouraging creative engagement with women's history.