In celebration of the 100th anniversary of women’s right to vote, Wesleyan Art History students researched, curated, designed, and installed the exhibit Rebellious Women: Celebrating Women’s Suffrage, on display in the East Gallery, Porter Family Memorial Fine Arts Building, Wesleyan College. The exhibit will be open from January 19-March 5, 1:00pm-5:00pm, and is free and open to the public.
Suffragists across the United States organized to fight– some violently, some peacefully– for the right to vote and to take part in American democracy. They gathered in large cities as their cause gained momentum and they marched to Washington, D.C., to make their voices heard and convince those who could vote to support the cause. With the ratification of the 19th Amendment of the United States Constitution in 1920, American women were guaranteed the right to vote. Not all American women gained this right, however. Women’s struggle for civic equality took decades. These are their stories and the journey of women who organized for the right to vote as told through images, artifacts, historic costumes, and archival documents from Wesleyan’s collection.
The spirit of the movement’s leaders and their accomplishments has lived on with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the second wave of feminism in the 1960s, and the Women’s March in Washington in 2017. American women are not alone: women around the world have fought for their right to vote from New Zealand in 1893 to Saudi Arabia in 2011.
Congratulations and thank you to Wesleyan students Piper Dunn, Andrea Hernandez, Cady Elizabeth Leach, Audrey Mecklenburg, Olivia Skiba, and Abigail Nicole Underwood for sharing their talents to create this stunning and informative exhibit