Date: Thursday, October 29, 2020

Time: 6:30 - 7:45 PM EST

The Women’s Aquatic Network, in partnership with the Library of Congress, is proud to present a special event commemorating the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 and the contributions from women of color in the women’s suffrage movement. This event is free.

Lecture and Moderated Audience Discussion

Elizabeth Novara, American Women’s History Specialist, Library of Congress

Moderator Eva Lipiec, Executive Board Member, Women’s Aquatic Network

About the Event

The Nineteenth Amendment did not guarantee full voting rights for all women—women of color especially had additional challenges ahead. Elizabeth A. Novara, American Women’s History Specialist in the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress, will discuss contributions of women of color in the suffrage movement and their continuing struggles after the amendment’s ratification in 1920. She will draw examples from the Library of Congress’s current exhibition, Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote, and will highlight significant suffrage-related collections available at the Library. 

About our Partner

Elizabeth A. Novara is the American Women’s History Specialist for the Library of Congress Manuscript Division. She co-curated the Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote exhibition that is currently on display in the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building through January 2021. In her role as the American Women’s History Specialist she works on providing reference services, creating collection displays, enhancing online resources, and collecting materials related to women’s history for the Manuscript Division. Some of the women’s suffrage-related collections she works with on a daily basis include: the National Woman’s Party records, the Papers of Susan B. Anthony, and the Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Before joining the Manuscript Division in January 2019, Novara was the Curator of Historical Manuscripts at the University of Maryland, College Park, Libraries, where she managed archival and print collections related to state of Maryland history, historic preservation, and women’s studies. Her research interests include the history of women’s political activism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; crowdsourced transcription of manuscript collections; and the intersections of feminist theory and practice with the field of archives. Novara holds an MLS in archives management; an MA in history; a graduate certificate in women’s studies; and is currently pursuing a PhD in American history at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her dissertation will focus on women’s political activism in Maryland from the 1890s to the 1920s with a focus on black women’s political engagement.

Resources from the Event:

Recording of the Presentation and Audience Q&A (password: vC?34=J2)
Note: The recording starts a few minutes into the presentation.

Shall Not Be Denied Exhibit Online

Suggested Reading and Website List

Azize-Vargas, Yamila. “The Emergence of Feminism in Puerto Rico, 1870–1930,” in Unequal sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women's History, edited by Vicki L. Ruiz & Ellen Carol DuBois. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2000.

Baker, Jean H., ed. Votes for Women: The Struggle for Suffrage Revisited. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Cahill, Cathleen D. Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage Movement. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020. 

Carandang, Teresa, and Erwin R. Tiongson, “Florence Harding Welcomes Philippine women to the White House: Suffragist Leaders Identified in White House Photograph,” White House History Quarterly, no. 53 (Spring 2019): 74-83. 

DuBois, Ellen Carol, et al. “Interchange: Women's Suffrage, the Nineteenth Amendment, and the Right to Vote.” Journal of American History 106, no. 3 (2019): 662–694. [Includes many other reading suggestions within the article!]

Gordon, Ann D, and Bettye Collier-Thomas. African American Women and the Vote, 1837-1965. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997. 

Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks. Righteous Discontent: The Women's Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880–1920. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993.

Jones, Martha S. Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All. New York, NY: Basic Books, Hachette Book Group, 2020.

Keyssar, Alexander. The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States. New York: Basic Books, 2009.

Lewandowski, Tadeusz. Red Bird, Red Power: The Life and Legacy of Zitkala-Sa. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2016.

Mead, Rebecca J. How the Vote Was Won: Woman Suffrage in the Western United States, 1868-1914. New York: New York University Press, 2004.

Salem, Dorothy. To Better Our World: Black Women in Organized Reform, 1890-1920. New York: Carlson Publishing, Inc., 1990.

Terborg-Penn, Rosalyn. African American Women in the Struggle for the Vote, 1850–1920. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998.

Terrell, Mary Church. A Colored Woman in a White World. New York: G.K. Hall, 1996.

Wolbrecht, Christina, and J. Kevin Corder. A Century of Votes for Women: American Elections since Suffrage. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2020.

Yung, Judy. UnBound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.

Series of essays (by scholars) on “Women’s Access to the Vote,” National Park Service:  https://www.nps.gov/subjects/womenshistory/women-s-access-to-the-vote.htm

The Suffs Buffs, Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission Blog (written by scholars): https://www.womensvote100.org/the-suff-buffs-blog