This resource addresses the experiences and challenges of women in American history. It focuses on the choices and leadership of particular women - both famous and ordinary - when confronting and dealing with inequality, subordination, and marginalization and seeking change. The documents and court cases in this resource not only illuminate larger issues concerning women’s experience, but also provide specific examples and context for understanding the experiences, and opportunities for women in U.S. history.   American women have experienced subordination and inequality deeply rooted in social, economic, legal & psychological practices. Although women have achieved major advances in the last 50 years, attitudes, practices, and structures reinforcing women’s inequality persist. This anthology provides an  array of materials covering the  experiences & accomplishments of American women using over 30 links, including a number that are significant compilations, such as the women included in the National Women’s Hall Of Fame. 

The rights, roles, and status of women in American society have been reflected in legal, economic, social, moral, and psychological structures that, in general, have historically subordinated all women. These deep roots go back many centuries of Anglo-American law and continue to affect the ways that society subordinates women through attitudes, social practices, and laws. Although major changes have taken place in the last 50 years, attitudes and structures reinforcing women’s inequality persist. This module focuses on the experiences of women and the challenges they faced in American history. It focuses on the choices and leadership of particular women - both famous and ordinary - when confronting and dealing with inequality, subordination, and marginalization and seeking change. The documents and court cases in this module not only illuminate larger issues concerning women’s experience, but also provide specific examples and context for understanding the experiences, rights, status, and opportunities for women in U.S. history.    

This unit pulls from several collections in the Rockefeller Archive Center's holdings related to the history of voter education in America. The materials include documents that speak to female suffrage and combatting African-American voter suppression tactics in mid-century. 

Most people who have heard of Jane Addams know about her work for women's suffrage, improving workers' conditions and pay, and international peace. This short story (11 pages including images) presents a lesser-known aspect of Jane Addams's career: cleaning up neighborhoods by taking on city hall and becoming Chicago's first female garbage inspector. This story illustrates how you can make a big difference in the world by making unglamorous, but important, changes through co-operation, determination, and understanding political systems.

This unit explores perspectives on the central issues of the Progressive Era. Students examine the middle class reformers' attitudes towards immigrants; draw inferences about historical context by analyzing documents that relate to segregation of San Francisco schools in 1906; and question the reliability of Jacob Riis's photographs as accounts of the past. The unit includes cognitive modeling lessons - one that compares the perspectives of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B Dubois, and one that juxtaposes muckracking journalist Lincoln Steffens with political boss George Plunkitt. The Background on Woman Suffrage prepares students for the Anti-Suffragists lesson plan on why Americans opposed woman suffrage.

This site on the U.S. Senate webpage includes information, primary sources, political cartoons and other images related to the suffragist movement and the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

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.

This is a seven-day unit that explores how people create, interact, and change structures of power and authority over time by answering these essential questions/key ideas:
• Why is the right to vote the most important right?
• Who was Emma Smith Devoe?
• Why did she work so hard to get women the right to vote?
• Why were the Western States more open to women voting than the East?
• What arguments did men and institutions use to keep women from voting?

Explore how the White House played a role in the fight for woman’s suffrage in the United States. Featuring Dr. Edward Lengel, Chief Historian at the White House Historical Association.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the campaign for women's suffrage through the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

In this focused inquiry, students investigate the question: Are rights “granted” or “won?”. They will also consider: How did women rally support for the vote when they couldn’t vote themselves? What methods were used to gain the right to vote in Washington?
Students will engage in deep reading, develop summaries of information, conduct independent research, and engage in small and large group discussions and write an argument with a well-formed claim, clear evidence, and reasoning.

Photo of Washington Equal Suffrage Association posting signs to promote woman suffrage, Seattle by Curtis Asahel | Washington State Digital Archives. This image is made available for use in research, teaching, and private study.

We hear a lot about the “women’s vote” these days, although most young people take universal suffrage for granted and the fight for women’s right to vote is usually given scant attention in the classroom. Since the late 20th century, women have constituted the majority of the voting public. The number of female voters has exceeded the number of male voters in every presidential election since 1964. In this module we offer resources, information and ideas for examining the role of women in politics as voters and the history of their increased participation in the political sphere.

The goal of this module is to provide resources and information about the history of the women’s vote in the U.S. Looking at the women’s suffrage movement provides a framework for exploring the changing role of women in politics and society in the 19th and 20th centuries. The history of suffrage offers an opportunity to examine women’s roles at critical points in the nation’s history, and to think about the impact of women’s voting behavior on politics in our time.