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Lesson

Women’s Suffrage and the Nineteenth Amendment

Duration
75 min
Grade
9–12
Published
Nov 15, 2020
Two women in historical clothing, one seated and the other standing, examining a document together.
Use this Lesson with Alice Paul and the Struggle for Women's Suffrage Narrative, the Elihu Root vs. William Jennings Bryan on Women's Suffrage, 1894-1914 Primary Source, and the Carrie Chapman Catt, Open Address to the U.S. Congress, 1917 Primary Source to further explore the journey of the women's suffrage movement.

Objectives:

  • Students will review events and people who contributed to the eventual ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which granted women the right to vote.
  • Students will analyze images reflecting some of the people and events that contributed to achieving women’s suffrage.
  • Students will develop captions for those images and present them in an image timeline.
  • Students will recognize the number and variety of people who contributed to the cause of women’s suffrage over an extended period.

Materials

Additional Resources

  • Flexner, Eleanor, and Ellen Fitzpatrick. Century of Struggle: The Woman’s Rights Movement in the United States. Third ed. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1996
  • Buhle, Mari Jo and Paul. The Concise History of Woman Suffrage: Selections from History of Woman Suffrage by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage and the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2005.

Lesson Components

ActivityPrimary Sources and Essay Women’s Suffrage

Two primary sources images and a background essay that introduce the Suffrage Movement.

ActivityWomen’s Suffrage Image Timeline

Nineteen primary sources images that can be used to introduce the women's suffrage movement.

Lesson plan

75 minClick a phase to open it

More Information

Depending on your students’ background, you might choose to allow students to use the background essay or other resources for reference for the entire image analysis activity, for a limited time, or not at all. Also, accept reasoned explanations regarding the relative significance of the people and events, the captions that students create, and the chronology that the images represent.

Standards

Advanced Placement

  • Topic 7.4 · The Progressives
  • Theme · Politics and Power
  • Learning Objective · Unit 7D
  • Historical Development · 7.1.II.A
  • Historical Development · 7.1.II.B
  • Reasoning Skill · Developments and Processes
  • Reasoning Skill · Sourcing and Situation
  • Reasoning Skill · Source Claims and Evidence
  • Reasoning Skill · Contextualization
  • Reasoning Skill · Making Connections
  • Reasoning Skill · Argumentation
  • Reasoning Process · Comparison
  • Reasoning Process · Continuity and Change

Check whether this resource aligns with your state’s standards →

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