Research and Course Guides: Teach-in Tuesday companion guide: Strategies of the Suffragists

Strategies of the Suffragists: Lessons in Political Organizing

As the kickoff event in this year's theme of "The Power of the Vote", Angela High-Pippert, Professor and Chair of Political Science, will present highlights of the exceedingly difficult and fascinating path to (some) women (re-) gaining the right to vote in the United States in 1920. As we celebrate this important anniversary of white women achieving suffrage, we consider how the strategies, successes, and challenges of the suffragists can inform our political participation 100 years later

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image credit: The First Picket Line. Public Domain.

Women's Suffrage at University of St. Thomas

What did people at the University of St. Thomas think of Women's suffrage? Much like the rest of the United States, there was disagreement on the issue. Here are two opinion articles published in the Purple and Gray Magazine in 1914. Both articles were found in the University of St. Thomas Historical University Publications.

Woman's Suffrage. One View
Written by Rudolph Bandas in the Dec. 1914 issue of the Purple and Gray Magazine.
Bandas argues in favor of women's suffrage: "Women form the only class that remains to be brought into the body politic. Until this has been done, and the results thoroughly tested, the possibilities of a republic will never be known. Our founders had the true idea but it has been only half developed."
The New Order
Published in the Apr. 1914 issue of the Purple and Gray Magazine. No author listed.
The author argues against women's suffrage: "Woman's sphere has always been recognized to be the home, and when her interests center not in the home but in society in general she is failing to devote her energies to that sphere where God ordained she should be supreme."

Additional readings

Background information

Women's Suffrage (Gale Virtual Reference Library)
Critical essays, background information, and overviews of the history and people involved in women's suffrage.
Requires UST login
Topic Page: Women's Suffrage
Get a quick overview of Women's Suffrage via Credo. Contains a short overview of the topic background information, related articles, and a bibliography.
Requires UST login

Gale in Context: Biography This link opens in a new window
Use this to get started finding biographical information about specific notable activists.
Requires UST login

Online primary source collections

National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection
Digitized books and pamphlets documenting the suffrage campaign that were collected between 1890 and 1938 by members of NAWSA and donated to the Rare Books Division of the Library of Congress.
Women of Protest: Photographs from the Records of the National Woman's Party
A Library of Congress collection of digitized photographs in the Records of the National Woman's Party.
Suffrage History
From Rochester University's Susan B Anthony Center. Includes biographies, a timeline, and other historical information.

Periodical Collections from the time period

Search for the phrase: women suffrage (no quotes, and no apostrophe) to find how women's suffrage was written about in magazines at the time.

Women's Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
With this database you have access to several popular women’s magazines published in the United States and Canada dating from the from the late 1800s through the 20th century.
Requires UST login
American Periodicals Series This link opens in a new window
With this database you have access to 1,500 magazines, newspapers and popular journal titles published in the United States dating 1741 through the 1930s.
Requires UST login

Classic Speeches

Ripples of Hope by Joshua Gottheimer; Bill Clinton (Foreword by)
Call Number: Law Library E184.A1 R53 2003
ISBN: 0465027520
Publication Date: 2003
Ripples of Hope brings together the most influential and important civil rights speeches from the entire range of American history-from the colonial period to the present.
Online access requires UST login. Also available in print at the Law Library
Chambers Classic Speeches by Andrew Burnet (ed)
ISBN: 0550101993
Publication Date: 2006
An anthology of speeches given by politicians, monarchs, rebels and intellectuals from around the world. Includes biographical information and a short introduction to the historical context and purpose of each speech.
Requires UST login

Teach-in Tuesday companion guide: Strategies of the Suffragists