In this Learning Lab collection, suffragists featured in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery exhibition, Out of Many: Portraits from 1600 to 1900 are used as entry points to teach about the history of the suffrage during this time period. 

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many women sought voting rights as the foundation of women’s rights, and they were often viewed as radical for having such a goal. As daughters and wives, women in the United States had few decision-making rights, let alone the right to own and control land, so having the power to make political decisions through suffrage was seen as extreme. When Elizabeth Cady Stanton initiated the first woman’s rights convention at Seneca Falls in 1848, some attendees expressed this concern. The struggle for women’s suffrage was rooted in the abolition movement and anti-slavery societies, where Black and white women organized together to end slavery. White suffragists learned from leading Black women abolitionists like Sojourner Truth and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, who had been organizing and speaking publicly for many years before Seneca Falls. By the end of the Civil War, when voting rights for Black men were written into law, racism began to divide the suffragists.

Although Susan B. Anthony worked with Stanton to end slavery, they did not believe that Black men should gain suffrage before white women. In this set of Teaching Ideas, students will examine the details of this divide and discover how suffragists fought for women’s rights and social justice issues. For example, the journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett advocated for Black women’s rights, including suffrage, and protested the lynching of African Americans. Lawyer Belva Ann Lockwood not only believed in women’s right to political representation but also in their capability of holding the highest office in the land: She ran for president in 1884 and 1888.

Throughout this collection, students will examine not only the portraits subjects but will also; gain insist into the larger historical time period in which the subjects lived, understand how the women in these portraits lived and located agency, and reflect on the present by considering how women continue to make changes in society.

This collection contains three lessons that highlight the American suffragist movement: "Reading Portraiture: Striking a Pose," "Engaging History: Unity and Division Within the Women's Suffrage Movement," and "Connections to the Present: Women Presidential Candidates."

Reading Portraiture: Striking a Pose

In this lesson, students step into the roles of two leaders of the American women’s suffrage movement: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Ida B. Wells. One of the most famous suffragists, Stanton was a founder of the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and a prolific writer and theorist of feminist thought. Wells was an investigative journalist and newspaper editor who led an antilynching campaign and fought for women’s suffrage. In addition, she founded the politically influential Alpha Suffrage Club, which aimed to give a voice to African American women who were excluded from mainstream suffrage organizations.

Inspired by the suffragists’ political use of the tableau vivant, or a carefully posed, motionless scene with living actors, this lesson will ask students to closely study—and bring to life—Stanton and Wells’ portraits and polemics.

Essential Questions

• Which Elements of Portrayal lend visual power to a portrait?
• To what extent does a sitter’s pose convey a sense of authority and selfhood?

Objectives 

• Study the social and historical implications of primary sources and original works of art.
• Extend the analysis of nineteenth-century portraits of suffragists into a dramatic, kinesthetic interpretation.
• Identify some of the primary principles of the women’s suffrage movement.

Engaging History: Unity and Division Within the Women’s Suffrage Movement

Students will gain an understanding of the unity and division within the women’s suffrage movement through a two-part lesson. They will enter the lesson by considering how history is told through portraits, in terms of who is represented and who is not. The notable absence of African American abolitionists and suffragists from the Coronation of Womanhood group portrait provides a launching point to investigate why these individuals were sidelined from the women’s suffrage movement. At the same time, students will learn about instances when African American and white women came together in their struggle for equal rights.

The first part of the lesson involves gathering background information from a short video and reading. Then, students will analyze primary sources that convey the unity within the women’s suffrage movement. For the second part of the lesson, students will do more in-depth investigation into the various perspectives and debates around strategies for achieving women’s suffrage, which exemplify division within the movement. During an interactive “Chalk Talk,” students will respond to both quotes from these historical debates as well as to the opinions of their fellow classmates.

Essential Questions

• How has portraiture been used to represent the history of women’s suffrage?
• How can we account for the missing or underrepresented perspectives in history and what can we do to change the narrative?
• What caused division within the women’s suffrage movement?

Objectives 

• Students will explore how portraits present history.
• Students will analyze additional primary sources to understand changes within the women’s suffrage movement.
• Students will investigate suffragists’ differing perspectives.

Connections to the Present: Women Presidential Candidates

Students will conceptualize portraits of women who ran for president in the late nineteenth century and more recently. They will begin by examining former presidential candidate Shirley Chisholm’s portrait. During the main part of the lesson, they will make connections between women who have run for presidential office in recent years and Belva Ann Lockwood, a suffragist who was a two-time presidential candidate in the 1880s.

Students will delve into women’s biographies by reading articles and conducting independent research. Afterward, they will create a portrait of a woman presidential candidate based on the Elements of Portrayal and the biographies they have read.

Essential Questions

• How do the experiences of historical women who ran for president compare to those of women today?
• Which factors does an artist consider when creating a portrait of the president or presidential candidate of the United States?

Objectives 

• Students will investigate women’s biographies to understand what motivated them to run for president of the United States.
• Students will apply their knowledge of reading portraiture and the Elements of Portrayal to create portraits of women candidates for presidential office.

#NPGteach #OutOfMany

Keywords: Suffrage, Suffragists, Suffragette, Women's Suffrage, Portraiture, Voting Rights, Enfranchisement, Nineteenth Amendment, Seneca Falls, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ida B. Wells, Sojourner Truth, Abigail Scott Duniway, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Frederick Douglass, Lucy Stone, American Equal Rights Association (AERA), Belva Ann Lockwood, Shirley Chisholm, Female Presidential Candidates, Female President, Campaign, See/Think/Wonder, Strike a Pose, Tableaux Vivants, Chalk Talk, Portraiture, Making Portraits