“A Portrait of Persistence”

Did you know that March was National Women’s History Month? In 1987, Congress designated every March as an annual recognition of women’s history and achievements. Now, a new exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery seeks to showcase and honor women’s contributions throughout history, especially those of women who have not traditionally been recognized, such as women of color. Here, btw takes a closer look at this important exhibit.

What Is It?

The exhibit is called “Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence,” and will run from March 29, 2019, to January 5, 2020. It divides the more than eighty-year battle for woman suffrage into several distinct eras, while also providing portraits and biographies of many of the movement’s most important leaders. At the same time, it focuses on the racial divisions that existed (and in many ways continue to exist) within the larger movement itself.

Hidden Voices

We often think of early suffragists as fighting for the rights of all women to vote, but that wasn’t necessarily the case. In fact, the woman suffrage movement was often deeply divided along racial lines. In 1870, the movement split into two factions. The first, called the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) and led by Lucy Stone, favored universal suffrage–meaning that they believed that everyone should have the right to vote. The second group was called the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA). It was led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and focused more on winning the vote exclusively for white women.

The exhibit features prominent suffragists such as Anthony, Stanton, and Stone, but also draws attention to the contributions of less-often-recognized women. Sojourner Truth was a former slave who fought for voting rights and economic prosperity for women. Harriet Tubman served as a spy for the Union Army during the Civil War while advocating for woman suffrage. Belva Ann Lockwood became the first woman to campaign for the presidency (in 1884 and 1888) and was also the first woman to appear before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1880. Ida B. Wells, when told that she had to march at the back of a woman suffrage parade with other women of color, refused and marched at the front instead, helping to desegregate the women’s movement. In 1864, Anna Elizabeth Dickinson became the first woman to address the House of Representatives, where she spoke about the unfair ways that young girls were expected to act and dress. Mary Church Terrell was the first president of the National Association of Colored Women. Mary McLeod Bethune founded the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute for Training Negro Girls in 1904. And in 1916, Jeannette Rankin became the first woman elected to the United States Congress.

Why Now?

Not only is March National Women’s History Month, but the centennial (hundred-year anniversary) of the Nineteenth Amendment–which gave women the right to vote – is coming up in 2020. Only a hundred years after gaining the right to vote, women now serve in the U.S. government in record numbers: 120 in the current Congress. But as the Smithsonian exhibit reminds us, there is still a long way to go.

Dig Deeper Choose one of the women mentioned in this article. Use Internet resources to research this woman further, and write a short paragraph describing her historical contributions.