Inside the Vault: Twentieth-Century Voting Rights
by Gilder Lehrman Staff
On August 3, 2023, our curators were joined by Dr. Barbara Perry, Gerald L. Baliles Professor and director of Presidential Studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, to discuss materials related to twentieth-century voting rights. The program examined voting rights as part of the greater Civil Rights Movement and highlighted documents relating to the enfranchisement of Indigenous peoples and young Americans.
Click here to download the slides from the presentation.
FEATURED DOCUMENTS
- National Equipment Co. pin, ca. 1900
- Pin opposed to woman suffrage, ca. 1900
- Vote “Yes,” November 3, 1914
- The Literary Digest 98, No. 12, September 22, 1928
- John F. Kennedy to Robert D. Moran, May 14, 1957
- “If I Were 21 I’d Vote for Johnson” pin, 1964
- Charge, March 8, 1965
- Whites Join Negro Protest, March 6, 1965
- President Lyndon Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act, August 6, 1965
- John F. Kennedy to Robert D. Moran, May 14, 1957
- “If I Were 18 I’d Vote for Pres. Nixon” pin, 1972
- “If You Fight & Die But Can’t Vote at 18” pin, n.d
USE THE TIMESTAMPS BELOW TO JUMP TO THE TOPIC YOU WANT TO VIEW
- 6:55–7:32: Today’s Documents
- 7:33–14:22: Literacy test questions & voting rights materials
- 14:23–22:49: Thurgood Marshall
- 22:50–27:25 “The Awakening”
- 27:26–31:03: Vote “Yes”
- 31:04–34:00: Women’s Suffrage Pins
- 34:01–36:28: A Colored Woman in a White World
- 36:29–41:10: Joint Resolution of Congress
- 41:11–44:19 The Literary Digest
- 44:20–49:08: Protests in Selma
- 49:09–58:23: President Lyndon Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act
- 58:24–1:04:05: John F. Kennedy to Robert D. Moran
RELATED RESOURCES
- Essay: “Alice Paul, Suffrage Militant” by Barbara Winslow, Brooklyn College
- Essay: “Her Hat Was in the Ring: How Thousands of Women Were Elected to Political Office before 1920” by Wendy E. Chmielewski, Swarthmore College
- Essay: “Sisters of Suffrage: British and American Women Fight for the Vote” by Barbara Winslow, Brooklyn College
- Essay: “Why They Marched: Rank and File Perspectives on the Women’s Suffrage Movement” by Susan Ware
- Essay: “Modern Women Persuading Modern Men: The Nineteenth Amendment and the Movement for Woman Suffrage, 1916–1920” by Jonathan Soffer, New York University
- Essay: “With All Due Respect: Understanding Anti-Suffrage Women” by Susan Goodier, SUNY Oneonta
- Essay: “African American Women and the Nineteenth Amendment” by Sharon Harley, University of Maryland
- Essay: “An Arduous Path: The Passage and Ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment” by Elaine Weiss
- Essay: “‘A Vote-less People Is a Hopeless People’: Lessons from Selma” by Robert A. Pratt, University of Georgia
- Essay: “The League of Women Voters: A Century of Voter Engagement” by Barbara Winslow, Brooklyn College
- Essay: “Women in American Politics in the Twentieth Century” by Sara Evans, University of Minnesota
- Essay: “Hanging by a Chad—or Not: The 2000 Presidential Election” by James Gormly, Washington and Jefferson College
- Lesson Plan: “Securing the Right to Vote: The Selma-to-Montgomery Story” by Martha Bouye