Shaping the Political Landscape

A prominent advocate for labor and civil rights, Rosina Corrothers Tucker played an integral role in the creation of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and its International Ladies Auxiliary. She served as a leader in the Auxiliary for several decades and played a role in planning the March on Washington movement in the 1940s.

Discover the mystery of Bet, one of Thomas Stone's enslaved African Americans.

Born to sharecroppers in the Mississippi Delta, Blackwell rose from humble beginnings to become one of many unsung Black female heroines of the modern Civil Rights Movement. Blackwell was an outspoken critic of racial and economic inequality and the first Black female mayor elected in the state of Mississippi. We honor her as an ancestor for reminding us of the power to change the circumstances we were born into.

In 1915, the Massachusetts Legislature approved a state referendum on women's suffrage. For months, Bay State suffragists worked tirelessly to acquire support for the referendum. Learn more about the 1915 campaign for women's suffrage in Massachusetts.

These learning activities engage students with the history of women advocating for the right to vote. Each lesson uses an item from the National Woman's Party collection or an aspect of the story of suffrage to make connections to broad questions of working for change.

Reformer and writer Julia Ward Howe is most famous for writing the words to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" during the American Civil War and the "Mother's Day Proclamation" (1870). She advocated for the abolition of slavery, women's suffrage, and peace.

This lesson plan accompanies Episode 1 of The Magic Sash podcast. It looks at the history of the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and explores how people express their support for social and political issues or candidates.

Abolitionist and women’s rights advocate Maria W. Stewart was one of the first women of any race to speak in public in the United States. She was also the first Black American woman to write and publish a political manifesto. Her calls for Black people to resist slavery, oppression, and exploitation were radical and influential.

Carrie Chapman Catt (1859 -1947) began her career as a national women’s rights activist when she addressed the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1890 at their national convention in Washington DC. She quickly became a dedicated writer, lecturer, and recruiter for the suffrage movement. She also worked for peace and was a co-founder of the League of Women Voters.

In 1921, Otero-Warren ran for federal office, campaigning to be the Republican Party nominee for New Mexico to the US House of Representatives. She won the nomination, but lost the election by less than nine percent. She remained politically and socially active, and served as the Chairman of New Mexico’s Board of Health; an executive board member of the American Red Cross; and director of an adult literacy program in New Mexico for the Works Projects Administration.