2020 is a remarkable year – not only because it’s a presidential election year, a leap year, and the Summer Olympics will happen… but it is the 100th Anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment. Thanks to Tennessee, the final state needed for ratification, August 1920 marked the first time the American federal government recognized the voting rights of women.
Nineteenth Amendment
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Attached here are downloads that can bring the fight for suffrage alive for your students. Please feel free to download these primary documents and images, along with the Primary Source Analysis sheet to give your students an opportunity to examine artifacts from the time of ratification.
As students look at and handle the various documents and images, ask them to consider:
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- Can I tell what this document/image/artifact is?
- What new things do I learn from this document/image/artifact?
- How does this primary source change the way I view the issue of equal voting rights?
- How does this primary article connect to current issues?
- Why is it important to save primary documents/images/artifacts?
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