The Voting Woman

Key Lecture At The Celebration Of Women’s’ Suffrage

LEAD PHOTOGRAPHY (ABOVE): The Ann Lewis Women's Suffrage Collection

Lecture: Women's Suffrage Movement // March 27

Women had been fighting for the right to vote for decades before this really started to change.

According to historians, it took a world war to finally move things forward.

“Most independent countries enacted women's suffrage in the interwar era, including Canada in 1917, Britain (over 30 in 1918, over 21 in 1928), Germany, Poland in 1918, Austria and the Netherlands in 1919, and the United States in 1920 (Voting Rights Act of 1965 secured voting rights for racial minorities). Leslie Hume argues that the First World War changed the popular mood:

    The women's contribution to the war effort challenged the notion of women's physical and mental inferiority and made it more difficult to maintain that women were, both by constitution and temperament, unfit to vote. If women could work in munitions factories, it seemed both ungrateful and illogical to deny them a place in the polling booth. But the vote was much more than simply a reward for war work; the point was that women's participation in the war helped to dispel the fears that surrounded women's entry into the public arena.”

Kacy Rohn

As America approaches the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote, join historian Kacy Rohn for a lecture on the history of the suffrage movement in Maryland - and a look at the historic places where this story unfolded. This hour-long program will explore the history and current preservation efforts aimed at documenting this important moment in American history. The lecture is a part of Preservation Maryland's current campaign to document Maryland's women's suffrage history and is supported by a grant from the Maryland Historical Trust.

Location: William Paca House, 186 Prince George Street

Time: 6 pm - 7 pm  //  Free admission

(Source: Wikipedia)