What is Suffrage? Understanding the Right to Vote

Lesson Plans

by Gwen Perkins

This curriculum unit may be used to fulfill a "You Decide" Classroom-Based Assessment for Washington state students in elementary school.

Summary

"It [suffrage] means more than voting; it means power and equal rights to women in all things; property, guardianship and control of children and all the other rights and privileges that are due them."
- W. J. Thompson, Representative, Washington Territory

Women won the right to vote in Washington Territory, and then lost it, beginning a struggle that would last well into the early days of Washington statehood. But what was it that women were really fighting for? Women were not the only group to be disenfranchised. Native Americans, African Americans, and immigrants are among the other American citizens to be denied voting rights during different periods of our nation's history.

Through examining primary and secondary sources, your students will look at the choices that women hoped to make with their vote and the impact of the suffrage movement. At the conclusion of this unit, students will participate in a mock election, presenting their issues in small groups in order to better understand the election process.

Essential Academic Learning Requirements (EALRs):
This lesson plan satisfies Washington state standards in Social Studies, Civics, Reading, and Communication.

Essential Questions for Students:

What is Suffrage?
Who could vote in the early 1900s? Who couldn't? Why was the right to vote restricted?
What does the right to vote mean to Americans today?

Primary Sources for Student & Teacher Understanding:

These links will open in a separate window.

Lincoln Said Women Should Vote

Secondary Sources for Student & Teacher Understanding:

Materials:

Instructions for Teachers:
PREPARATION & NOTES

Spend some time familiarizing yourself with the content of the "Women's Voices, Women's Vote" curriculum module. While reading all of the material is not necessary to complete this lesson plan, you may find that familiarity with the site will help you guide students to find answers to questions that may arise during these activities.

This curriculum uses women's suffrage as the topic for student work; however, this lesson plan may be adapted to feature the struggle to vote that other groups (African Americans, Native Americans, immigrants, people in other countries, etc.) have experienced. While this lesson focuses on the 1916 presidential election, an alternate political race could be selected or a different minority group could be used as the party struggling to have their voice heard. All groups mentioned above were disenfranchised during this election period although many would not succeed in obtaining the vote until much later.

The CBA portion of this lesson focuses on using presentations as the method of fulfilling CBA requirements, rather than a paper. If you are using it for that purpose, please remember to incorporate documentation of the presentation that someone outside of the classroom can understand and review for rubric purposes (e.g. a videotaped presentation, electronic written presentation, etc.).

SESSION ONE

Part I.
What is the right to vote? You may wish to spend a few moments with your students talking about what voting means to them. Consider the following points in your discussion:

What do we vote for? (Students might answer this in a number of ways — from voting for a president to voting on an issue.)
Who can vote in the United States today? You must be:

Registered to vote
18 or older
In some states, you can't have committed a felony crime
In some states, there are still laws barring the "insane" from voting — many of these are being removed or reviewed

Why would you want to vote? (Alternately, you might wish to ask them why they think people do not.)

Explain to the class that women could not vote until 1920. Let them know that they will be staging their own "mock election" and doing their own research to find out more about the people involved in the fight to obtain the vote for women.

Part II.
In class or as homework, ask students to read the following essays and do the accompanying worksheet:

What is Suffrage?
What Happened?
You Decide Graphic Organizer

Make sure that dictionaries or other reference material are available for student use. Have them underline words that they don't understand and discuss what they think those words mean in class or at home.

Remind them to use their graphic organizer throughout the activity to help them understand what suffrage is. You may wish to explain to students that they will be using this for their research during the following class sessions.

SESSION TWO

Part I. Bring the class together and discuss some of the things that they discovered about women and the vote.

What is suffrage? (Remind them to look at their organizers.)
Draw a line on the board and write "For suffrage" and "Against suffrage," then ask the following: Who are some of the people that you remember from your readings? Were they for or against suffrage? (Write the names in the columns. You may wish to draw out a little more about each person, asking students why they think that individual held the beliefs that they did.)

Part II.
Explain to your students that they will be taking part in a mock election and that their parts will be randomly assigned. Some of them will be arguing against women's right to vote — others will be arguing for it. Each student will have the chance to give a brief presentation. After all presentations have been given, students will get to vote, based on the speeches that they saw.

Divide the class in half as follows:
Group One: Pro-suffrage campaign
Group Two: Anti-suffrage campaign

Each section will be assigned the task of reading about the people involved in their cause in the readings provided below. You may wish to work with a librarian to schedule a research session for the class and use the CBA as an opportunity to strengthen and enrich your students' skills in using primary and secondary sources.

Readings:
Group One: Speaking Out
Group Two: Anti-Suffragists

Each group will be campaigning, based on which group they have been assigned to. Students in group one will be arguing for women's right to vote, students in group two against. Provide students with the Election Preparation Worksheet. They may work in groups to form their arguments and make materials for their campaign; however, in order for this unit to fulfill the CBA requirement, each student will be required to present their own five-minute talk on whether or not women should be allowed to vote.

SESSION THREE

Part I. Allow at least one class session for students to prepare their presentations. You may wish to extend this lesson into an art project as well by suggesting that students make buttons and posters to promote their campaign and use during their presentation.

Part II. (Optional) Share images from the WSHS Collections and discuss the techniques used on each to promote the author's point of view. Below are six sample images and questions that you may wish to use; however, many more items are available for your use online and can be printed out or placed in a PowerPoint presentation.

Handbills & Sign Posting:
The Lincoln sign uses a quote from the famous president to promote women's suffrage while the accompanying photograph shows women posting the signs on a Seattle building.
A: Lincoln Said Women Should Vote poster
B: Suffragists in Seattle photograph

Discussion points:

[A] Why do you think that this quote was chosen? What does it mean to you?
[A] Why would the suffragists pick Abraham Lincoln? (After you have heard student ideas, you may wish to share that many early suffragists were also against slavery, if students do not come to this conclusion on their own.)
[B] What are the women doing with the posters in the photograph? Can you think of anything similar that you've seen recently?
[B] Who are some of the other people that are named on the posters? (President Theodore Roosevelt, author Mark Twain) Do you see any connections between them?

Artifacts:
Small items like buttons, signs, and ribbons all tell us much about the political campaigns of the past.
C: Votes for Women button (Accession ID# 2006.0.78)
D: Woman Suffrage Day ribbon (Accession ID# C2008.0.30)

Discussion points:

[C] What does the button say? Are there any reasons you can think of to keep the message so short?
[D] Examine the words on the ribbon. When was this ribbon made? Where was it used?
[D] What do you think this ribbon was used for? (It was part of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition's "Woman Suffrage Day" event in which suffragists tried to convince lawmakers and citizens to petition to give women the vote.)
[C & D] Do people still use buttons and ribbons today to promote their ideas? Why do you think they use such small items?

Cartoons & Illustrations:
Fun to look at, cartoons and illustrations often use humor to convey a serious message.
E: "Dern th' wimmin any way!" cartoon
F: "Where, oh, where is my wandering wife tonight?" cartoon

Discussion points:

[E] What do you see in this picture? (Ask students to describe specific details — the man cleaning, the baby crying, etc.) What is the man saying and why?
[E] Why does the man have to clean? How do you think this artist felt about women being allowed to vote?
[F] What do you see in this picture? (You may wish to zoom in or enlarge the faces in the picture so that students can comment on the expressions of the people.) After reading the words on this cartoon, how do you think this artist felt about women being allowed to vote?
[E & F] Why do you think cartoons were an effective way to explore an issue and spread a message?

SESSION FOUR

Part I.
Ask students to review their "You Decide" graphic organizers. Explain to your students that the public issue they are focusing on is "Should women be allowed to vote?" as if they were citizens in the United States during the early 1900s. Remind them that they will be hearing presentations from both sides of the issue and that they need to record the arguments that they hear from the stakeholders.

Part II.
Allow students a chance to present their "campaigns." After they have finished, you may wish to have the class take a vote as to which side was most convincing and have a brief discussion about the experience. What did they discover about the arguments that surprised them? Is there anything that they found was similar to stories that they have seen in the news or heard discussed at home?

If you are using this curriculum to fulfill a CBA requirement, utilize the rubrics provided by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction while observing student presentations. Remember to record or document their work so that it may be turned in upon completion.

POSSIBLE EXTENSION ACTIVITIES

Visit the Washington State History Museum with your students. As you walk through the Hall of Washington History, ask students to find three people in the exhibit who made a difference through community activism or political action. (HINT: They can find many of these individuals on the computers!) Have them research one person when they return to the classroom and write a short essay on that person's impact on the state or the nation.
Create a classroom bulletin board and invite students to bring in newspaper articles or magazine clippings that they feel have to do with the right to vote or other issues that you are studying in your classroom. Use these as part of a free write or journaling exercise.