Women's Studies Research Center

Suffrage And Citizenship

"Votes for All" WSRC Banner Campaign ImageCelebrating 100 Years of Women's Right to Vote

The Banner Campaign is part of the WSRC's year-long exploration of suffrage and citizenship. We honor the strides made and acknowledge the work that still needs to be done.

Who will you honor?

The banner campaign is a unique opportunity to celebrate a special person in your life (and makes a great socially distant gift!). It could be a family member, a teacher, an organizer you admire, a Brandeis community member or anyone else who inspires you.

  • With a donation of $100, we will honor your special person(s) by inscribing their name on the banner.
  • The banner, with your honorees, will be displayed virtually on the WSRC webpage and once it is safe to do so, will be prominently displayed in the WSRC as a tribute to those you honor and the strides made for women's suffrage.
  • Your honoree will be sent a letter, acknowledging their place on the banner and your appreciation of them.
If you would like to honor someone who inspires you, please use the form below. Thank you for your support! View the 2020 Changemakers Banner

Illustration of two hands putting voting cards with the words "#Nunca Mas" and "Pwer to the People" into a ballot box

Kniznick Gallery Exhibition | How Will They Know We Were Here? 100 Years Beyond Women's Suffrage

July 7 – Nov. 3, 2020

The Kniznick Gallery presents "HOW WILL THEY KNOW WE WERE HERE? 100 Years Beyond Women's Suffrage." The exhibition celebrates the power of civic participation in 2020 and acknowledges the 100th anniversary of the U.S. Constitutional amendment that granted some women the right to vote. The 19th Amendment of 1920 did not go far enough for Black and Indigenous women, however, and reflection upon a century as a milestone reminds us that partial progress is not whole progress.

The exhibition includes a large network of individual contributing artists featured through collaborative projects and works led by Marilyn Artus, Natalie Baxter and Amplifier. "HOW WILL THEY KNOW WE WERE HERE?" recognizes the power of visual art to inspire civic action and demonstrates that artists’ contributions within the political sphere are necessary tools for communication.

Image by: Amplifier, Laci Jordan, "Vote for Our Lives" (composite)

View the online exhibition

Theo Tyson presenting on Anti-Suffrage

Suffrage Teach In: 72 Years in 72 Minutes

12 – 2 p.m. Jan. 30, 2020, in Alumni Lounge, USDAN.
Image of Presenter Theo Tyson, Polly Thayer Starr Fellow in American Art & Culture, Boston Athenæum

It took 72 years for us to win the right to vote. Learn about the mobilization from 1848 at Seneca Falls to 1920, and passage of the 19th Amendment. Presenters: Professors Joyce Antler, Jill Greenlee with Theo Tyson, Anja Parish and others. Co-sponsored by Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Department of Politics, Department of Sociology, Department of History, Hadassah Brandeis Institute and American Studies Program.

Performance of "I Want To Go To Jail"Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment

2019 performance of the play "I Want to Go to Jail" by WSRC Scholar Pam Swing and Brandeis student Elizabeth Dabanka about the 1919 suffrage picketing of the Massachusetts State House

As the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment approaches, the Women's, Gender' & Sexuality Studies Program, the Women's Studies Research Center, and the Politics Department at Brandeis are celebrating women's suffrage through a series of events that highlight access to voting rights, political activism and the empowerment of marginalized communities. We seek to both engage in collective study of the history of women's suffrage and interrogate the unmet promise of universal adult suffrage.

All Events Have Been Postponed

  • Jan, 23, 2020: WSRC Scholar Pam Swing: Writing a Suffragist Play in 2019
  • Jan. 30, 2020: A WSRC/WGS Suffrage and Citizenship Teach-In: 72 Years in 72 Minutes
  • March 3, 2020: Open Film Class: "Knock Down the House"
  • March 10, 2020: WSRC Scholar Susan Wilson: Enterprising Women in Boston: 1862-1914
  • April 21, 2020: WSRC Scholar Angela Shpolberg: Emma Goldman on Women's Suffrage
  • April 23, 2020: A WSRC/WGS Suffrage and Citizenship Event: Historian Susan Ware on Why They Marched
  • Jan. 21, 2020: The Citizen Senate Premiere — Edward M. Kennedy Institute
  • Jan. 30, 2020: A Century of Votes for Women: American Elections Since Suffrage with Christina Wolbrecht

Resources