Truxal Library Special Topic Guide: Women's Suffrage

We often think of the American West as a lawless, uncivilized place. But in the 19th century, it was ahead of its time – as the only part of America where women could vote.

A video on the history of voting rights for women.

This documentary tells the little-known story of one of the most compelling political movements and friendships in American history. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were born into a world ruled entirely by men and for more than half a century led the fight to win the most basic civil rights for women. Their story is filled with love and loyalty, envy and betrayal, and it raises larger questions about principle and compromise, achievement and ends, and the meaning of independence itself. Their more than half-century struggle led to the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1920, which finally granted American women the right to vote. Neither woman lived to see this great victory, but Stanton and Anthony stand as the two most important women in American history.

Video timeline showing when women gained the right to vote across the world (BSE version). Woman suffrage, women's suffrage, suffrage movement, women's rights, enfranchisement.

2018 marks 100 years since the first women over the age of 30, who owned property, were allowed to vote in the UK. But the fight for the vote was about more than the Pankhurst family or Emily Davison's fateful collision with the king’s horse. In this dramatised documentary, popular historian Lucy Worsley tells the story of a group of less well known, but equally astonishing, young working-class suffragettes who decided to go against every rule and expectation that Edwardian society had about them. Lucy and her group of suffragettes from the Women’s Social Political Union reveal how women got the vote through their brave, trailblazing and often dangerous activities. Lucy looks at the role of politics, police and parliament in the partial enfranchisement of women in 1918, followed by the coalition of groups who successfully achieved the vote for all women over 21 some ten years later.

This segment of Sunday Morning is about women's suffrage and women in politics.

Video timeline showing when women gained the right to vote across the world (BSE version). Woman suffrage, women's suffrage, suffrage movement, women's rights, enfranchisement

In 1913 -- the Woman Suffrage Procession was a high profile spectacle which gave the Women's Suffrage Movement needed energy and publicity.

At a time when women were expected to know their place, activist and businessperson Victoria Woodhull blazed a trail as a fierce advocate for women's suffrage and empowerment.

The women's suffrage movement inspired this silent film classic that includes appearances by equal rights crusaders Emmeline Pankhurst and Harriet Stanton Blatch. As politicos work to deny women the right to vote, a young lawyer tells his activist girlfriend of the corruption within the government that actively seeks to ensure that her voice is never heard. Douglass Dumbrille, Ronald Everett, George Henry star. Made in 1913.

A history of American women's fight for the right to vote. Covers milestones including Elizabeth Cady Stanton's convention in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848; Susan B. Anthony's arrest in 1873 when she tried to vote; the creation of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1890; the election to Congress in 1916 of Jeannette Rankin from Montana; and finally the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Today American women play a great role in politics as voters and at all levels of government. Includes footage of Senator Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.