APUSH and the Epic Story of How American Women Won the Right To Vote
Open Letter to all APUSH Teachers
APUSH teachers everywhere, have you yet had a chance to teach The Epic Story of How Women Won the Right to Vote?
Most APUSH teachers typically tell the story when covering the period 1890–1945.
They do it then, in large part, because APUSH Key Concept 7.1-III(E) states that “between 1890–1945, progressives on the national level sought federal legislation that they believed would effectively . . . expand democracy . . . which led to (a) progressive amendment to the Constitution that dealt with (the) issue (of) women’s suffrage.”
If, for any reason, you haven’t yet managed to teach the topic, no worries. To get your students to know what they need to know, you need only put before them the KQED Voting Rights Timeline found here. It’s an easy read and one that your students should find very interesting.
If, however, you want your students to learn more about the topic, have them check out any one of the following:
- The Nineteenth Amendment (website, History)
- The Nineteenth Amendment (2:36 video, Sound Smart)
- Women’s Suffrage (2:50 video, Sound Smart)
- The Complex History of the Women’s Suffrage Movement (website, New York Times)
- Why Women’s Right to Vote Matters 100 Years Later (website; AARP)
- The Seneca Falls Convention (3:53 video; PBS LearningMedia / American Experience)
- Strategies of Suffrage: How Far Did Women Go to Get The Right to Vote: (4:20 video; PBS LearningMedia / American Experience)
- The Vote (10:14 video; PBS LearningMedia / American Experience)
- The Suffrage Rights March of 1913 (3:44 video; Saturday Evening Post)
- The Fight for the Right to Vote in America (4:30 video, TED-Ed)
- The Battle for the Right to Vote and the Role of African American Suffragists (1:03:10 webinar featuring Dr. Marcia Chatelain of the documentary The Vote and Karen Pleasant, high school social studies teacher; WGBH)) Note: Dr. Chatelain starts her presentation at the 10:00 mark in the video, with Karen Pleasant immediately following.
- Women’s Suffrage and World War I (DBQ Quest, iCivics) When done with this DBQ Quest, download the Teacher Resources and scroll to Extension Support pg. 17. The folks at iCivics found so many good resources when making this DBQ Quest, they felt compelled to share.
If you then want to have your students take it one step further, I suggest having them view a very good 5:32 KQED Above the Noise video entitled Should 16 Year-Olds Be Allowed to Vote?
Then if your students want to share their answer to this question in a super safe place (other than your classroom) place this KQED Learn link before them https://learn.kqed.org.
Here they can share with peers not only in their own classroom but also with students across the country, for KQED Learn isn’t just a private message board for the individual classroom — it’s a platform for more extensive discussion with students nationwide.
Lastly, if you, as an APUSH teacher, know a middle school or high school US History teacher who might want to place the above-described learning experience before his/her students, feel free to share a link to this blog post with that teacher.
