“A Woman Living Here Has Registered to Vote”
c. 1920
Suffrage Flyer
MHS Collections
Women had been vocally advocating for equal rights under the law as early as the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. Yet, with the interruption of the U.S. Civil War, the national conversation stalled. But by the late 1860s, women’s rights advocates had renewed hope as the courts began to craft a more inclusive definition of citizenship to accommodate the formerly enslaved; however, their hopes were dashed when the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendmentsto the Constitution defined enfranchisement as the exclusive privilege of “male citizens.”
In response, female reformers asserted that as “persons” born or naturalized in the U.S., they were full citizens and therefore did have the right to suffrage. Many women attempted to assert this right by showing up at the polls and registering to vote—carrying with them banners, flags, pins, sashes and other patriotic ephemera. It was not until the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, however, that all states were federally mandated to extend the franchise to their female population.
New voters proudly displayed this affirmation of their citizenship by hanging window signs featuring stars and stripes announcing, “A Woman Living Here Has Registered to Vote.”
Organized by the Virginia Historical
Society with additional support from the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter
Foundation and the
Lettie Pate Whitehead Evans Changing Exhibitions Fund, American. Support
in St. Louis is provided by The Stanley and Lucy Lopata Foundation
This exhibition has been made possible in part
by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Great Ideas Brought to Life.
