Inside the Vault: Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Voting Rights
by Gilder Lehrman Staff
On May 4, 2023, our curators were joined by Dr. Andrew Robertson (The Graduate Center and Lehman College, CUNY) to discuss materials related to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century voting rights. Dr. Robertson explained how voting rights were expanded and contracted, from the Revolutionary era through the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Click here to download the slides from the presentation.
FEATURED DOCUMENTS
- Letter from Thomas Stevenson to Lord Cornbury, November 11. 1702
- Constitutional Convention, US Constitution, printed by Dunlap & Claypoole, September 17, 1787
- Stump Speaking by George Caleb Bingham, 1856
- Fifteenth Amendment Resolution by William Henry Seward, February 27, 1869
USE THE TIMESTAMPS BELOW TO JUMP TO THE TOPIC YOU WANT TO VIEW
- 6:26–6:42: Today’s Documents
- 6:43–13:57: Quaker Petition to Lord Cornbury
- 13:58–18:18: The US Constitution
- 20:55–28:34: Women’s Suffrage
- 28:35–33:48: Election of 1800
- 33:49–42:22: Jacksonian Reaction
- 42:23–48:42: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments
- 48:43–53:42: Racial Democracy and Reconstruction
- 53:41–55:39: “This Is a White Man's Government”
- 55:40–1:06:43: Q&A
RELATED RESOURCES
- Spotlight on a Primary Source: “The Fifteenth Amendment, 1870”
- Timeline: “Voting Rights”
- Video: “1866: The Birth of Civil Rights” by Eric Foner (Columbia University)
- Video: “African American Voting Rights”
- Essay: “The First Generation: America’s Women Voters, 1776–1807” by Marcela Micucci (SUNY Oneonta), History Now 56 (Spring 2020)
- Essay: “Making (White Male) Democracy: Suffrage Expansion in the United States from the Revolution to the Civil War” by Stuart M. Blumin (Cornell University), History Now 51 (Summer 2018)
- Essay: “Adams v. Jackson: The Election of 1824” by Edward G. Lengel, History Now 33 (Fall 2012)
- Essay: “The Seneca Falls Convention: Setting the National Stage for Women's Suffrage” by Judith Wellman (SUNY Oswego), History Now 7 (Spring 2006)
- Essay: “A Second Declaration of Independence: The 1848 Declaration of Sentiments” by Sally G. McMillen (Davidson College), History Now 63 (Summer 2022)
- Essay: “Citizenship in the Post-Civil War South” by Susanna Michele Lee (North Carolina State University), History Now 55 (Fall 2019)
- Essay: “Reconstruction and the Battle for Women’s Suffrage” by Ellen DuBois (University of California, Los Angeles), History Now 7 (Spring 2006)
- Essay: “The Reconstruction Amendments: Official Documents as Social History” by Eric Foner (Columbia University), History Now 2 (Winter 2004)
- Essay: “The Contentious Election of 1876” by Michael F. Holt (University of Virginia), History Now 33 (Fall 2012)
- Essay: “A Right Deferred: African American Voter Suppression after Reconstruction” by Marsha J. Tyson Darling (Adelphi University), History Now 51 (Summer 2018)
- Essay: “Adella Hunt Logan: Suffragist and Educator” by Adele Logan Alexander (George Washington University), History Now 54 (Summer 2019)
- Essay: “Women’s Long Journey for the Vote” by Eleanor Clift, History Now 51 (Summer 2018)