Who Can Vote?

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• Benjamin Franklin’s copy of the official edition of the US Constitution, distributed to Constitutional Convention delegates on September 17, 1787. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC03585)
• Howard Pyle, “Women at the Polls in New Jersey in the Good Old Times,” Harper’s Weekly, November 13, 1880. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC10078)
• A Bill to Establish a Uniform Rule of Naturalization, Thomas Greenleaf, 1790. (Library of Congress)
• Map depicting the results of the 1800 election. “The Presidential Elections of the United States,” Britton & Rey, 1877. (Library of Congress)
• “An Act, more effectually to secure the citizens of this State their rights of suffrage,” June 23, 1813. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC10099)
• In 1838, Robert Purvis wrote a pamphlet urging voters to reject a new Pennsylvania constitution that would disenfranchise Black men. It was ratified in October. Robert Purvis, ca. 1840. (Boston Public Libraries) 

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• Map depicting the results of the 1828 election. “The Presidential elections of the United States,” Britton & Rey, 1877. (Library of Congress)
• Stump Speaking, George Caleb Bingham, 1856. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC04075)
• The County Election, George Caleb Bingham, 1854. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC04074)
• “Declaration of Sentiments,” Report of the Woman’s Rights Convention, Held at Seneca Falls, New York, July 19 and 20, 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1848. (Library of Congress)
• View of the Procession in Celebration of the Admission of California, Oct. 19th, 1850. (Library of Congress)
• Engraving showing Union soldiers from Pennsylvania casting absentee ballots during the 1864 presidential election. Harper’s Weekly, October 29, 1864. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC01733.06) 

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• Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of South Carolina, 1868. (National Archives)
• Memorial of American Equal Rights Association to the Congress of the United States, 1867. (National Archives)
• “The First Vote,” from the front page of Harper’s Weekly on November 16, 1867, shows a newly freed Black man casting his vote. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC01733.09)
• The Fifteenth Amendment resolution, 1869. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC00788)
• Engraved portrait of African American members of Reconstruction Congresses, Wellstood and Co., New York, ca. 1880s. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC09400.447)
• Thomas Nast, “This Is a White Man’s Government,” Harper’s Weekly, September 5, 1868. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC01733.10) 

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• Two documents from Louisiana and Mississippi offering a sample of the kinds of forms voters would have had to answer in order to vote. “Literacy test questions & voting rights materials, March 1955” and “Louisiana Voter Application and Literacy Test, circa 1963.” (Civil Rights Movement Archive)
• Cartoon from a 1944 voting rights pamphlet portraying the lack of secrecy in South Carolina’s voting laws. Committee of Editors and Writers of the South, Voting Restrictions in the 13 Southern States, A Report, 1944. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC09640.048)
• Thurgood Marshall represented the NCAA in Smith v. Allwright in 1943. In 1967, he was the first African American to be appointed to the Supreme Court. (Library of Congress)
• Thomas Nast, “Move on!” Harper’s Weekly, April 22, 1871. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC01733.13)

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• An illustrated map depicting the spread of women’s suffrage across the nation from the western states to the eastern ones. Puck, February 20, 1915. (Library of Congress)
• Engraving of Virginia Louisa Minor, suffragist and main plaintiff in Minor v. Happersett. (Library of Congress)
• Ohio postcard from 1914 listing state amendments dealing with taxes, “Intoxicating Liquors,” and women’s suffrage. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC10091)
• Pin opposed to women's suffrage, ca. 1900. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC10090)
• Argument against a proposed Sixteenth Amendment in 1879 that would have given women the right to vote. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC06081)
• National Equipment Co. pin, ca. 1900. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC09764)
• Front page of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat on October 7, 1875. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC09753)
• This map depicts the status of women’s suffrage in each state, published circa 1914 with hand-drawn additions, circa 1919. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC09773)
• Quote from the Joint Resolution of Congress proposing a constitutional amendment extending the right of suffrage to women, approved June 4, 1919. (National Archives) 

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• The Literary Digest article detailing the population of Indigenous peoples in different states to highlight the law’s impact. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC10083)
• Zitkála-Šá, by Joseph Turner Keiley, 1898. (National Portrait Gallery)
• A year after their deaths, the NAACP used the memory of Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner to appeal to people in Michigan to register to vote. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC09623)
• Protests in Selma, Alabama, March 1965: Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) chairman John Lewis can be seen behind one of the state troopers in the top photograph. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC09734.05, GLC09734.03)
• President Lyndon Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act, August 6, 1965. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC09752) 

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• Cartoons from Voting Restrictions in the 13 Southern States, A Report, Committee of Editors and Writers of the South, 1944. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC09640.048)
• Nevada poll tax receipts, 1924 and 1941. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute GLC09924.12) 10
• Voting Restrictions in the 13 Southern States, A Report, Committee of Editors and Writers of the South, 1944. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC09640.048)
• Twenty-Fourth Amendment resolution, January 10, 1962. (National Archives)
• Bumper Sticker, D.C. Voting Rights. (National Museum of American History)
• John F. Kennedy to Robert D. Moran, letter. 1957. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC09784)
• Quote from John F. Kennedy
• These three buttons from before, during, and after the war show the progression of their fight. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC09750, GLC09915, GLC09749)
• The Rehnquist Court, pictured here in 2003, decided 7-2 to stop the Florida recount in Bush v. Gore. Bush subsequently won Florida’s electoral votes and the election. (Library of Congress)