Supporters of women’s rights used maps such as the one shown here to demonstrate where women were allowed to vote, when they won that right, and which elections they could vote in. The source of this map is unknown. Originally printed around 1914, it was altered over a period of five years to reflect the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in various states through mid 1919. Each state is marked in patterns representing the status of women’s suffrage. White represents full suffrage. Stripes represent partial suffrage. Dots represent presidential, partial county, and state suffrage. Black…

The National Woman Suffrage and Educational Committee was formed in the spring of 1871. The Washington DC-based committee pledged to act as the “centre of all action upon Congress and the country.” The group was also dedicated to the education of women on subjects affecting the United States’ welfare so that “women may become intelligent and thoughtful on such subjects, and the intelligent educators of the next generation of citizens.” This pamphlet, An Appeal to the Woman of the United States, written in 1871, urges women to demand equal rights for themselves and gives reasons why women…

In 1944 a group of southern editors and writers documented cases of voter suppression in southern states. They took this step because, in the presidential election of 1944, only 28 percent of potential voters in the South participated, as opposed to 62 percent in the rest of the country. Their findings, compiled in Voting Restrictions in the 13 Southern States, drew attention to the methods used to deprive African Americans of the vote. The pamphlet explains poll times, compensation, voting requirements, absentee voting, voter turnout from previous elections, and the expected voter turnout of…

Even though the Sedition Act of 1798 had expired in 1801, individuals could still be charged with sedition. On January 20, 1815, Thomas Rowe and Joshua Hooper, publishers of the Massachusetts newspaper The Yankee, printed an article criticizing the governor and state legislature for failing to follow through on threats to secede from the United States during the War of 1812. Within days they were arrested for sedition and brought before the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The War of 1812 between England and the United States was unpopular in New England. The…

On August 14, 1798, the Columbian Centinel, a Boston newspaper aligned with the Federalist Party, printed this copy of the Sedition Act. It was the last in a series of legislation known as the Alien and Sedition Acts passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by President John Adams in July. These acts were written to silence Democratic-Republicans’ criticism of Federalist policies during the Quasi-War with France. The Sedition Act, which was the only one in the series that applied to citizens of the United States, made it illegal to “write, print, utter or publish . . . any…

In February 1912, former president Theodore Roosevelt stunned the country by challenging President William Howard Taft for the Republican nomination. The move was not only a rejection of his friend Taft, it also violated an unwritten rule of American politics. Roosevelt had already had two terms in office, and no president had ever had a third. Roosevelt insisted that he was running out of duty, not personal ambition. As president, he had charted a politically progressive course, but under Taft, his chosen successor, the country had been becoming more conservative. In 1912 primary elections…

In this letter written in July 1912, during his campaign for a thrid term as president, Theodore Roosevelt informs the state and county chairmen of the Progressive Party of his plan to support women’s suffrage. The document shows the many edits Roosevelt made as he refined his message. Roosevelt wrote this letter supporting women’s suffrage in 1912, but he had fought for equality for women much earlier in his life. As a senior at Harvard University in 1880, he had written about marriage equality and urged women not to change their last name upon marriage. As a New York State Assembly member in…

Frederick Douglass tirelessly labored to end slavery but true equality remained out of reach. Despite the successful passage of several Constitutional amendments and federal laws after the Civil War, unwritten rules and Jim Crow laws continued to curtail the rights and freedoms of African Americans. Douglass concisely summarized the reality of Jim Crow in an 1887 letter that claimed the South’s "wrongs are not much now written in laws which all may see – but the hidden practices of people who have not yet, abandoned the idea of Mastery and dominion over their fellow man." Racism, violence, and…

In the late nineteenth century, Democrats and Republicans fought over whether the gold standard ought to be retained or if the United States should switch to a free silver system. In 1890, the Sherman Silver Purchase Act was passed, increasing the amount of silver purchased by the government. In 1893, Democratic President Grover Cleveland successfully pushed for the act’s repeal. Cleveland’s anti-silver measures split the Democratic Party, however, as many Democrats were silver supporters. By the election year of 1896, the Democratic Party had been taken over by silverites. In July 1897…

On March 25, 1911, a devastating fire started at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City. Workers had been locked in the factory to discourage theft and prevent labor organization, and they were unable to escape when the fire began. The fire killed 146 people, many of whom jumped to their deaths from the eighth- and ninth-floor workrooms. Most of the victims were immigrant women from eastern Europe. The worst industrial tragedy in the United States to that date led to an outcry over the factory’s conditions and to factory labor safety reforms. This sheet music features a song about…