On June 4th the Library of Congress debuted their new exhibit, ‘Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote,’ commemorating the centennial anniversary of the campaign for women’s suffrage. This movement lasted over seventy years before the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified into law in August 1920, granting millions of women the right to vote. The exhibit, located in the Jefferson Building, showcases letters, photographs, posters, and other items from the beginning of the movement to the present day. Visitors can read diary entries from famous suffragists and listen to songs that both praise and ridicule the idea that women should be active participants in democracy. They can view desperate telegrams written about women arrested for their protesting and watch the speeches of female politicians who owe their work those honored by the exhibit.
Comprehensive items about the woman’s voting rights movement in the United States should be classed at 324.6230973 Women—suffrage—United States. This number is built using 324.623 Women’s suffrage + T1—09 History, geographic treatment, biography + T2—73 United States. Examples of titles classed here are A history of the American suffragist movement and Jailed for freedom: The story of the militant American suffragist movement.
One of the most moving items on display is a scrapbook once owned by suffragists Elizabeth Smith Miller and her daughter Anne Fitzhugh Miller. The book’s open page features a rare photograph of Harriet Tubman, most likely taken at her home in New York. Works on this abolitionist and suffragist can be found at 326.8092 Abolitionists (Antislavery activists). Build this number by starting with 326.8 Emancipation and adding T1—092 Biography. Works classed here include I am Harriet Tubman and Harriet Tubman: slavery, the civil war, and civil rights in the 19th century.
‘Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote’ will be on view through September 2020. Don’t miss this opportunity to explore the history of the women’s suffrage movement in person.
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