Celebrating Suffrage

April 16th, 2020 |

While March was Women’s History Month, that doesn’t mean that the women’s history stops! Celebrate, commemorate, and learn about the women’s suffrage movement with the following activities.

Create A Suffragette Rosette

Rosettes were used as badges to denote who was a member of movement and who was not. They were the colors gold, white, and purple in the United States or purple, white, and green in the UK. Women wore these colors symbolically to show their loyalty and devotion to the cause. Make your own rosette by following this video! Simply swap out the green paper for gold paper if you want to make one for the US movement.

Design a Ratification Star

When the United States was ratifying the 19th amendment, every time a state voted to ratify, the National Women’s Party would sew a star onto their banner of gold, purple, and white [1]. Design your own ratification star to represent your town, your family, or your state using this worksheet from the National Park Service!

Learn Some Local History

In 1915, a statewide vote was called in Pennsylvania to decide on the matter of women’s suffrage. In Lehigh County, 2,898 votes were for Suffrage and 7,077 were against [2]. But this defeat did not stop the suffragettes, who were even more encouraged to keep up the fight.  The movement was alive and well, even in Bethlehem.

One notable Lehigh Valley suffragette was Ruth Linderman Frick (1885-1979), co-founder of the Women’s Club of Allentown and chair of the Lehigh County Women’s Suffrage Party [3]. Frick and her companions campaigned tirelessly for the right to vote, going door to door all over the Lehigh Valley. They sometimes faced hostility, but never backed down.

In 1920, five years after the state-wide vote, the states ratified 19th amendment, giving women the ability to vote. However it took even longer than that for universal suffrage. Black women only gained the right in 1965 with the Civil Rights Act. Native American, Asian-American, and Latinx Women only received the right in 1975.

The story of women’s suffrage is a long one, full of struggle and triumph. Through these activities, we can celebrate the movement’s achievements and remember those who fought the right for women to vote.

Further Reading:

https://teachinghistory.org/best-practices/examples-of-historical-thinking/25637

Legendary Locals of Bethlehem, by Karen Samuels

Citations:

[1] “Symbols of the Women’s Suffrage Movement (U.S. National Park Service).” National Parks Service. U.S. Department of the Interior. Accessed April 3, 2020. https://www.nps.gov/articles/symbols-of-the-women-s-suffrage-movement.htm.

[2] Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.), 03 Nov. 1915. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85038411/1915-11-03/ed-1/seq-14/>

[3] Samuels, Karen M. Local Legends of Bethlehem, 2013.

We hope that you enjoyed learning about suffrage in the Lehigh Valley! Please consider supporting content like this at HBMS! https://www.historicbethlehem.org/support/donate/

Florence Arnold is the spring 2020 education intern at Historic Bethlehem Museums & Sites. She is a senior at Muhlenberg College majoring in theatre and history.

Share This