Woman's Suffrage and the Media

Rationale or Purpose
The activities in this unit will introduce students to some of the popular culture and media forms used by and against the campaign for women's right to vote in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By the end of this lesson, students will understand how proponents and opponents of the women's suffrage movement employed visual media, including cartoons and posters, to convey their point of view. Teachers can undertake the activities included in this lesson plan separately or in combination.

Background
The late 19th and early 20th centuries were turbulent times for the women's suffrage movement in the U.S. In 1916, the National Women's Party (NWP) was formed. The NWP had a more militant agenda than its predecessor, the National American Women's Suffrage Association (NAWSA), becoming the first organization to picket the White House. Many supporters of women's suffrage were arrested, and women's suffrage meetings were firebombed. The movement's opponents accused suffragettes of abandoning their duties as wives and mothers and painted a grim portrait of what life would be like if women were allowed to vote. This portrait played on stereotypes of women as irrational and easily corrupted. Further, opponents of the women's suffrage movement had access to newspapers and magazines that published articles and political cartoons denouncing the movement.

Women's suffrage supporters had fewer mainstream media outlets at their disposal, commonly relying on posters, pamphlets and other printed media to promote their cause. Through these outlets, movement supporters countered stereotypes, using visual imagery to promote the virtues of their cause. While the promoted image of the suffragette did not reflect all American women of the 19th century in terms of race, class or socio-economic status, the suffragette has remained an important figure in American history.

Suffragette media constituted a form of alternative media. Social movements, from abolitionists to suffragettes to civil rights advocates, have used alternative media to challenge the powers that be, to empower disempowered communities and classes, and to communicate between and among themselves and others. The Suffrage Movement sought to actively shape its own image in popular culture. This image aligned the suffragette with American values like freedom and patriotism. It also showed the suffragette as a feminine figure, a strategy intended to counteract anti-suffrage images of overly masculine women voters. Suffragette media can be seen as an example of strategic communication and self-representation that helped define the movement's identity and that ultimately influenced how popular media and culture viewed the suffragette.

Materials

• "APPARTS adapted for media education" handout
• Blackboard and chalk
• Internet access
• Paper and pens
• Printed copies of the photographs for students who lack classroom internet access

TEKS Objectives

• US.18 B The student is expected to evaluate various means of achieving equality of political rights, including the 19th (women's right to vote), 24th and 26th amendments.
• US.24 C The student is expected to explain and apply different methods that historians use to interpret the past, including the use of primary and secondary sources, points of view, frames of reference, and historical context.
• US.24 F The student is expected to identify bias in written, oral and visual material.

Students will identify, analyze and contextualize stereotypical representations of suffragettes found in popular media of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and assess whether any of these stereotypes still exist today. Images used in this activity appeared in newspapers and magazines, as well as on anti-suffrage posters and other printed ephemera (postcards, letterhead, etc.).

Step 1
Assign students course reading on the women's suffrage movement before completing this activity.

Step 2
Ask the class the following: Do today's media convey particular images of women? Do television, films or advertising suggest that there are ideal attributes associated with women? If so, what are they? Note students' responses on one side of the blackboard.

Step 3
Divide the class into teams. Have each team look at one of the following image pairs online or in hard copy:

Step 4
On a separate sheet of paper, have each team complete the "APPARTS adapted for media education" handout.

Step 5
Have each team present their findings. Ask students to compare and contrast representations of women by suffrage proponents and opponents.

Step 6
Ask students to state what these images suggest about the ideal attributes of women in the 1910s. Note students' answers on the other side of the blackboard.

Step 7
Discuss the similarities and differences between this list and the ideal attributes of the present day discussed earlier. What has changed and what hasn't in terms of societal expectations of women's roles? Can students suggest any reasons for these changes?

Assessment: Group presentation and "APPARTS adapted for media education" handout

As homework, ask each student to create a poster that advocates additional rights for women and/or men. For example, a poster might advocate equal pay for equal work for women, or paternity leave for working fathers with young children. Students can create original drawings or use collage to create their poster. Students should create a tagline for the poster and use images of women and/or men that further their cause. Posters should be accompanied by a typed or neatly written paragraph on a separate sheet of paper that explains how the poster's images and words help make their case.

Assessment: Poster, typed paragraph

Directions: Use the following handout as a guide for analyzing media sources.

Author
Who constructed this media product? What do you know about who paid for, wrote, created, or commissioned it? What is the producer's point of view?

Place and Time
Where and when was this media product produced? How might this have affected the meaning of this media product? Where did audiences originally encounter it? What larger historical issues or debates does it address?

Prior Knowledge
What do you know from experience or history that would help you further understand this media product?

Audience
Who was the intended audience for this media product, and how does this affect its content and reliability? Who was likely to pay attention to, or be influenced by, this media product? How might different audiences react differently to this media product?

Reason
Why was this media product produced at the time it was produced? What political, economic or social need on the part of the producer(s) does it address? What information or argument does this media product convey? Does it contain any messages about values, ways of life, or how the world should work?

The Main Idea
What point is this media product trying to convey?

Significance
Why is this media product important? What are its social and/or political implications? What effect might this media product have had?

The Teaching Educators about Media (TEAM) Project, housed in UT's Radio-TV-Film Department, designed these lesson plans and resources. Project Director: Laura Stein, Ph.D. http://utopia.utexas.edu/explore/team/