Exhibits – Illinois
Democracy Limited: Chicago Women and the Vote
A new online exhibit from the Chicago History Museum highlights the stories of women’s activism in Chicago women’s activism in Chicago to secure the right to vote—and beyond. Visitors can discover the ways women organized to challenge the status quo and how these different paths led to a mass movement for suffrage. They can also explore what the vote did and did not accomplish, and for whom. The exhibit is meant to connect themes of the past with the present, which remind us that while injustice and inequality persist, so do activist women.
The online exhibit can be found here – with much still to be added in the future –
Art and Artists of the Woman’s Suffrage Movement
A new online exhibit from the Lombard Historical Society tells the story of the women’s suffrage movement through the lives and work of Chistia Maria Reade and other artists who had their studios at the Fine Arts Building on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. The Fine Arts Building was also home to the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association and other women’s organizations, and as such provided a collaborative and creative environment for them all. Especially in the period leading up to and following the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, Illinois was home to a movement that linked artists and social activism in a new way.
The online exhibit can be found at https://www.lombardhistory.org/art-artists-of-the-women
Evanston Women and the Fight for the Vote
Evanston Women and the Fight for the Vote shares the story of the critical role that Evanston women like Frances Willard, Elizabeth Boynton Harbert and Catharine Waugh McCulloch and many others played in the local, state and national women’s suffrage movements. The exhibit will explore the tactics and strategies that suffragists used through the use of original artifacts, archival materials, costumes and photographs from the EHC collection.
Evanston Women and the Fight for the Vote will be up through 2020 and continue into 2021. Due to the pandemic, most current details for viewing the exhibit can be found at evanstonhistorycenter.org.
An online version of this exhibit and visual timeline of the suffrage movement can be found at –
https://evanstonandthe19th.omeka.net/
Why Women Should Vote exhibit at Jane Addams Hull House Museum
Based on a 1910 essay written by Jane Addams, this exhibition explores the widespread grassroots national movement organized by American women demanding the right to vote and to be recognized as full citizens in the United States. More here.
Exhibits – U.S.
How Will They Know We Were Here? 100 Years Beyond Women’s Suffrage
July 7 – November 3: Online Exhibition Open
“Her Flag” is a nationwide art and travel project by Marilyn Artus to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment and the 72 years long nonviolent fight that kicked open voting for women in the United States. Artus collaborated with a woman artist from each of the 36 states that ratified the 19th Amendment into law to create a 18’ x 26’ flag. Each artist created artwork inspired by the centennial, manifested as a stripe on “Her Flag.”
Artus began traveling in order of ratification in June of 2019 to each state and in a public performance, stitched each stripe onto “Her Flag” until February 2020 when Covid-19 hit the U.S. Artus reached 25 of the 36 states, before stopping her travel. She has been live streaming the sewing performances as originally scheduled with the collaborating artists. She will complete the journey on August 18, 2020 in Tennessee.
The culmination of the project will be a new flag sewn as a thank you and love letter to the states that ratified the 19th Amendment into law. The 8’ version of “Her Flag” exhibited in this show was created in tandem with the original version of “Her Flag.”
The National Archives has an exhibit about women’s Suffrage – Rightfully Hers: American Women and the Vote.
The Smithsonian Institution as a whole is highlighting women’s history with their HerStory project.
The Library of Congress has an exhibit – Shall Not Be Denied – about the suffrage movement using materials from its collection. See more here.
The U.S. Senate has an online exhibit that highlights its own history regarding women’s right to vote.
Suffrage 2020 Illinois 