Women’s Suffrage and Society

Priscilla Kron

AHTC Summer Fellowship 2005

Enduring Understandings/Big Idea:

Content: Students will be able to briefly explain a timeline of women’s suffrage in Illinois.

Students will be able to give examples of how life changed during the period of the fight for suffrage in Illinois.

Big Idea: As reformers work to make life better, other ways of life get better, too.

Process: Analyzing primary documents to create a historical context.

Illinois Learning Standards:

16A Apply the skills of historical analysis and interpretation.

16D Understand Illinois, US, and world social history.

18B Understand the roles and interactions of individuals and groups in society.

Assessment:

Content: Students will be given 2 primary sources. They will compare and contrast ads from the late 1800s and early 1900s. Students will use the ads to demonstrate how life was changing as the women’s suffrage movement evolved. (The ads and activity will be in 3 groups depending on the language proficiency level.)

Process: Students will demonstrate information using graphic organizers.

Content:

ACCESS American History, p. 135

Preparing for Understanding:

Have the students respond to a primary source from the time period. (for 3 different language proficiency levels)

- word level – photograph

- sentence level – advertisement

- extended discourse level – political cartoon

Engaging with Primary Sources:

- 19^th Amendment to the US Constitution: http://www.ourdocuments.gov

- “One More Step to the Promised Land” (cartoon), Champaign Daily News, 5/29/1919

- Advertisement, Champaign News Gazette, 9/19/1920

- Photograph of Lillie B. Sale and her daughter Virginia (not dated) (Champaign County Historical Archives)

Classroom Discussions/Activities:

Prior to introducing the Big Idea, the students will respond to 3 different primary sources from the time. After they share what they noticed in them, present the Big Idea and understandings and explain the assessment.

As a group, read the background material in the text. Show the “First Order” primary document – the 19^th Amendment – and do a document analysis as a class to put it in context. Build a classroom timeline using other primary documents. These could be headlines, articles, photographs, and cartoons as focal points for important dates. (Click here for primary documents from the Champaign County Historical Archives.)

To put this issue in an international context, have all of the students use the website http://womenshistory.about.com/od/suffrage/a/intl_timeline.htm to complete a timeline of women’s suffrage throughout the world. Students with extended discourse skills will write about why the dates are so different and what other changes have occurred throughout this time.