Suffrage

Elisabeth Griffith | Spring 2024

The grand parade of suffragettes in 1913 was a turning point in women's struggle for the right to vote, despite the abuse by thousands of men who blocked their route.

They Persisted for Suffrage

Ellen DuBois | Winter 2022

The long, embattled history of women’s suffrage that began with the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention continues to this day.

Editor's Note: Ellen Carol DuBois is a professor in the history department at UCLA and the author of numerous books on women’s suffrage including the recent, authoritative survey,

Ida B. Wells Marches for Justice

Susan Ware | September 2020

The ex-slave and investigative journalist spent a lifetime fighting against lynching and segregation — but also for voting rights for African-American women.

Editor's Note: Susan Ware is a historian, general editor of the American National Biography, and editor of the biographical dictionary, Notable American Women.

Placards at the White House

Jean H. Baker | Winter 2010

In 1917, fed up with the inaction of conservative suffragists, Alice Paul decided on the unorthodox strategy of pressuring the president directly

Women suffragis

The Gospel According To Eve

Cullen Murphy | September 1998

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON’S sardonic and biting protofeminist commentary on the Bible cost her the leadership of the suffragist movement

Eighty years old and bedridden, her legs no longer capable of supporting her 240-pound bulk, Elizabeth Cady Stanton was scarcely disposed to attend the annual convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association being held in Washington, D.C., in January of 1896.

Susan B. Anthony Cast Her Ballot For Ulysses S. Grant

Godfrey D. Lehman | December 1985

For this crime, she was arrested, held, indicted, and put on trial. Judge Hunt presided.

Shortly before the Republicans convened in Philadelphia in 1872 to renominate Ulysses S. Grant for President, Susan Brownell Anthony visited him at the White House.

A Postage Stamp History Of The U.S. In The Twentieth Century

Judson Mead | December 1982

Here is the federal government’s own picture history of our times—and it tells us more than you might think

FEW ARE AWARE of a major publishing project that has been sponsored by the federal government and some of our leading citizens over the past eight decades.

Alice Paul: “I Was Arrested, Of Course…”

Robert S. Gallagher | February 1974

An interview with the famed suffragette, Alice Paul

Abby, Julia, And The Cows

Elizabeth G. Speare | June 1957

In two dead-game spinsters who wouldn’t be unfairly taxed, the men of Glastonbury met their match and the cause of feminism found a bovine cause célèbre

Dynamic Victoria Woodhull

Gerald W. Johnson | June 1956

Her past was shady but her conscience was excellent, and all in all she played a big part in the emancipation of women

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Featured Authors

Acheson, Dean

Dean Acheson (1893-1971) was an attorney and statesman who served as Secretary of State from 1949 to 1953 under President Harry Truman. A key architect of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, Acheson stressed the importance of multilateral organizations in the fight against totalitarianism. Prior to his service in the Truman Administration, Acheson clerked for Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, worked at Washington law firm Covington & Burling, and served as Undersecretary of the Treasury for one year under President Franklin Roosevelt.

Ambrose, Stephen E.

Stephen E. Ambrose (1936-2002) was a historian and professor who wrote on military history, presidential history, and American expansion and foreign policy. Ambrose has been praised for his biographies of Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon, and for helping to galvanize interest in World War II.

Becker, Elizabeth

Elizabeth Becker is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books. Her history When The War Was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge won accolades from the Robert F. Kennedy book award, while her recent biography of female conflict journalists You Don’t Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War won the 2022 Sperber Book Prize and Harvard’s Goldsmith Book Prize. She is also the author of America’s Vietnam War: A Narrative History for young adults.

Blight, David W.

David W. Blight is the Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance & Abolition at Yale University. Recently, Blight has written A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Narratives of Emancipation, and Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, which won the Bancroft Prize, the Abraham Lincoln Prize, and the Frederick Douglass Prize.

Brinkley, Douglas

Douglas Brinkley, a distinguished professor of history at Rice University and Contributing Editor of American Heritage, has written more than 20 books, most recently The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America (Harper 2009) and The Reagan Diaries (HarperCollins 2007). Brinkley earned his B.A from Ohio State University University in 1982, and his Ph.D. from Georgetown University in 1989.