U.S. Women’s Suffrage Centennial, 1920-2020: 100 Years of Votes for Women
January 13, 2022
Hello, this is Peter, one of the adult reference librarians. The first film I remember seeing in a movie theater was Mary Poppins and I still remember being especially taken by the character of Mrs. Banks, played by Glynis Johns, currently the oldest living former acting Oscar nominee at age 96. Winifred Banks is portrayed as an ardent member of Emmeline Pankhurst’s “Votes for Women” British suffragette movement, singing the song “Sister Suffragette” early in the film. My Mom told me about the women’s suffrage movement in the United States, which was building momentum at the same time as the British movement. The legal right of women to vote was established over the course of more than half a century, first in various states and localities, sometimes on a limited basis, and then nationally in 1920, when the Nineteenth Amendment became part of the U.S. Constitution on August 18 of that year after a long, hard struggle. My maternal grandmother was not legally able to vote until age 34, which is so hard for me to comprehend today.
The story of women’s suffrage is fascinating and filled with many names that should be much more familiar to us today. Fortunately, there have been many books and documentaries in recent years to fully inform us of this chapter in the history of universal American voting rights. The library offers several digital content provider services to our patrons that may be accessed with a current library card in good standing on the home page of our website. I’ll provide links to the plethora of materials available on each of these that fully cover the women’s suffrage movements in both the United States and Great Britain. One fascinating aspect of the British movement is how much more violence and brutality against the activists was involved. This can be seen in the 2015 film Suffragette, starring Meryl Streep as Emmeline Pankhurst, available at the library on DVD: https://search.livebrary.com/search~S35?/tsuffragette/tsuffragette/1%2C6%2C7%2CB/frameset&FF=tsuffragette&1%2C1%2C
Kanopy is a streaming video service offered by the library, which offers a number of fine documentaries on the subject of women’s suffrage. This link will bring you to the page featuring these titles. Just click on the title you want to download instantly and enjoy. The title will be automatically “returned” when the loan period ends. https://lindenhurstlibrary.kanopy.com/s?query=women%27s%20suffrage
Hoopla is another digital service provided by the library that offers many titles having to do with women’s suffrage on e-book and e-audiobook, including biographies on individual activists. This link will bring you to the page containing items about women’s suffrage which may be downloaded immediately and will be automatically returned when the loan period ends. https://www.hoopladigital.com/search?page=1&q=women%27s+suffrage&scope=everything&type=direct
Overdrive is another digital content provider offered by the library to our patrons. The following link will bring up their page containing links to e-books and e-audiobooks about women’s suffrage. Most are available for immediate download, although those that are checked out may be reserved and you will be notified when they are available for download. Again, the items will be automatically returned at the end of the loan period. https://livebrary.overdrive.com/search?query=women%27s+suffrage
Of course, there are actual books and documentary DVDs physically available in the library for checkout to patrons. Please avail yourself of these wonderful resources on a seemingly remote yet relatively recent and currently relevant period of our history!
To sign up for a digital services account through the library, you will need to enter the email/username and password connected to your library card, select your home library of Lindenhurst from a drop-down list, and enter your library card bar code. Click here for your library account. For any other issues that arise, please email the library at info@lindenhurstlibrary.org for help or call the Reference desk during business hours.
