Women at the Center

“What are the suffrage colors?” I have been asked this question many times as the curatorial team’s unofficial suffrage historian at the Center for Women’s History. From exhibition design to what flowers to use at a suffrage-related event, people want a visual shorthand to represent the suffrage movement. However, because there were many suffrage organizations,…

Contrary to popular belief, obtaining the vote was not always the primary goal of the women’s movement prior to the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. The New-York Historical Society’s exhibition, Women March, explores the efforts of a wide range of women to expand American democracy in the century before the suffrage victory, as…

Early in the morning on August 26, 1920, Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby unceremoniously certified the ratification of the 19 Amendment at his home, depriving suffragists the opportunity to celebrate this moment representing decades of activism. One hundred years later, in the midst of a public health crisis and political unrest, we once again are…

Masks have captured our attention in 2020, with public health officials advising that it is one of the best ways that Americans can protect the health of their friends, neighbors, and essential workers and minimize the spread of COVID-19. Just as during prior periods of crisis, Americans have turned to sewing and crafting, making masks…

A British chemist, Dr. Rosalind Franklin was responsible for cutting-edge research that proved central to the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA in the 1950s. Her work clarified the chemical makeup of DNA and bolstered the study by James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins for which they won the Nobel Prize in 1962….