In 2008, Alison Saar’s statue Swing Low became the first public monument to an African American woman in New York City. Located in Harlem, it honors Harriet Tubman, the celebrated African American abolitionist who self-emancipated in 1849 and repeatedly risked her life to complete an estimated (and astonishing) 13 trips back to her native Maryland…
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“An Unstoppable Locomotive:” New Acquisitions Highlight Black Women’s Art and History
May 3, 2021
In 2008, Alison Saar’s statue Swing Low became the first public monument to an African American woman in New York City. Located in Harlem, it honors Harriet Tubman, the celebrated African American abolitionist who self-emancipated in 1849 and repeatedly risked her life to complete an estimated (and astonishing) 13 trips back to her native Maryland…
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The Suffrage Centennial: Righting, and Rewriting, Historical Wrongs
August 25, 2020
“We hold these truths to be self-evident…” Even the least historically well-versed of American citizens might recognize these stirring words from the Declaration of Independence, issued some 244 years ago this summer. The document outlined the American colonists’ gripes against Great Britain and its king, whose “repeated injuries and usurpations” the petition’s penman, Thomas Jefferson,…
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Many Fronts, One Struggle: Native American Women’s Activism Since the 19th Amendment
August 24, 2020
The New-York Historical Society’s exhibition, Women March, commemorates the centennial of the 19th Amendment as it explores the efforts of a wide range of women’s collective efforts to expand American democracy in the centuries before and after the suffrage victory. While the Museum is temporarily closed, we are committed to sharing its ideas from afar. In…
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Fighting Back: Women of Color and the Ongoing Struggle for Citizenship Beyond the Vote
August 20, 2020
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has upended plans to celebrate the centennial of the 19th Amendment on August 26. In addition to the practical obstacles like the closure of indoor spaces and the suspension of large gatherings, political considerations complicate the commemoration. How are we to celebrate the 19th Amendment when many non-white women remained barred…
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“Get Ready to Vote:” Black Women after the Voting Rights Act
August 17, 2020
There are numerous accounts and retellings of momentous civil rights demonstrations of the 1960s. Perhaps most notable is the march from Selma to Montgomery, AL, which took three attempts and federal protection for activists to reach their destination safely on March 25, 1965, and which pushed President Lyndon B. Johnson to send voting rights legislation…
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Obstacles to Suffrage after 1920
August 13, 2020
The ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920 was an expansive political step, representing years of work from a diverse range of women’s activists. However, the 19th Amendment technically did not “give” women the right to vote: it prohibited states from using sex as a barrier to the franchise: “The right of citizens of the…
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