Campus News Society & Culture

Women’s History Month honors voting rights

The Women’s Suffrage Anniversary Exhibit at UGA's Hargrett Library. (Submitted photo)
Editor’s note: Because of the suspension of in-class instruction and to keep our community safe from COVID-19, events after March 13 have been canceled or postponed.

 

In recognition of the 2020 national Women’s History Month theme “Valiant Women of the Vote,” the Institute for Women’s Studies at the University of Georgia will be hosting numerous programs in March that honor the centennial of the 19th Amendment.

Lisa Tetrault

This year’s Women’s History Month keynote address will be presented by Lisa Tetrault, associate professor of history in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. Tetrault specializes in the history of women and gender in the U.S., focusing on feminism and social movements, American democracy and the politics of memory. She is an active public historian and researches and lectures on the U.S. women’s suffrage movement, broadly construed.

Her lecture, “Women and the Right to Vote: A History Unfinished,” will take place on Wednesday, March 4, at 6:30 p.m. in the Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries, Room 271. A reception sponsored by the Lucy Hargrett Draper Center and Archives for the Study of the Rights of Women in History and Law will immediately follow the lecture. The Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library’s exhibit, “The Strategies for Suffrage: Mobilizing a Nation for Women’s Rights,” will be on display in the Hargrett Library Gallery before the lecture and during the reception.

The Institute for Women’s Studies will also continue its tradition of hosting a film festival during March featuring documentaries and feature films highlighting the often-overlooked stories of women fighting against systemic and structural forces of discrimination, disenfranchisement and misrepresentation. This festival is co-sponsored by the Lucy Hargrett Draper Center and Archives for the Study of the Rights of Women in History and Law. All film screenings are free and open to the public and will take place at 6:30 p.m. in Room 271 of the Russell Special Collections Building.

This year’s film selections are:

  • “Iron Jawed Angels” on Monday, March 2
  • “Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice” on Monday, March 16
  • “Standing on my Sisters’ Shoulders” on Monday, March 23
  • “Golden Gate Girls” on Monday, March 30

A complete list of Women’s History Month programming at UGA is available online at http://iws.uga.edu/.

Women’s History Month at UGA is hosted by the Institute for Women’s Studies in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. Co-sponsors include the Lucy Hargrett Draper Center and Archives for the Study of the Rights of Women in History and Law, Mary Frances Early College of Education, department of communication studies, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, Graduate School, Institute of Higher Education, Office of Institutional Diversity, School of Law, department of lifelong education, administration and policy, department of philosophy, School of Public and International Affairs, School of Social Work and the department of sociology.