BROOKLYN, NY.- Votes for Women, the latest exhibition to be presented in the Herstory Gallery of the recently opened Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, opens at the Brooklyn Museum on February 29, 2008. The exhibition explores Susan B. Anthony's contribution to the American Suffrage Movement, the contributions of eight other important American suffragists, and Victoria Woodhull's historic run for the United States presidency in 1872.
The exhibition draws upon the Susan B. Anthony place setting in The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago, and the lives of women whom Chicago chose to name as significant contributors to the fight for women's rights in America. Votes for Women examines the methods and tactics used throughout the generations of the suffrage movement with more than sixty objects and images from the days of Anthony's leadership of the movement, to the increased activism after her death in 1906, to the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.
The lives and activities of these women, including Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Carrie Chapman Catt, Alice Stone Blackwell, Alice Paul, Mary Church Terrell, and Frances Willard, are revealed not only through displays of their portraits, newspapers, and speeches, but also through broadsides, banners, pennants, postcards, and political buttons. Other highlights include newspaper engravings and photographs depicting their actions in the media, and audio materials including suffrage songs and excerpts from speeches and writings.
The exhibition connects the strategies of the suffrage movement to those of the feminist movement of the 1970s, and to the latest campaigns for women for unprecedented roles in American politics, including Hillary Clinton's bid for the presidency.
Votes for Women is curated by Melissa Messina, Independent Curator and former Research Assistant for the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art.
A variety of public programs including films and lectures will be presented in conjunction with the exhibition. For more information visit www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa.
