In honor of the 75th anniversary of the Women's Suffrage amendment, the National Archives has created a traveling exhibition called "Our Mothers Before Us: Women and Democracy, 1789-1920."
Combing through 20,000 cubic feet of documents, archivists unearthed long-forgotten records from the Civil War, the settling of the West, the temperance crusade and the reform movements of the Progressive Era. There are letters, telegrams, cartoons and petitions from the likes of Susan B. Anthony, Clara Barton and Harriet Tubman.The exhibit items include:
- An 1864 petition from the Women's National Loyal League calling on Congress to abolish slavery, and signed by more than 100,000 "mothers, wives, sisters and daughters of honest men who have fought and died for our country."
- An 1884 petition from Sarah Winnemuca Hopkins, a Piute scout and interpreter, asking Congress to uphold the treaty Gen. John C. Fremont had made with the Piute Indians.
- A 1918 petition from the Young Ladies Protection League responding to riots in East St. Louis and asking Congress to make "lynching a crime, punishable by death."
Dates and locations for the exhibit are:
National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C., Aug. 25-Sept. 5; Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, Austin, Texas, Oct. 1995-March 1996.