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Articles on Women's suffrage

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The Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, N.Y., where on July 19 and 20, 1848, the first women’s rights conventions in the U.S. were held. Epics/Hulton Archive via Getty Images

175 years ago, the Seneca Falls Convention kicked off the fight for women’s suffrage – an iconic moment deeply shaped by Quaker beliefs on gender and equality

Most of the convention’s core organizers were Quakers. The religious movement’s beliefs about men and women’s equality before God has shaped members’ activism for centuries.
Palestinian artists draw a mural of hunger striker Hisham Abu Hawash. MOHAMMED ABED/AFP via Getty Images

Inmates’ hunger strikes take powerful stands against injustice

The power of the hunger strike lies in its utter simplicity. Anyone can choose to forego eating, even when living under extremely restricted conditions.
Why did she do all the work while Santa got all the glory? What would happen if she delivered the toys? Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

How Mrs. Claus embodied 19th-century debates about women’s rights

Many early stories praise her work ethic and devotion. But with Mrs. Claus usually hitting the North Pole’s glass ceiling, some writers started to push back.
Women protested outside the White House in 1917, seeking the right to vote. Harris & Ewing via Library of Congress

Deaf women fought for the right to vote

Despite harsh, discriminatory conditions, low pay and lack of appreciation, deaf women have fought with brilliance and dedication for personal and professional recognition, including the right to vote.
Congress had very few women members back in 1960, and just one woman of color: Representative Patsy Mink of Hawaii. Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)

Patsy Takemoto Mink blazed the trail for Kamala Harris – not famous white woman Susan B. Anthony

Mink, the first woman of color in Congress, brought a racially and historically aware brand of feminism into lawmaking and ran for president in 1972. But women’s history largely overlooks her.
These boys working in a Georgia cotton mill were photographed in 1909. Lewis Hine/The National Child Labor Committee Collection via Library of Congress

Abolishing child labor took the specter of ‘white slavery’ and the job market’s near collapse during the Great Depression

More than a fifth of US children were working in 1900, and many Americans saw nothing wrong with that. It took decades of activism and court battles plus economic upheaval to change course.
Catherine Hay Thomson went undercover as an assistant nurse for her series on conditions at Melbourne Hospital. A. J. Campbell Collection/National Library of Australia

Hidden women of history: Catherine Hay Thomson, the Australian undercover journalist who went inside asylums and hospitals

A passionate crusader for the rights of women and children, Catherine Hay Thomson went undercover to investigate their treatment in public institutions and testified before a Royal Commission.

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