In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment on August 18th and its certification on the 26th—this episode dives into the story of the 19th Amendment from its roots among abolition and the Civil War and Reconstruction through its ratification, the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment, and beyond. 19th Amendment experts and historians Reva Siegel and Laura Free explain when and why the word “male” was first introduced into the Constitution, how the right to vote radically changed women’s position within the family, and how we can and should expand the our constitutional story to include the many diverse groups who advocated for suffrage.
Learn more about the National Constitution Center’s new exhibit The 19th Amendment: How Women Won the Vote and check out its online interactive content here.
FULL PODCAST
PARTICIPANTS
Reva Siegel is the Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Professor of Law at Yale Law School. Her writing draws on legal history to explore questions of law and inequality. She is the author of “The Nineteenth Amendment and the Democratization of the Family,” and of “She the People: The Nineteenth Amendment, Sex Equality, Federalism, and the Family” which was consulted in the creation of the National Constitution Center’s new 19th Amendment drafting table. She also served as an advisor to our exhibit by editing drafts of the exhibit text and providing feedback on content.
Laura Free is Associate Professor of History at Hobart and William Smith Colleges where she studies Gender, Race, Voting Rights, and Politics. She is the author of the book Suffrage Reconstructed: Gender, Race and Voting Rights in the Civil War Era, and the host of Amended, a new podcast about the struggle for equal voting rights. Dr. Free is an advisor to the National Constitution Center’s new exhibit. She shared her expertise and reviewed the 19th Amendment drafting table, as well as other digital interactives in the exhibit.
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
- Resources from and more information on the National Constitution Center’s new exhibit The 19th Amendment: How Women Won the Vote
- The National Constitution Center's 2020 Liberty Medal—Recipient Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
- U.S. v. Virginia (1996)
This episode was engineered by Greg Scheckler and Jackie McDermott and produced by Jackie McDermott. Research was provided by Grace Zandi, Jackie McDermott, and Lana Ulrich.
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