A History of Women in the United States
Women have a long history in the United States of America. Follow the journey of women's fight for equality and justice as promised in the Declaration of Independence.
You can begin with the women who stood up in times of war like Abigail Adams or the women of the Civil War and World War II. Explore women like Alice Paul and Ida B. Wells who fought for suffrage on the cusp of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Finally, enter the modern era, and debate the stances of Phyllis Schlafly and Betty Friedan on the issue of the Equal Rights Amendment.
Women have remained an integral facet of American life and history. Share our in-depth women's history resources with your students today! Create an educator account to save and manage your favorite resources year-long easily.
Women's History through the Years
Women's History Primary Sources
Women's History Supreme Court Cases
Women's History Lesson Plans
CurriculumVotes for Women
8 Lessons
How did the suffragists map out a pathway for change to achieve the vote through the Nineteenth Amendment?
LessonWomen in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
6 Activities80 Min
In the late nineteenth century, American suffragettes continued the decades-long struggle for the equal right to vote. Although the movement split into disparate elements with differing strategies, the movement united again in 1890 to fight for a women’s suffrage amendment to the U.S. Constitution. After continuing struggle, in 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified. Meanwhile, women reformers engaged in a number of lesser-known movements to ban alcohol, provide better working conditions for women and children, and improve the lot of immigrants. Women also increasingly began to work outside the home in factories, department stores, and offices. Therefore, women began to enter public life politically and economically in a fundamentally new way to break with the past in which they were primarily confined to the domestic sphere of the home.
LessonWomen’s Suffrage and the Nineteenth Amendment
2 Activities75 Min
Use this Lesson with Alice Paul and the Struggle for Women's Suffrage Narrative, the Elihu Root vs. William Jennings Bryan on Women's Suffrage, 1894-1914 Primary Source, and the Carrie Chapman Catt, Open Address to the U.S. Congress, 1917 Primary Source to further explore the journey of the women's suffrage movement.