Lesson Plan for Woman’s Suffrage Tour Author: Bruce Brashear Isaiah T. Creswell School of the Arts

Grade Level: Upper Elementary/Middle School

State Standards: 5.47 Identify Tennessee’s role in the passage of the 19th Amendment, including the impact of and Harry Burn.

8.42 Analyze the development of the Women’s suffrage movement, including Seneca Falls Convention, and the ideas of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Sojourner Truth.

Learning Objectives: 1. Students will be able to explain the significance of the 19th amendment

2. Students will identify Anne Dallas Dudley, Harry Burn, and other participants.

3. Students will create a table and fill it in with the major players in the Suffrage movement.

4. Students will explain the significance of the important sites of the suffrage movement.

Essential Questions:

Do equal rights mean equal treatment? What laws, if any, should be passed to help secure equality for women?

Why did it take so long for women to gain the right to vote?

How is the right to vote connected to ideas of American citizenship?

What types of women (and men) were involved in the suffrage movement?

Did the suffrage movement result in the right to vote for African American women? Why or why not?

Materials: Web and internet access (http://nashvillesites.org) Smart phones for in-person walking tours Laptop, tablet, desktop for virtual tours Earbuds (optional)

Additional Resources:

Civil Disobedience and National Woman's Party (Teaching with Primary Sources – MTSU)

Woman's Suffrage and the Constitution (Teaching with Primary Sources – MTSU) https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/woman-suffrage-movement/ https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/abby-crawford-milton/ https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/anne-dallas-dudley/ https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/juno-frankie-pierce/

StoryMap about Anne Dallas Dudley’s life

Elaine Weiss, The Woman’s Hour (Adapted for Young Readers): Our Fight for the Right to Vote (New York: Random House Publishing), 2020.

Lesson Plan: To access the tour via Nashville Sites, go to http://nashvillesites.org. Scroll down and select “View All Tours.” Select the tour from the alphabetized list. Read and accept the Terms of Use. Read and listen to the introduction.

Select “Take Tour” for in-person walking tour (and when prompted allow Nashville Sites to access your location to turn on GPS mapping directions). Select “Take Tour Virtually” to take tour from home or classroom.

Before lesson planning, check out the Teacher Tips at the end of the document as you adapt the lesson and tour to best meet your class’s needs.

1. BEFORE THE TOUR Important vocabulary: Suffrage/Suffragist/Suffragette, General Assembly, special legislative session, civil disobedience, seminary, tabernacle, revival, ratify, quorum, hunger strike

Engage Students:

-Begin the lesson with the question and discussion: “Have women always had the same rights as men?” The discussion will lead to the issue of suffrage, though students may not be familiar with the term. Explain the term and then look at the lesson objectives. Begin to make a table to record the major leaders in the movement (see example table below).

-Have students take the Virtual Tour option on Nashville Sites before the in-person tour to eliminate distractions while on the actual tour. Make a table chart similar to the one below. You may want to complete the table before you take the in-person tour. Students may take it on the tour as a useful reference for names and places. This will make the visit to the sites more meaningful.

-Have students explore some of the links provided in the resource list. In addition, the book The Woman’s Hour for young readers is excellent. Also view some of the pollical cartoons to help set up the context and themes of life in the early 1900s.

Samuel D. Ehrhart, 1909. Image courtesy Library of Congress. E.W. Gustin, 1909. Image Library of Congress. Published March 31, 1909

“The Steam Roller,” 1917. Image courtesy Library of Congress. Robert Satterfield, 1920. Image courtesy TSLA.

2. DURING TOUR

Explore and Explain- Read and/or listen to the introduction to the tour before proceeding to the various stops. Here are possible activities you and your students may engage in during the tour.

Stop 1: Union Station: Who were the important women that arrived at this train station for the suffrage movement? Who was a suffragist, and who was an anti-suffragist? Answer the questions using your table chart. Why would individuals or groups (even other women) not want women to have the right to vote? On paper, list 4 groups that did not want women to vote and why. These questions can be written down and/or discussed after the tour.

Stop 2: Christ Cathedral: Go inside and sit down (call ahead for a tour at 615-255-7729). Listen to the tour stop. Then, quietly for 5 minutes and absorb the beauty. What do you see? Ask yourself how you feel to be here. Do you believe that Anne Dallas Dudley and Kate Burch Warner were inspired to fight for women based on their faith in God? Anne Dudley was educated at Ward Seminary and Katherine Burch Warner at Vassar College. What role did education and religion play in the movement?

Stop 3: Ryman Auditorium: What role did race play in the fight for woman’s suffrage? An anti-suffrage rally was held here after the vote to ratify. What does the 15th Amendment say? What does the 19th Amendment say? Recite the words from the Constitution to a partner. If you want to go inside and take a tour call 615-889-3060.

Stop 4: Satsuma Tea Room: Go into the 417 Union Street restaurant. Maybe arrange to sit down and have a snack. Discuss, just like the legislators, suffragists and anti-suffragists did, the topic of suffrage. This restaurant was run by two women, rare at that time. On what side of the issue do you think they were on? What is your favorite food item here?

Stop 5: Hermitage Hotel: After listening to the tour, go inside and look at the Woman’s Suffrage display to the left of the front desk (YOU MUST CALL AHEAD TO TAKE YOUR GROUP INSIDE: 615-244-3121). Find the answer to the following questions:

1. Who wore yellow and who wore red roses? 2. What prominent leaders spoke at the anti-suffragist mass meeting at the Ryman Auditorium at 8 o’clock? 3. LOOK AT THE PHOTOS OF THE SUFFRAGISTS. PUT A NAME WITH A FACE. Are there any suffragists pictured that are not in our table chart?

Before leaving, take a photo of the building’s exterior, interior, or the exhibit cases. Once back in class discuss images taken by the students and compare with historic images featured on Nashville Sites. Post your photos to @NashvilleSites on social media.

Stop 6: Tennessee State Capitol: Call ahead for a tour: 615-360-4326. As you tour the building, find a place to sit, preferably in the legislative chamber, and watch the movie clip of Harry T. Burn changing his vote in the movie “Iron Jawed Angels.” The clip is 2 min, 18 sec. on YouTube: “Suffrage Harry Burn Vote.” Why did Harry change his mind? What other men were important in helping the Nineteenth Amendment pass?

Stop 7: Centennial Park: Look at the statue of and four Tennessee women who were active in the suffrage movement. Who is represented? What role did they play? If you were to add another person, who would it be and why?

Here is a quote from each woman for students to discuss:

Abby Crawford Milton of Chattanooga: “I shall never be as thrilled by the turn of any event as I was at that moment when the roll call that settled the citizenship of American women was heard.”

Sue Shelton White of Jackson: “We must remember the past, hold fast to the present and build for the future. If you stand in your accepted place today, it is because some woman had to fight yesterday. We should be ashamed to stand on ground won by women in the past without making an effort to honor them by winning a higher and wider field for the future. It is a debt we owe.”

Juno Frankie Pierce of Nashville: “What will the Negro woman do with the vote? Yes, we will stand by the white women. We are optimistic because we have faith in the best white women of the country. . . . We are interested in the same moral uplift of the community in which we live as you are... We are asking only one thing—a square deal.”

Anne Dallas Dudley of Nashville: "I have never yet met a man or woman who denied that taxation without representation is tyranny. . . . This is a government of, for, and by the people, and only the law denies that women are people."

3. AFTER THE TOUR

Evaluate- 1. Creates a work of art (very open ended) representing the fight for woman’s suffrage 2. Write an essay explaining who was against suffrage and their reasons why. 3. Use the four quotes associated with Dudley, Pierce, White, and Milton (Centennial Park stop) and imagine you are interviewing one of them. What would you ask? What would be their response? The teacher may want to provide additional sources. 4. Conduct a debate with students representing both viewpoints. 5. Write an essay about why the right to vote is so important.

Alternative Assessment or Activities- Post highlights from tour and photos to social media (tag @NashvilleSites) Create a Woman’s Suffrage poster or collage Create a game and gameboard Write and perform a one-act play Conduct an interview with one of the women or men involved in suffrage movement Write a eulogy or obituary for one of the women or men involved in the movement Give a newscast of events Create a crossword puzzle, acrostic poem or other poem Create a trivia game Museum exhibit of all the major figures and events related to the summer of 1920 Make an ABC book Create a pamphlet Make a map of significant places in downtown Nashville connected to the movement Present alternative points of view of the anti-suffragists Write a persuasive letter to your newspaper (Op-ed) Make a comic strip or chapter for graphic novel Fill a shoebox of objects that represent women’s suffrage Make an illustrated timeline

Teacher Tips:

1. Take the virtual tour ahead of time so students are familiar with the major players in the Suffrage movement so that each site as more meaning. 2. The walk is not strenuous, but students may be tired by the time they reach the capitol building. A break here may be necessary before climbing the hill. 3. Schedule a tour of the state capitol ahead of time. In order to make it to your scheduled tour of the capitol, give your group 1.5 hours to arrive from the start to the capitol, otherwise you may be rushed. 4. For young students, you may consider the capitol as your last stop. This is also a great place for the bus to pick you up. 5. If you go to Centennial Park to see the Suffrage memorial, you should have your bus pick up after the capitol visit. Students can view the sculpture, related signage, and Parthenon. This is also an excellent place for students to have unstructured time and to eat lunch. 6. Below the narrative for each stop, find the option that reads “Full Record.” Click on the record to gain basic information for each stop as well as a “copy citation” option for students’ use in papers, essays, projects, or other assessments. 7. Consider making a small donation to NashvilleSites.org so that we can continue to create new tours and lesson plans! (Click “Donate Now” button on website.)