“Suffrage and its Legacies: Women, Politics, and the Vote” Renowned historian Ellen Carol Dubois will be speaking about her most recent book, Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle for the Vote, commemorating the broad sweep of the women’s suffrage movement.
Dubois will have a conversation with Cathy Connolly, Professor of Gender & Women’s Studies and Wyoming state representative about the intersectional legacies of the suffrage movement, women in politics, and the ongoing fight for voting equity. The discussion will be moderated by UW’s own celebrated historian of the American West, Renee Laegreid.
Featured Speaker: Ellen Carol Dubois, Professor Emeritus, History, UCLA Ellen Dubois is the author of numerous books on the history of woman suffrage in the US. She is the coauthor, with Lynn Dumenil, of a foundational textbook in US women’s history, Through Women’s Eyes: An American History with Documents and coeditor, with Vicki Ruiz, of Unequal Sisters: In Inclusive Reader in US Women’s History. Her most recent book, Suffrage, traces the wide historical scope of the movement to win the vote for women.
The book begins in the pre-Civil War years with foremothers Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Sojourner Truth, exploring the links between the women’s suffrage movement to the abolition of slavery. After the Civil War, Congress granted freed African American men the right to vote but not white and African American women, a crushing disappointment. DuBois traces the perseverance of suffrage leaders through the Jim Crow years into the reform era of Progressivism, and centers the activism of African American women, led by Ida B. Wells-Barnett, who demanded voting rights even as white suffragists ignored them.
Discussant: Cathy Connolly, Professor, Gender and Women’s Studies Dr. Connolly’s research involves an examination of social stratification and institutions, particularly the law and the economy. She has published pieces that address issues in Wyoming including the wage gap between men and women, and gay rights. In 2008, Cathy was elected to serve in the Wyoming House of Representatives, representing House District 13 in Laramie.
In her legislative capacity, Connolly has also earned certificates from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Western Legislative academy for state leaders. Moderator: Renee Laegreid, Professor, History, University of Wyoming Renee Martini Laegreid specializes in the history of the American West, with a focus on gender and culture in the late nineteenth to mid- twentieth century. Dr. Laegreid has served as the UW faculty representative on the Governor’s Council for the Women’s Suffrage Celebration.
