Teaching Guides and Curricula
19th Amendment, National Education Association
Lesson plans for grades 3-8, 6-12, 9-12 and 11-12; activities for grades 5-8 and 7-12; and links to background resources and videos.
19th Amendment Centennial Curriculum, 19th Amendment Centennial Commemoration Project
Online curriculum with six teacher-directed lessons tailored for 9-12 grade students; focuses on the 19th Amendment with references to the League of Women Voter’s connection to the suffrage movement.
Resources Connect Students to the Suffrage Story, National Women’s History Museum
Seven lesson plans targeted predominantly at grades 9-12, and links to videos.
Elections 101: Suffrage Curriculum, Office of the Iowa Secretary of State
A two-day curriculum that covers the history of women’s suffrage in the United States and the history and influence of women as voters, political candidates and elected public officials.
Teaching Women’s Suffrage, PBS
This collection of video clips, lesson plans, and primary sources details key figures, events, and regional movements of the decades-long fight to win the right to vote for women in the United States.
The Equal Rights Amendment at 100 Years: History and Current Issues, Iowa State University
This curriculum includes five lessons targeted to high school students discussing the history and debates surrounding the ERA from the 1920s to the present.
Valiant Women of the Vote (PDF), National Women’s History Alliance
This six-part lesson plan builds on and is intended to be used in conjunction with the lessons and educator in the 2020 Women’s History Gazette.
Woman Suffrage and the 19th Amendment, National Archives
Links to documents in the National Archives and a script for "Failure is Impossible," a play commissioned by the National Archives about the suffrage movement.
Women & the American Story
Women & the American Story is a free curriculum website from the New-York Historical Society that connects educators with classroom resources that illuminate diverse women’s contributions to the American past.
Women’s Suffrage, Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs
Primary Source Sets developed by the State Historical Society of Iowa to help educators meet the Iowa history standards within the Iowa Core in Social Studies
Women’s Suffrage, Teaching Tolerance, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center
Fourth in a series called Expanding Voting Rights, with an overall goal for students to explore the complicated history of voting rights in the United States.
Women’s Suffrage in the United States, Teach a Girl to Lead, a project of the Center for American Women and Politics
Activities and discussion questions designed to explore the changing role of women in society and in politics, along with links to online resources.
Women’s Suffrage Teaching Guides, Library of Congress
Links to teaching guides and supporting material at the Library of Congress.
Films and Documentaries
"American Experience: The Vote" (2020)
This 240-minute, 2-disc documentary tells the dramatic story of the hard-fought campaign waged by American women for the right to vote, a transformative cultural and political movement that resulted in the largest expansion of voting rights in U.S. history.
"Carrie Chapman Catt: Warrior for Women" (2020)
This one-hour documentary tells the story of Iowan Carrie Chapman Catt and the women’s suffrage movement.
"Equal Rights Amendment" (2022)
This 9:42-minute video depicts the history of the struggle to legally prohibit all discrimination based on sex in the United States. The century-long fight for and against women’s constitutional equality is portrayed as ongoing — its current status in legal limbo and its future highly uncertain.
“Generations: American Women Win the Vote” (2003)
Produced by Paula Casey, this 12.5-minute film is a companion DVD to Carol Lynn Yellin and Janann Sherman’s book "The Perfect 36: Tennessee Delivers Woman Suffrage."
"Inez Milholland – Forward into Light" (2016)
15-minute film about Inez Milholland by Martha Wheelock made for the centennial of her death.
"Iron Jawed Angels" (2004)
Fictionalized account of a group of suffragists lead by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns that provides an powerfully evocative version of their arrest, hunger strike and force feeding.
"Not For Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony" (1999)
This Ken Burns and Paul Barnes documentary from PBS tells the story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
"One Woman, One Vote" (1995)
This PBS documentary by director Ruth Pollak looks at the women’s suffrage movement from Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Seneca Falls in 1848 call to arms to the passage and ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920.
"Seneca Falls" (2010)
This independent documentary film by Louise Vance follows the experiences of nine modern teenage girls on their road trip from San Francisco, California, to Seneca Falls, New York.
"Suffragette" (2015)
This historical drama historical drama directed by Sarah Gavron is set in the suffrage era in the United Kingdom.
"The 1910s—Women’s Suffrage and Equal Rights" (2013)
This 3:49-minute video by director Gilly Barnes that is part of the “1910s” portion of Vanity Fair’s centennial “Decades Series” combines photos, quotes and newspaper clippings from the suffrage era with dramatic reenactments by a fictional suffragist narrator.
"The 19th Amendment: A Woman’s Right to Vote" (2019)
A project of the Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania in partnership with the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands. The film is close-captioned and comes with a lesson plan, and available free for streaming or download.
"The Black Sorority Project: The Exodus" (2006)
This 45-minute film by Derek Fordjour and Jamar White covers the lives of 22 members of the Delta Theta Sigma sorority from Howard University who marched in the Women’s Suffrage March of 1913.
"The Suffragettes" (2008)
This hour-long film about the suffrage movement in the United Kingdom includes authentic reconstructions including the first suffragette march, dramatized eye-witness accounts. period images, photography and film footage.
"Untold Stories of Black Women in the Suffrage Movement" (2020)
This 9-minute documentary by KD Hall delves into the lives of the women who were leaders in the fight for equal rights for African Americans, especially women.
"Votes for Women" (1996)
This 20-minute film by Kay Weaver and Martha Wheelock provides an overview of the women’s suffrage movement in the United States.
Other videos on suffrage from PBS
Other documentaries and films listed by Women’s Suffrage and the Media