Learning Objectives
Students will have the opportunity to:

• Read and evaluate primary source documents
• Debate the key issues surrounding women’s rights and the rights of African Americans during and after the Civil War
• Analyze the split in the women’s rights movement and explain what impact this had on the movement and the desire for suffrage
• Brainstorm and discuss what it takes to make change and what makes up an effective civil rights movement

Procedure
Introductory discussion: Ask students to write about or discuss a recent difference of opinion they had with a family member, other adult, or friend. Was compromise possible? What factors make it hard to compromise during disagreements?

1. View the video (“Women’s Souls” 59:06-1:10.29 and “The Negro’s Hour” 1:20.47-1:30) and read the14th and 15th amendments. Discuss the fact that the passage of the 14th Amendment split public opinion about the necessity of women’s rights versus rights for the newly freed slaves.

2. After discussing the Reconstruction amendments, the students will develop a debate between Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton versus Frederick Douglass and Lucy Stone. The debate could include argument over the concept of “The Negro’s Hour” and whether the woman suffrage movement had been betrayed by the passage of the 14th Amendment.

3. The students will study how the women’s movement broke into two groups, the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). Access to a web site with information about the National American Woman Suffrage Association can help to study this group. Begin with the Library of Congress’s American Memory Project at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/rbnawsahtml.
   • Analyze what each group stood for and their goals and leaders.
   • Discuss the significance of the split (established earlier during the debate) of opinion between Stanton & Anthony and Stone & Douglass.
   • Explain the differences in goals and strategies between the NWSA and the AWSA.
   • Study the reunification of the movement through the formation of NAWSA and explain how NAWSA was eventually successful in achieving suffrage.

4. Compare the split in the women’s suffrage movement to the splits in leadership of other civil rights campaigns. How does the situation in the women’s rights movement compare to the disagreements that developed within the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s? Within the ranks of feminists trying to pass the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s? Have students discuss or write about the similarities and differences.

1. The student participated in the classroom discussion.

2. The student cooperated with others while using the Internet

3. The student read all of the appropriate documents.

4. The student is able to consider both sides in a debate and come to a conclusion about the solution to a problem.

1. Research what happened to groups like NAWSA, and the movement for women’s rights, after the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

2. Research the “next step” for women after suffrage was achieved, in the proposed Equal Rights Amendment of the 1920s and 1970s.

• Compare and contrast differing sets of ideas, values, personalities, behaviors, and institutions.
• Consider multiple perspectives.
• Analyze cause-and-effect relationships and multiple causation, including the importance of the individual, the influence of ideas, and the role of chance.
• Identify issues and problems in the past.
• Evaluate alternative courses of action
• Formulate a position or course of action on an issue.
• Evaluate the implementation of a decision.

About the Author
Judith Krouse teaches Women in American History, Advanced Placement United States History, and United States History at Germantown Academy. In addition to her teaching duties, she’s the Head Coach for Girls’ Cross Country and Assistant Coach for Girls Track. She also does part time college counseling, serve on the GAIN team (GA Intervention Network), is Director of Senior Projects and is co-advisor for GLASS (Gay, Lesbian and Straight Students). She’s participated in three National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminars for Secondary Teachers, most recently one called “Feminist Classics in American History” with Dr. Elisabeth Perry at Sarah Lawrence College.

Classroom Activities
Women Today: An Editorial
Changes in the Role of Women: An Interview
Women’s Rights and Reform in the 19th Century
Conflict, Consensus, and Conclusion