Radical Women Exhibit - Newark Public Library

Radical Women Exhibit

Radical Women: Fighting for Power and the Vote in New Jersey!

Exhibit: January 23, 2020 – Dec 31, 2020
Panel: “The Battle over Women’s Suffrage,” Tuesday, September 22nd at 6:00 PM.
Tune in on Zoom for a joint program with the Newark History Society and the Newark Public Library.
Newark Public Library
5 Washington Street,
3rd Floor Gallery
Newark, NJ 07101
 
L: Lucy Stone Daguerreotype of Lucy Stone, c. 1840–1860 | M: “Leona”, Leslie Sheryll, https://www.lesliesheryll.com/seeing, Seeing 2016 | R: Violet Johnson, suffragist  in Summit

“Taxation without representation is tyranny.”

“In New Jersey, women and negroes voted from 1776 to 1807, a period of thirty-one years…There is no evidence that women and free negroes abused or neglected their political privileges…It does not appear that (they) were more implicated in the frauds than the white men and they seemed to have been made the scapegoats.” – Lucy Stone

Radical Women commemorates the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which legally granted American women the right to vote. It illuminates the courage of New Jersey women who decided to challenge the social and legal restrictions on their lives. These women worked and fought for their rights and demanded visibility and justice for themselves and their communities. 

Though not seen as radical today, the nineteenth and early twentieth century women’s rights movement exploded deeply held beliefs about women’s proper roles within the home and in the wider community

Women’s rights were an emotional and heavily disputed issue with profound economic and political implications. For many women, achieving the vote was part of a larger struggle against racism, anti-immigrant sentiment, and economic exploitation. 

Women from a wide variety of backgrounds petitioned and agitated relentlessly to get the vote. Suffragists included women who were rich and poor, Black and white, native born and immigrant. Sometimes in alliance with each other and sometimes in conflict, diverse women fought for equality and challenged the notion that a woman’s place was in the home.

Thank you to the galleries and artists who have generously loaned their art for inclusion in this exhibition including: Gallery Aferro, Gladys Grauer (In Memoriam), Donna Conklin, Asha Ganpat, Diane Savona and Leslie Sheryll.

Newark Public Library has received a project grant from the New Jersey Historical Commission, a division of the Department of State.

NJ Women Vote: The 19th Amendment at 100
New Jersey’s Nineteenth Amendment Centennial Initiative*
@njwomenvote100

Media Exposure

Click here to watch the interview with Noelle Lorraine Williams and Pat Battle
Click here to view the news article Powerful Newark Art Exhibit Honors Women’s Rights, 19th Amendment by Newark Patch.
Click here to view the NJ.com article about the Radical Women exhibit as well as the “The Black Athlete in America: Protest, Activism and Inclusion,”
Click here to view the photos from the Radical Women Exhibit Opening Reception