Students in URI’s Honors Program can take special topics courses ranging from diversity and inclusion to global responsibility and social sciences. Professor Kathleen McIntyre created a section of HPR 392, one such course, titled Give me Suffrage: Voting Rights in the Americas. As a professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and the Honors Program, Professor McIntyre says the idea for this class came from her past research experience. “My scholarly research interests heavily influence my teaching,” she says.” I developed Give me Suffrage: Voting Rights in the Americas after my participation in the National Endowment for the Humanities Suffrage in the Americas Summer Institute. I wanted students to learn about the national suffrage movement in the U.S. and Latin American nations but also see the role that suffragists played in Rhode Island.”

Students in Professor McIntyre’s HPR 392 class learn the history of voting in America and how it wasn’t until the Voting Rights Act in 1965 that all Americans could legally vote. In her course description, Professor McIntyre writes, “In 1848, women (and some men) gathered in Seneca Falls, N.Y. to discuss women’s rights. In 1913, women picketed and were arrested in front of the White House. By 1920, women were ‘given’ the right to vote through the 19th amendment. This is the traditional narrative… Yet, it was not this simple: it was a contested and highly divisive movement. And with the 19th amendment, not all women were able to exercise suffrage.” This timeline of suffrage in America is a key focus in a project for the course: creating bio sketches of Providence women suffragists from the early 1900s. This project was created to highlight the 16 Black women suffragists in 1916 in Providence, RI, who signed a document calling on the House of Representatives and the United States Senate for aid in securing the right to vote. 

The Rhode Island Black Women’s Suffrage History research project was inspired by Professor McIntyre’s own experience with learning about the group of Black suffragists in Providence, RI. She says, “In January of 2020, I was invited by Thomas Dubin, Professor Emeritus of History at SUNY Binghamton, to collaborate in a public history collection series on African American suffragists. In particular, I was tasked with exploring the role of a group of Black suffragists who signed a petition in support of the federal suffrage amendment in 1916 in Providence, Rhode Island. Little is known about the signers of the petition.” Professor McIntyre says her students are researching digitized historical archives, newspapers, and state census records to piece together biographical sketches of twelve Providence Black suffragists from the early 1900s. Once finished, the sketches will be published in the Online Biographical Dictionary of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the U.S. 

One of the students who participated in Professor McIntyre’s project was Emma Hayes. As a Communications Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies major on track to graduate in 2022, Hayes was looking for a course that not only satisfied her honors program requirement but also spoke to her interests as a Gender and Women’s Studies major, saying, “as a young person in America hoping for change, understanding the workings of the suffrage movement can be a very good tool. There are social issues calling for action, similar to 100 years ago.” Hayes acted as a research assistant for the project and was tasked with picking a few names from the 1916 document and searching for information in databases and archives. Hayes says her favorite part of taking HPR 392 was learning about the suffrage movement and how that interacted with social issues. Hayes also says a research project like this is still applicable and important in 2021, saying, “In 2020, conversations about race became more encouraged and integrated in mainstream news. The research aims to tell the stories of African Americans because they were so often left out of the history of the suffrage movement. We hear the names of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Alice Paul, and although those women were important to the movement, they held extreme privilege. It is important to hear the names of women who are so often ignored or merely overlooked. We need to hear stories about all women and understand that mobilizing in your community and on the local level is still a catalyst for change”. 

Check out the 1916 document with 16 signatures from Black women suffragists in Providence, RI here: https://www.docsteach.org/images/documents/922410169565/orig_922410169565_574572.jpg?v=q9aTZtDKn

~Written by Taylor Petrini, English Major, URI Class of 2021