Shall Not Be Denied ― Women Fight for the Vote

Official Companion to the Library of Congress Exhibition.

Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote tells the story of the long campaign for women’s suffrage – considered the largest reform movement in American history – which lasted more than seven decades. The struggle was not for the fainthearted. For years, determined women organized, lobbied, paraded, petitioned, lectured, picketed and faced imprisonment.

The book is a profusely illustrated companion to an exhibition organized by the Library of Congress. Both the book and the exhibition draw from the Library’s extensive collections of personal papers and organizational records of such figures as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mary Church Terrell, Carrie Chapman Catt, the National Woman’s Party, the National American Woman Suffrage Association and others.

Shall Not Be Denied traces the movement leading to the women’s rights convention at Seneca Falls, the contributions of suffragists who worked to persuade women that they deserved the same rights as men, the divergent political strategies and internal divisions they overcame, the push for a federal women’s suffrage amendment and the legacy of this movement.
Shall Not Be Denied is part of the national commemoration of the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage, marking major milestones in 2019 and 2020. The exhibition opens on the 100th anniversary of the U.S. Senate’s passage of the suffrage amendment that would become the 19th amendment to the Constitution once ratification by the states was certified on August 26, 1920.

Published by Rutgers University Press in association with the Library of Congress.

Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote
Exhibition at the the Library of Congress
June 4, 2019 – September 2020