In this talk, Sandra Opdycke will describe the varying responses of different wings of the suffrage movement to America’s participation in World War I, ranging from dedicated war-work to hunger-strikes among the suffragists sent to the county workhouse for picketing the White House. She will discuss the women’s successful campaign to get their federal amendment passed by Congress and ratified by 36 state legislatures. And she will conclude by considering some of the political lessons we can learn from the suffragists’ experience.

Sandra Opdycke, Ph.D. is an historian. She recently published When Women Won the Vote, about the woman suffrage movement. She has also written books about the flu epidemic of 1918, the WPA of the 1930s, and Bellevue Hospital, as well as a biography of Jane Addams, an historical atlas of American women’s history, and several co-authored books and articles on social policy. She worked for a number of years at Hudson River Psychiatric Center, and later taught American History and Urban History at Bard, Vassar, and Marist Colleges. She serves as an occasional lecturer at the Center for Lifetime Studies in Poughkeepsie.