{"id":160,"date":"2011-09-06T16:44:39","date_gmt":"2011-09-06T16:44:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/?p=160"},"modified":"2020-12-16T09:22:52","modified_gmt":"2020-12-16T15:22:52","slug":"womens-suffrage-digital-collection-unveiled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/2011\/09\/06\/womens-suffrage-digital-collection-unveiled\/","title":{"rendered":"Women’s Suffrage digital collection unveiled"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Iowa Women\u2019s Archives and University of Iowa Libraries marked Women\u2019s Equality Day\u2014August 26<\/span>th<\/span><\/sup>\u2014by unveiling a new digital collection documenting the decades-long campaign by Iowa women to gain the right to vote. The Women\u2019s Suffrage in Iowa Digital Collection is the culmination of a yearlong project to select and scan photographs, letters, and other primary sources from the University Libraries, the State Historical Society of Iowa, and Iowa State University\u2019s Special Collections Department.  This collection is now available through the Iowa Digital Library and can be found here<\/a>.<\/span><\/span>  <\/strong>It offers researchers, teachers, students, historians, and genealogists a centralized starting point for further investigation into this significant period in Iowa\u2019s history.\"Women's<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 \u201cThis is a great example of the power of digitization.  \u201cWomen\u2019s Suffrage in Iowa\u201d brings together documents scattered through collections in the Iowa Women\u2019s Archives and at other institutions and makes them available to a wide audience within and beyond the borders of Iowa,\u201d said IWA curator K\u00e4ren Mason.   \u201cWe hope the digital collection will entice Iowans to visit the Iowa Women\u2019s Archives, the State Historical Society, or Iowa State. Since we were only able to include a fraction of the rich suffrage collections in Iowa there are many treasures yet to be uncovered.\u201d  <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In addition, the Iowa Women\u2019s Archives has created an online exhibit that provides a brief introduction to Iowa\u2019s suffrage history and points to local and state suffrage resources including websites, print materials, personal collections, newspaper archives, and contacts in various counties.  The exhibit \u201cIowa\u2019s Suffrage Scrapbook: 1854-1920\u201d is accessible at <\/span>http:\/\/sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu\/exhibits\/suffrage\/<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/span>Among the digitized items is sheet music for a song written by Helen Cowles LeCron as Iowa geared up for a statewide referendum on women\u2019s suffrage  in 1916:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

When suffrage takes the Hawkeye State, Hurrah! Hurrah!
\nThe world will call us wise and great, Hurrah! Hurrah!
\n<\/span><\/span>So lend your smiles and best applause, Hurrah! Hurrah!
\nTo help the worthy Suffrage Cause, Hurrah! Hurrah!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

                 \u201cWhen Suffrage Takes the Hawkeye State\u201d<\/em> by Helen Cowles LeCron<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Alas, the optimism of these lyrics was not borne out.  The suffragists\u2019  hopes were dashed in what was generally viewed as a corrupt election, heavily influenced by the liquor interests that feared a female electorate would bring about prohibition.  Iowa women had to wait another four years to vote, until the 19<\/span>th<\/span><\/sup> Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified on August 26, 1920.  A map showing \u201cirregularities\u201d in the 1916 referendum and hundreds of other documents are now available online, thanks to a grant from the State Historical Society, Inc. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBy presenting the exhibit in the form of a scrapbook, we tried to evoke the feeling of doing historical research, paging through an old volume looking for clues to what people thought and did as they fought for the vote,\u201d said Christine Mastalio, a graduate student in the University of Iowa\u2019s School of Library and Information Science who created the exhibit and digital collection with another SLIS student, Kayla Pollock.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The <\/span>Iowa Women\u2019s Archives<\/span><\/a> <\/span><\/span>holds manuscript collections that chronicle the lives and work of Iowa women, their families, and their communities. These personal papers and organizational records date from the nineteenth century to the present. Together with oral histories, they document the activities of Iowa women throughout the state and beyond its borders. The Iowa Women’s Archives is open to the public and located on the third floor of the University of Iowa\u2019s Main Library. Questions may be directed to <\/span><\/span>lib-women@uiowa.edu<\/span><\/a> or to staff at 319-335-5068. Or find the Archives on Facebook at  <\/span><\/span>http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/#!\/IowaWomensArchives<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Iowa Women\u2019s Archives and University of Iowa Libraries marked Women\u2019s Equality Day\u2014August 26th\u2014by unveiling a new digital collection documenting the decades-long campaign by Iowa women to gain the right to vote. The Women\u2019s Suffrage in Iowa Digital Collection is the culmination of a yearlong project to select and scan photographs, letters, and other primaryContinue reading “Women’s Suffrage digital collection unveiled”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":143,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,6],"tags":[229],"syndication":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/143"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1939,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions\/1939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160"},{"taxonomy":"syndication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/syndication?post=160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}