Suffragist Susan B. Anthony: Petitioning for the Right to Vote

This activity can be used to achieve the following objectives:

• Students will analyze a primary source document showing one way Susan B. Anthony and other suffragists fought for women’s rights.
• Students will determine that this document also serves as an example of one freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment, the right to petition the government.
• Students will learn that petitioning the government is one way people have fought for equality throughout American history.

For grades 3-5 or adult learners studying for the United States Civics Test. Approximate time needed is 15 minutes.

A review of the following vocabulary words may be helpful for your students when completing this activity:

• amendment: a change to the Constitution
• disfranchising: to deprive a person a right to citizenship such as the right to vote
• petition: a written request, often signed by many people, asking the government to fix a problem
• suffrage: the right to vote
• universal: affecting or done by all people

Begin the activity in a full-class setting. Ask students to focus on the highlighted parts of the document to answer the following questions:

• Who wrote this document?
• To whom is the document addressed?
• What do the creators of this document want?
• How are Susan B. Anthony and the other signers of this document exercising their First Amendment rights?

Share with students that this document is an example of a petition. The First Amendment protects a person’s right to petition the government to address a problem. Petitions are often written requests signed by many people, like the example in this activity.

After you have reviewed the documents, ask students to think about other ways women (and men) like Susan B. Anthony could have fought for the right to vote. Share this photographic example of a protest outside of the White House that took place over 50 years after the petition from this activity was written.

Discuss with students how it took a long time, but the efforts of activists like Susan B. Anthony eventually led to the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920, which gave women the right to vote.

This activity was designed to support students studying for the United States Civics Test, part of the naturalization process to become a U.S. citizen. It supports Civics Test Questions:

• 4. What is an amendment?
• 6. What is one right or freedom from the First Amendment?
• 48. There are four amendments to the Constitution about who can vote. Describe one of them.
• 77. What did Susan B. Anthony do?