Update 3/12/20: This lecture has been postponed. It will be rescheduled at a later date.

Since the nation’s founding, Americans have used images to define political power and gender roles. Popular pictures praised male political leaders, while cartoons mocked women who sought rights. In the mid-nineteenth century, women’s rights activists like Sojourner Truth and Susan B. Anthony challenged these powerful norms by distributing engraved and photographic portraits that represented women as political leaders. Over time, suffragists developed a national visual campaign to win voting rights. Their photographs captured their public protests and demonstrated their dedication to their cause for mass audiences.

Allison K. Lange, PhD is an assistant professor of history at the Wentworth Institute of Technology, published essayist and public historian. In preparation for the 2020 centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment, she is curating exhibitions at the Massachusetts Historical Society and Harvard’s Schlesinger Library. Lange’s talk is based on her forthcoming book, "Picturing Political Power: Images in the Women’s Suffrage Movement."

This lecture is a part of the Clements Library's Randolph G. Adams Lecture Series and is co-sponsored by the Michigan Photographic Historical Society.