Beyond Supply & Demand: Duke Economics Students Present 100 Years of American Women’s Suffrage

It is an ongoing challenge to represent the full range of contributions to the American women’s suffrage movement because the Rubenstein Library's collections, and the historical record generally, reflect only a fraction of these stories. The dominant narrative of the American suffrage movement has focused on white women who benefited from the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment more than Black, Indigenous, and Women of Color (BIWOC). Nevertheless we have tried in this exhibit to share a diversity of historical figures and viewpoints throughout.

The Rubenstein Library acknowledges the historical role of libraries and archives, including our own institution, in centering and amplifying the voices of those with political, social, and economic power, while omitting and erasing the voices of marginalized people. We take responsibility for this imbalance in our collections and redouble our efforts to focus on centering Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities in our collecting and descriptive practices.