To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the passing of the 19th Amendment, the Monroe County History Center is displaying a year-long exhibition on women's voting rights in the Deckard Education Room.
The exhibit, “Votes for Women: The Local Suffrage Movement In Monroe County” will display memorabilia from the suffrage movement, such as photographs, newspaper clippings and timelines.
The exhibit will include information on Monroe County women who were involved in the state and national suffrage movements.
The exhibition is based on a research by Hilary Fleck, Monroe County History Center’s collection manager that emphasizes how the suffrage movement changed Monroe County women's roles in politics.
The May Wright Sewall Fellowship from Indiana Humanities, a non-profit organization, supports the exhibition.
Leah Nahmias, director of Indiana Humanities and IU alumna, said Indiana Humanities’ goal is look for new research around women’s involvement with politics and help people learn about the history.
What happened on the state level is often less understood, Nahmias said. They received research proposals that revolved around women's suffrage movements and women’s involvement in politics.
“We didn’t know as much about what had happened in southern Indiana so we’re excited to have a project from Bloomington,” Nahmias said.
Fleck was already pretty familiar with the Monroe County Historical records, Nahmias said. The program selected research proposals based on researchers' knowledge of collections and artifacts, and the how interesting the proposal was.
“The best research projects are based on some kind of prior knowledge of what might be there," Nahmias said. "A pretty good hunch and educated guess, if you spend time looking you will find things.”
The exhibition is free and does not require tickets. It is open from 10 a.m.- 4 p.m. Jan. 13 to Dec. 31.
