Institute Overview
Week One
The first week is an immersive introduction into the subject of women’s suffrage history, with an emphasis on the intersections between class, race, and gender, and transnational organizing. The two co-directors of the program, Dr. Stephanie Mitchell and Dr. Patricia Harms will lead the first week’s sessions. Questions to be addressed include: 1) What is the current state of historiography of women’s suffrage? 2) Under what circumstances do suffrage extensions occur? 3) What are the intersecting roles of class, race/ethnicity, and gender across region and time? 4) How did women’s transnational organizing develop historically? and 5) What factors need to be considered if we are to generate a meaningful interpretive framework for understanding transnational women’s suffrage history?
Week Two
During the second week, participants will explore and test with their own regional expertise each of our five models. Each day will feature specialists on the national histories of the countries whose trajectories they believe fit that day’s model. Participants will have the unprecedented opportunity to engage with specialists on all regions of the Americas in a collaborative process of knowledge creation through lectures, round-tables, group activities, and workshops. At the Institute’s conclusion, Senior scholar Dr. Asunción Lavrin will describe her own intellectual trajectory in a field that did not exist when she began her academic career. Having observed the progress we have made, she will suggest directions for future teaching and research.
Participants will access Dr. Lavrin’s own archive, which is housed at Carthage College, and work with the College’s archivist to create classroom materials for teaching otherwise inaccessible women’s history through primary documents.
Throughout the process, graphic designer José Montoto will guide the technical creation of our web-based tools.