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      • Tennessee at 225
      • Early Expressions: Art in Tennessee Before 1900
      • In Search of the New: Art in Tennessee Since 1900
      • Why Do Museums Collect
    • Online Exhibitions
      • Tennessee at 225
      • Ratified! Statewide!
      • Canvassing Tennessee: Artists and Their Environments
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      • Best of Tennessee Craft
      • Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
      • Tennessee and the Great War: A Centennial Exhibition
      • STARS: Elementary Art Exhibition 2022
      • Cordell Hull: Tennessee's Father of the United Nations
      • Lets Eat! Origins and Evolutions of Tennessee Food
      • The State of Sound: Tennessee’s Musical Heritage
      • Red Grooms: A Retrospective
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Temporary Exhibitions

Tennessee's Musical Heritage

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Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote image

Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote

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JULY 31, 2020 - September 26, 2021

"...a stunning achievement that should make every Tennessean proud." -- Erica Ciccarone, Nashville Scene

"...a gorgeous two-gallery exhibit ... (that) tells a more complicated version of the suffrage story, going back much further than the vote for ratification." -- Margaret Renkl, New York Times

In August of 1920, the nation’s attention was on Tennessee. The 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote throughout the country, had passed at the federal level a year earlier, and was now making its way through state legislatures for ratification. It needed 36 states to approve it, and was stalled at 35. Tennessee was its best hope for ratification. The final vote for ratification at the State Capitol in Nashville on August 18, 1920 was historic not only in its outcome, but for its thrilling 11th-hour circumstances and the great uncertainty surrounding that outcome. There is, of course, much more to the story. In this 8,000 square-foot, two-gallery exhibition, the Tennessee State Museum not only explores the circumstances in and around Nashville that August, but also delves into the story of women’s suffrage throughout the entire state of Tennessee in the decades leading up to the vote. From the state’s beginnings, women found ways to express their political views. In the 1840s, a national women’s suffrage movement started to develop in the North.  After the Civil War and Reconstruction, Tennessee suffragists spent many years building the movement within the state despite considerable opposition. Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote at the Tennessee State Museum uses artifacts, documents, large-scale graphics, videos, interactive elements and public programming to share the stories of the Tennesseans who came to have decisive roles in American women’s struggle to gain voting rights. 


Please visit Ratified! Statewide!, an online component of the exhibition and a look at the suffrage movement in every county in Tennessee.

Ratified! Statewide! logo


Image: Mary Church Terrell, of Memphis Tennessee, fought for women's suffrage and civil rights and served as the first national president of the National Association of College Women from 1897-1901. 

The Exhibition is Supported in Part by Bank of America

 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote
 
 
Nashville Equal Suffrage League Banner
I Am Opposed to Woman Suffrage Pledge Card
 
Photo of a Memphis suffrage march published in March 1916 in The Commercial Appeal.
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