The role the First State played in advancing women’s suffrage is highlighted in an exhibition by Delaware Humanities.
The exhibition, called “Nothing Less” is one of several created by Delaware Humanities and made available to organizations across the state, like the Claymont Community Center in Wilmington. The title of the exhibit comes from a famous quote by Susan B. Anthony, “Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.”
“Nothing Less” was originally conceived in 2020 to mark the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. Just as Delaware Humanities was preparing the exhibit, the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Distribution of the exhibit to organizations across the state was limited over the next few years, but 105 years after women got the vote nationwide, the exhibit remains popular and relevant.
Delaware Humanities’ Senior Programs Officer Rebecca Olsen says the exhibit covers years of women suffragists in the First State.
“The first who would have been Mary Ann Sorden Stuart of Greenwood, who began the fight for the women's right to vote in Delaware in 1868," she said.
Over the next five decades and more, Delaware women were instrumental in the suffrage movement, but when the time to ratify the 19th Amendment finally arrived in 1920, Delaware’s all-male legislature came up short. The First State could have been the final state needed to make the 19th into law. Instead, says Olsen,"
“April 1st, it was voted down. Then they went to bring it back and then in June, they just adjourned without actually bringing it back. So it didn't happen.”
“Nothing Less” is available for display by organizations around the state through Delaware Humanities.
Delaware Public Media's arts coverage is made possible, in part, by support from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
