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As you enter the second-story Special Collections rooms of the Nashville Public Library (NPL) downtown, your eye is immediately drawn to the view out the window of the State Capitol building just beyond.
Cast your glance to the right and you’ll see the Hermitage Hotel. That view frames the story that now unfolds in the library’s newest permanent exhibit, Votes for Women, which sits directly across from the Civil Rights Room. Votes for Women opens (virtually for now) on August 18, the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which soon became law, giving women the right to vote. The vote was not an easy win—tireless female advocates on both sides battled around the country, with the final stand-off playing out on the blocks surrounding the Capitol, including at the Hermitage, that summer.
Now, that history is brought to life through NPL’s interactive new exhibit.
Much like the movement itself, the Votes for Women room came to be thanks to a dedicated group of Nashville women. Margaret Behm, a longtime attorney and the first to co-open an all-female law practice in Nashville, has been celebrating Nashville’s Suffrage story since writing a play, titled “War of the Roses,” while she was a Girl Scouts leader. She and friend Jeanie Nelson, founder and former CEO of The Land Trust For Tennessee, connected with Juli Mosley, former chair of the Metro Nashville Airport Authority who sat on the NPL Foundation’s Board of Directors; in 2018, the three presented the idea to create a room at the library similar to the Civil Rights Room that honors, celebrates, and engages visitors on Nashville’s history in the Suffrage Movement.
“I love this story because it’s all about, both politically and culturally, women and power,” says Behm. “There is a fantastic quote that sits at the centerpiece of the room that reads, ‘Women have always been an equal part of the past. We just haven’t been a part of history.’ Well, Jeanie and Juli and I, we have grown up knowing that and seeing that. This room allows people to walk in and [see] what women have really done.”
Tuck-Hinton Architecture & Design
The three banded together to help raise $3 million to fund the construction of the room as well as its forthcoming programming. (The amount raised ensures that the room won’t rely on additional funding for at least a 10-year period.) They also had their hands and minds in every part of the planning as they worked alongside Kem Hinton and Katie Woods of Tuck-Hinton Architecture and Design to craft the physical space, and with Suffrage historian and founder of Chick History Rebecca Price, who worked as a curatorial adviser, giving the room an interactive energy and a storyline that comes to life. Elaine Weiss, author of The Woman’s Hour, an engaging book about the Suffrage Movement, as well as many others also provided input and inspiration.
The entrance into Votes for Women includes a montage of imagery that starts in the present and moves backward through time.
Price says, “We wanted to anchor people in their present, then we let it slowly unfold in reverse so they can see all the women who have come before them.”
A large circular table sits at the center of the room and acts as a voting space—visitors can cast their vote and see the results on a circular LED screen above, allowing young people and students to engage with the voting process. There are also four anchor points that showcase topics such as the people behind the movement—you’ll see familiar faces like activists Anne Dallas Dudley and J. Frankie Pierce, and Harry T. Burn, who cast the deciding vote, as well as several lesser known or new characters.
Another anchor point homes in on the complexities of race and racism within the movement, an important thread in the exhibit, by showing the contributions that African-American women made to the cause. There’s also a contemporary piece that explores how visitors can continue to take action and participate in civil democracy. These anchors include traditional wall panels, interactive touch strips, and a number of images pulled or reproduced from both NPL’s special collection as well as the Library of Congress and other archives. In both its virtual and physical form, the space provides an opportunity to learn more about this important story—whether you’re coming to it for the first time or you know it well.
“The room looks at the fight, and what it took for women to get the votes. But it also looks forward. It looks at democracy and it looks at power and what it takes to have power,” says Price.
She hopes people leave thinking about, “what they can do moving forward, what kind of citizen they want to be, and how they can become engaged in public life.”
Votes for Women at The Nashville Public Library Downtown opens virtually on August 18. For full details go to library.nashville.org