NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshops for School Teachers: Women's Suffrage on the Western Frontier

FAIN: BH-50268-08

Wyoming Humanities Council (Laramie, WY 82072-3459)
Marcia Wolter Britton (Project Director: March 2008 to August 2013)
Shannon D. Smith (Project Director: August 2013 to June 2010)

The Wyoming Humanities Council and the University of Wyoming's College of Education, in partnership with the Wyoming State Department of Parks and Cultural Resources, propose to conduct two one-week summer teacher workshops in 2009 that will feature the South Pass National Historic Landmark and South Pass City State Historic Site. These sites in the American West provided the surprising backdrop for the first women's suffrage act, passed during the 1869 Wyoming Territorial Legislature. The 2009 NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture grant proposal is a reapplication, a repeat of NEH grant awards in 2006 and 2008. Teacher participants found the sites and the Wyoming women's suffrage case study to be revealing as they explored the central question of the workshop-- why did women's suffrage first take root in the western states at places like South Pass City, rather than in the East where the established suffrage organizations placed their emphasis and hope?