Spotlight: Albany and Anti-Suffrage

The year 2017 marks the centennial of woman’s suffrage in New York State.

There is no suffrage story without the anti-suffrage story.

Today it is impossible to imagine a world where women didn’t have the right to vote. The years leading up to 1917 were fraught with difficulty both politically and personally for women on both sides of the argument. Not every woman wanted the right to vote. In fact, Albany was considered a stronghold of the anti-suffrage movement.

This exhibit tells the story of the women who first met in 1894 before the New York Constitutional Convention convened, organized the Albany branch of the New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, lobbied to make their views heard in 1915, and lost their fight in 1917.

The Anti-Suffrage story is curated by Albany Institute curator Diane Shewchuk, while the suffrage story is highlighted by guest curator Dr. Carolyn Stefanco, President of the College of Saint Rose.