News

Advancing Equality for Women exhibit opens Sept. 1 in the Windgate Gallery

One Half of the People: Advancing Equality for Women, a multimedia exhibition by National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC, will be on display at UA-PTC Windgate Gallery Sept. 1 until Oct. 20, 2021, at The Center for Humanities and Arts (CHARTS) at University of Arkansas Pulaski Technical College, 3000 W. Scenic Drive, in North Little Rock, Ark.

At the founding of our country, women’s roles were rigidly defined and women were generally excluded from political and, in many ways, public life. Enslaved women were excluded entirely. Considered under the protection and authority of their husbands long into the 19th century, most women could not vote, own property, make contracts, go to court, or control any money they earned.

From the decades-long campaign for voting rights to expanding social and economic equality through legislation, and being recognized as citizens, this exhibit explores how those before us obtained the rights and privileges of citizenship promised to women today.

Visitors will explore how a diverse group of suffragists—individuals who supported giving voting rights to women—fought for more than 70 years using many different strategies and how women continued to seek equality after the 19th Amendment. The exhibit also features profiles on eleven women and—through National Archives records—how they lived and worked, pushing boundaries of what was accepted and expected of women. The women featured are Sarah Emma Edmonds Seelye, Harriet Tubman, Annie Oakley, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin, Willa Brown, Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, Shirley Chisholm, Sandra Day O’Connor, and Ellen Ochoa.

One Half of the People: Advancing Equality for Women was created by the National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC, and is traveled by the National Archives Traveling Exhibits Service (NATES). It is presented in part by Unilever, Pivotal Ventures, Carl M. Freeman Foundation in honor of Virginia Allen Freeman, AARP, and the National Archives Foundation. Additional support provided by AT&T, Facebook, and FedEx. For more information on this exhibit and companion projects at the National Archives, visit: www.archives.gov/women.

Windgate Gallery hours are 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m.- 2 p.m. on Saturdays. Admission is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Kurt Leftwich, CHARTS Programming and Box Office Coordinator at [email protected] or (501) 812-2831.