2020 Exhibit

2020 Exhibit: Women's Suffrage in West Virginia

This year's exhibit was delayed due to COVID-19 restrictions, and opened on November 2, 2020 in the WVU Libraries' Rockefeller Gallery. 

West Virginia ratified the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting women the right to vote on March 10, 1920. It was the 34th state to do so. The margin of victory was narrow. The vote was tied until a state senator made a last-minute trek across the country to cast the winning vote. The vote was a dramatic conclusion to a campaign for women’s suffrage in the Mountain State that was almost as old as West Virginia itself.  This exhibit documenting the suffrage movement is drawn from the holdings of the WVU Libraries’ West Virginia and Regional History Center. 

To access a digital version of the exhibit, please visit Women's Suffrage in West Virginia.

2020 Presentation: Country Roads and Small Towns: Tracking West Virginia’s Contribution to the 19th Amendment

Due to the History Center's closure during COVID-19 in the summer of 2020, our celebration of West Virginia Day this year began with an online presentation by Anne W. Effland, retired from a 30-year career as a historian and economist with USDA. Her talk, titled “Country Roads and Small Towns: Tracking West Virginia’s Contribution to the 19th Amendment,” explores the evolution and national significance of the Woman Suffrage movement in West Virginia. The video recording and  transcript are available online.

Effland earned her master’s in history from WVU in 1983 and worked for the WVRHC from 1979 to 1983. She received her doctorate in history from Iowa State University in 1991. Effland has published on the West Virginia women’s suffrage movement and researches rural history.