In celebration of the Centennial Anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, the NSDAR Archives released a book as well as a special exhibit highlighting some of the DAR members who made an impact during this transformative era. The exhibit, Ordinary Equality: DAR Members and the Road to Women’s Suffrage, 1890-1920, will be on display in the Americana Room until April 21, 2021 and the book is available from the DAR Store.
Ordinary Equality’s focus is Progressive Era women’s activities generally and DAR members’ activities specifically. Many important women who were socially or professionally active between 1890 and 1920 were not DAR members. At the same time, the intention is not to include an exhaustive list of DAR members who were active during this period. The reader will discover, however, that each of the women included was a person of great attitude and energy who was motivated by a desire to make the world around her a kinder, safer place.
The DAR was founded in 1890 at the beginning of the Progressive Era. During this time period, women not only took advantage of new educational and career possibilities available to them but also actively participated in a variety of social reform activities. DAR’s founders and many of its most prominent members took advantage of opportunities to fulfill their professional aspirations as well. Those women had many qualities in common—the greatest of them an apparent clarity of mission and purpose strengthened by a capacity for large amounts of work; a determined rejection of erroneous beliefs traditionally held regarding the limits of women’s abilities; and, in some ways most interesting, a rather transparent awareness of their responsibilities to history and the assumed permanent quality of their societal contributions.
While this may seem like a tale of women and ordinary equality, the reader will find that it is actually the story of women and work.
Featured in Ordinary Equality are Red Cross founder Clara Barton, Hull House co-founder Jane Addams, and suffragists Susan B. Anthony and Alice Paul along with dozens of other fascinating women.
