Who Belongs in the Suffrage Forest?

Abstract Biography played a central role in the centennial commemoration of the Nineteenth Amendment in 2020, as historians highlighted a veritable rainbow of queer, Black, working-class, Native, and Latina suffragists to counter the perception that the women’s suffrage movement was only comprised of white, cisgender women. Among the newly uncovered suffragists were Adelina (Nina) Otero-Warren, Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, and Lucy Diggs Slowe. Collective biography is well suited to recovering and integrating this wider cast of characters into suffrage history. When future narratives of the women’s suffrage movement are written, the stories of overlooked, underrepresented, and forgotten suffragists will be essential building blocks.