BARTOW, Fla. — The Polk County History Center has a brand new exhibit dedicated to the women’s suffrage movement. It’s called, “The 19th Amendment at 100 Years: a Milestone of Democracy for Women’s Suffrage.”

  • Exhibit opens to the public January 10
  • Exhibit kicks off year-long initiative
  • More Polk County stories

The new exhibit depicts the women’s suffrage movement on both local and national levels. It spotlights the women who led the charge for women’s voting rights, including national leaders Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, as well as some of Florida’s suffrage champions, including Dr. Mary Jewett, Mary McLeod Bethune and Marian Horwitz, Florida’s first female mayor.

“The suffrage exhibit offers an opportunity to go back in time and recognize and honor women who were bold, who really stepped out," said Myrtice Young, the History Center’s Historic Preservation Manager. "You know, it was not safe for them to do some of the things they were doing in their protests.” 

2020 marks a century since the 19th amendment was ratified, giving women the constitutional right to vote in all U.S. elections.

“So what I’d really like people — all people, not just women — but everybody to recognize the value, the true value in the right to vote,” Young said.

The exhibit kicks off a year-long initiative where the History Center will host events and speakers focused on America’s democracy.

“We’ll be having a speaker series, we’ll be reading books and reviewing books about the American democratic process,” Young said.

The Center will also be getting a Smithsonian traveling exhibit in October called “Voices and Votes: Democracy in America,” which will be on display through December.

“We are so fortunate to be able to be a host site for an exhibit like this because many, many people, many of the demographics in Polk County are people who don’t have an opportunity to go to Washington DC to tour the Smithsonian,” Young said.