The Suffrage Shop | Sue & Leon Genet Gallery

The Sue and Leon Genet Gallery at the School of Design is pleased to present ​The Suffrage Shop​ , an exhibition co-curated by Museum Studies graduate students ​Madeline Nielsen ‘21 and Emma Rathe ‘21.​

As white women began to explore their freedom as consumers, suffragists in the United States were campaigning for the right to vote. The Suffrage Movement sought to ratify the 19th Amendment of the Constitution, which legally granted women this right, and did so by copying many of the same campaigning techniques used in the United Kingdom. Beginning in 1910, women in London set up storefronts, known as Suffrage Shops. The shops provided women a space to meet with other suffragists and to help spread educational materials that pushed the messages of the movement.

In an effort to recognize the exclusionary nature of Suffrage Shops, this gallery advocates for the inclusion of a wider range of narratives. The space invites visitors to have conversations surrounding the women’s movement, from its inception to the present day, and how it must change to serve evolving definitions and lived realities as to what it means to be a woman.

Public gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday, noon to 5:00 p.m., or by appointment.