Women and the Vote
Inspired by Suffrage for Women by Maria Chan, Treasures Grade 5, Unit 5
Erin K Hulse, Drama Resource Teacher, APS ARTS Center, hulse@aps.edu 880-8249 x 160
Readers’ Theatre
Six Readers
Time: Fall afternoon, just before a nation-wide election
Place: Playground at a local elementary school
At Rise: A group of kids, deciding what to play for their fifteen minute recess. One has a basketball,
one has a long jump rope.
READER 1: Hey! What are we gonna play?
READER 2: I don’t know—we only get 15 minutes for recess.
READER 3: Yeah, then we have to go back in and do social studies.
READER 4: I think social studies is kinda cool.
READER 5: I agree, but I sure needed to get outta my chair and stretch my legs.
READER 6: I know…we could play football.
READER 2: Nah, I was playing the other day, tripped and fell and banged up my knee—it was like
really getting tackled.
READER 6: Ouch! Sorry…
READER 2: We could shoot some hoops…
READER 3: We’re too late—court’s taken.
READER 4: We could jump rope…it’s long enough for all of us!
READER 5: That game’s so old fashioned. It’s like 100 years old.
READER 1: Why don’t we vote on what to do?
READER 5: Not voting again—with this upcoming election, I’m sick and tired of voting.
1
READER 6: But voting has been around for over two hundred years in this country.
READER 4: Not for women, it hasn’t.
READER 3: What do you mean, women can vote.
READER 5: They can now…
READER 2: But it was less than 100 years ago that women got the right to vote.
READER 1: Yeah, and all it took was an amendment to the US Constitution.
READER 4: Yep, they had to add something to the Constitution so women could vote in the US.
READER 6: The women had a movement called suffrage.
READER 3: Oooo…that sounds painful.
READER 4: No, “suffrage” means the right to vote.
READER 5: Women didn’t have it until 1920…
READER 2: It’s the 19th Amendment.
READER 1: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged
READER 6: (interrupting) That means “limited”
READER 1: (continuing) by the United States of by any State on account of sex.”
READER 4: That means gender.
READER 3: So women could work and stuff, but they couldn’t vote?
READER 2: Well, in Wyoming they could—but only in state elections, not national.
READER 1: Weird—I thought anyone over 18 could vote.
READER 5: Yeah…but there were women who tried to get the vote earlier than 1920.
READER 6: Those were the suffragettes—groups of women who would march for their rights.
READER 4: Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Carrie Catt, and others would
travel around and organize women to speak up and try to get the right to vote.
READER 3: And in 1872…
2
READER 1: That’s way before 1920…
READER 6: Susan B. Anthony led a group of women into a polling place in Rochester, New York
READER 5: and they all cast a vote for president.
READER 4: And got arrested and fined.
READER 2: For voting??? That’s crazy.
READER 3: I know, but it was against the law for women to vote!
READER 1: It took over 50 years of them protesting to get the right to vote.
READER 2: How do you all know so much about suffrage?
READER 4: I told you, I like social studies!
3