As part of our “Women on Wednesdays” series, please join the Women & Politics Institute celebrate the Women’s Suffrage Centennial, which commemorates the 1920 certification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote.

Award-winning journalists Lynn Sherr and Ellen Goodman, co-hosts of the She Votes! Our Battle for the Ballot podcast, will discuss the complex history of the women’s suffrage movement, and its enduring significance during their tenure reporting on women’s rights and social change issues. WPI Executive Director Betsy Fischer Martin will facilitate the conversation.

Having lived through—and covered—feminism’s second-wave, Goodman and Sherr tell the definitive story of suffrage, from the first demands to speak on public matters by antislavery activists in 1837, through the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention for women's rights, to the drama of the final passage in 1920 and beyond.

ABOUT LYNN SHERR

Lynn Sherr, a recipient of a Peabody Award and longtime correspondent with ABC News, is the author of 10 books including “Failure is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words” and a new play, “The United States of America vs. Susan B. Anthony.” Sherr’s numerous awards include an Emmy, two American Women in Radio and Television Commendation awards, and a Gracie Award.

ABOUT ELLEN GOODMAN

Ellen Goodman, a Pulitzer prize-winning syndicated columnist for the Boston Globe and Washington Post Writers Group, and founder of The Conversation Project, is author of seven books. Goodman’s first book, “Turning Points,” detailed the effect of the changing roles of women on the family. Six collections of her columns have also been published. Goodman won the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Commentary in 1980 and is a recipient of the American Society of Newspaper Editors Distinguished Writing Award.

Betsy Fischer Martin is an Emmy-winning journalist and former TV news executive. Currently, she is the Executive Director of the Women & Politics Institute at American University and a faculty member in the School of Public Affairs, where she teaches courses on campaigns and elections. During her earlier career in television news, she spent 23 years at NBC News serving as the longtime Executive Producer of Meet the Press with Tim Russert and as the Managing Editor of NBC News Political Programming.

A native of New Orleans, Fischer Martin did her undergraduate and graduate work at American University in Washington, DC. She is a cum laude graduate of their School of Public Affairs and earned a master’s degree in Broadcast Journalism from the AU School of Communication.

"Women on Wednesdays": Women's Suffrage Centennial with Lynn Sherr and Ellen Goodman