Hayes traveling exhibit focuses on women’s suffrage, activism

        From the Ohio woman who started the first women’s newspaper to the woman who led Women’s March Ohio, a traveling exhibit at the Hayes Presidential Library & Museums examines a century of women’s suffrage and activism.
        “Ohio Women Vote: 100 Years of Change” is a special exhibit created by the Ohio History Connection and League of Women Voters that is traveling around Ohio. It will be on display at Hayes Presidential through Tuesday, Jan. 31.
        This exhibit, which is sponsored by Ohio Humanities, examines women who fought for the right to vote and women who continued that activism through the past 102 years. Women’s suffrage was ratified in 1920.
        “We are excited to host this traveling exhibit as it tours Ohio, most recently at the Main Library of the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library,” said Kevin Moore, Hayes Presidential curator of artifacts. “Women voters were a significant factor in the most recent midterm election, and to understand that significance, it is important to understand the history of political activism among women. In this case, specifically Ohio women.”
        Featured women include slave-turned-abolitionist and women’s rights advocate Sojourner Truth; Amelia Bloomer, who lived in Mount Vernon, Ohio and published the first women’s newspaper; Gloria Steinem, journalist and women’s rights advocate from Toledo and Rhiannon Childs, executive director of Women’s March Ohio in 2017.
        The exhibit covers why voting is important, the power that comes with it, how women have spoken out through the generations, what issues they have advocated and their advice to women of the future.
        It is on display in the lower level of the museum. Access is included with regular admission. Hayes Presidential members are admitted free.
        Located at Spiegel Grove at the corner of Hayes and Buckland avenues in Fremont, Hayes Presidential is America’s first presidential library. It is partially funded by the state of Ohio and affiliated with the Ohio History Connection.
        For information, call 419-332-2081, visit rbhayes.org, like Hayes Presidential on Facebook and follow on Twitter and Instagram at @rbhayespres.