Week 3

This was my third week at my internship, so I feel that a routine is starting to be established. I started to write bibliographies for two of the African American suffragettes that Lori gave me. The first woman, Fannie Barrier Williams, contained a great amount of information on her, so writing her bibliography was pretty easy. Williams was born in New York, but mostly completed her suffrage work in Chicago. She was a member of many exclusive African American rights clubs, some of which her husband was also a member. One of her most memorable facts that I discovered was that she advocated that women vote independent, rather than standing behind one political party. She retired to her hometown after the death of her husband. The other woman I researched was named Bettiola Fortson. She was a member of the Alpha Suffrage Club, but was most well known for her work as a poet. She performed many poems for the club, including “Brothers”, which circled around the heroic act of two brothers revenging racist acts against their sister by a white southerner. It seems that most of these women were intertwined in the world of the women’s suffrage movement, but held unique roles and came from different backgrounds. Next week I hope to keep unearthing facts about this understudied group.