It was not an easy battle, nor a short one for women (and men supportive of the cause) to get to this point. Even those at the forefront of the fight and leading the charge didn’t always agree on how to pursue their sometimes conflicting goals. And the struggles of women for equality at the ballot box was only one tract on the road to parity that is still being traveled today.

To commemorate the centennial of the 19th amendment, quilters/authors/teachers Dr. Sandra Sider and Pamela Weeks came up with the idea to have a juried exhibition with the theme of women’s suffrage. That quickly morphed into a larger project, and the pair put out an invitation to quilt artists, encouraging them to create works with their own interpretation and of the topic, free from censorship.

​Sara Bard Field: Suffrage Envoy by Martha Wolfe

Nearly 30 artists answered the call, and the end result in Deeds Not Words: Celebrating 100 Years of Women’s Suffrage. The exhibit will be shown at Virtual Quilt Festival, Dec. 3-5, and Schiffer Publishing has produced an accompanying book featuring photos and essays. Luana Rubin of eQuilter.com was also an enthusiastic supporter and sponsor. Dr. Sider is also the editor of Studio Art Quilt Associates’ Art Quilt Quarterly and the Curator of the Texas Quilt Museum, while Weeks is the Curator of the New England Quilt Museum.

​Jane Addams: A Most Dangerous Woman by Laura Wasilowski

“We were surprised and gratified by the high level of enthusiasm from the participating artists,” Dr. Sider—who made her own quilt for the project—says. “ I feel honored and humbled to be part of this exhibition.”

​She Refused to Walk Behind by Alice Beasley

Other quilters participating included Alice Beasley, Sue Bleiweiss, Hollis Chatelain, Sandy Curran, Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry, Jayne Gaskins, Pat Kumicich, Teresa May, Robin Schwalb, Susan Shie, and Laura Wasilowski. Many of the quilts featured a single suffragette as their subject.

“What we were taught in school about the struggle for the vote for women was pretty simple—a handful of women marched until women were granted the vote,” Weeks says. “The actual fight was more than 100 years long, and was the result of thousands of women and men working not just for the right to vote, but for complete equal rights for women, including property ownership, education, and employment parity.”

She adds that the struggle was interrupted by four wars, when women set aside the suffrage battle and helped with war efforts. And even some of the movement’s brightest lights had unfortunate issues and behaviors.

“Many of the white women were racist, and strove to suppress the work of Black women suffragists, attempting to segregate them from the mainstream,” she continues. “But the 19th Amendment never would have passed without the combined efforts of all of these women, working locally and some nationally, to change the white male-dominated status quo. And we're still working on it.”

Many history lessons are presented in the individual works, and many artists chose to depict less prominent figures of the movement. Weeks says it shows that “the successful fight for women's suffrage was long, hard, fractured, nuanced, complicated, and the result of people who simply would not give up.”

​Honor Her by Sandy Curran

All of the quilts in Deeds Not Words (the title taken from the motto coined by militant British suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst) will be seen in the Quilt Galleries section of Virtual Quilt Festival.

Asked for what she thinks the #1 takeaway from seeing this exhibit should be, Dr. Sider is succinct. “Every vote counts. And every person who wants to vote should be able to vote.”