ERIC Number: EJ1234959
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019-Oct
Pages: 5
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0037-7724
EISSN: N/A
Leading Students to Explore Suffragists' Legacy of Civic Engagement through a Biographical Play
Campbell, Amanda; Wesson, Stephen
Social Education, v83 n5 p256-260 Oct 2019
In the 1930s, suffragist and women's rights activist Maud Wood Park "had the happy idea of dramatizing a series of episodes from Lucy Stone's life." This idea resulted in the publication, in 1938, of a 162-page nine-act play, "Lucy Stone: A Chronicle Play," based on a biography of the abolitionist and suffragist by her daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell. The creation of "Lucy Stone: A Chronicle Play" also brought together the lives and work of two other remarkable suffragists, Maud Wood Park and Alice Stone Blackwell, who used this literary work to convey an important message about civic engagement. Each act of the play focuses on a different time period, often dramatizing a major turning point in Lucy Stone's life. The play is rich in the discussion of ideas, and uses each biographical episode to explore the circumstances that shaped Stone's moral convictions, the philosophy that informed her life as an activist, and the issues that animated the suffrage movement. The copyright deposit copy of "Lucy Stone: A Chronicle Play," which can be found in the online collections of the Library of Congress (www.loc.gov/ resource/rbnawsa.n8512/?sp=2), includes not only the full text of the play, but information on props, settings, and characters, as well as other tips for producing a performance. A thorough analysis of this document provides rich opportunities to explore the ways in which the suffragists' legacy of civic engagement is communicated in this play. Approaches teachers could use to engage students with the document are numerous. This article also provides suggestions for other objects in the Library's online collections that can deepen students' exploration of "Lucy Stone: A Chronicle Play."
Descriptors: United States History, Biographies, Drama, Teaching Methods, Feminism, Civil Rights, Females, Citizen Participation, History Instruction, Voting
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
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