The Vote: Part One Full Documentary American Experience PBS

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Mar 10, 2026 #WomensHistory #History #Voting

One hundred years after the passage of the 19th Amendment, THE VOTE tells the dramatic culmination story of the hard-fought campaign waged by American women for the right to vote, a transformative cultural and political movement that resulted in the largest expansion of voting rights in U.S. history. Focusing primarily on the movement’s final decade, the film charts American women’s determined march to the ballot box, and illuminates the myriad social, political and cultural obstacles that stood in their path. THE VOTE delves into the controversies that divided the nation in the early 20th century — gender, race, state's rights, and political power — and reveals the fractious dynamics of social change.

PART ONE (1909-1915) traces the rise of suffrage militancy, a direct-action approach to politics inspired by Britain’s notoriously militant suffragettes. First introduced in New York by Harriot Stanton Blatch, the daughter of women’s rights pioneer Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and later championed by Alice Paul, the new, “unladylike” tactics heightened the movement’s visibility, as thousands of American women took to the streets to boldly demand their right to full and equal citizenship.

Narrated by Kate Burton, THE VOTE also features the voices of Mae Whitman, Audra McDonald, and Patricia Clarkson.