A well-dressed young woman enters “Voting Booth No. 1.”
Title: “The Mystery of 1920,” Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly Newspaper, cover, September 11, 1920.
About the image: A well-dressed young woman enters “Voting Booth No. 1.”
Why does Natomas Charter School Teacher Jeff Pollard find this image interesting?
“I use this image as part of my introduction to a primary source investigation about the New Woman of the 1920s using Marchand Archive resources. I think it is a fantastic image because it gets students’ attention, and the increased status for women in the 1920s is so clear. The image itself does a lot of work for me as a teacher by setting up my investigation. The title of the image is “The Mystery of 1920.” So I ask students, “What is the mystery?” Students clearly can see that this New Woman was confident, stylish, and even a bit egotistical in her glance. Through analyzing the image students come to the conclusion that the mystery of 1920 is the question: How will America be changed as women step into voting and toward political equality? It is a great example of how images can be used to set up investigations, get students’ attention, and link a concept to an image. I come back to this image later in the year when I review for the the standardized test required by California. I show this image again and ask students the following questions: What was the mystery? Why 1920? What amendment granted women suffrage? The students remember the image and remember the content associated with it as well.”
Related Topics/Themed Collections: Twenties, 20’s pop culture, women
Lessons in the Marchand Collection:
- The “New Woman” of the 1920s by Jeff Pollard, CHSS 11.5.4, 11.5.7, IN PRINT – AVAILABLE ONLY IN THE MARCHAND ROOM
- Slang in the 1920s by Kevin Williams, CHSS 11.5, IN PRINT – AVAILABLE ONLY IN THE MARCHAND ROOM
Resources Available in the Marchand Collection:
- Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920-1940, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.
Share your ideas! How would you use this image? Let us know here.
Wow…nice primary document.
Thanks for the description of using an image to provoke a question that becomes a focus question for an investigation. It has made me think of ways that I use images to answer and could easily, with different questions, get students to see images and be left with an essential question we can investigate.