VCU to commemorate suffrage group’s founding

Virginia Commonwealth University will celebrate the founding of the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia next week with a series of free events commemorating the centennial anniversary.

The league, founded in what is now VCU's Crenshaw House, became the League of Women Voters of Virginia in 1920 after the 19th Amendment was ratified granting women the right to vote.

On Monday, a screening of "Iron Jawed Angels," an HBO production exploring the suffrage struggle, will be shown at 7 p.m. at University Student Commons Theater, 907 Floyd Ave. The film starring Hilary Swank and Anjelica Huston was largely filmed in Richmond.

At 7 p.m. Thursday, Librarian of Virginia Sandra G. Treadway will present "A Lady's Place is in the House [of Delegates]: Virginia Women in Politics, 1909-2009" in the Commonwealth Ballroom of the Student Commons.

The commemoration will culminate at noon Friday with a march down Franklin Street to the Crenshaw House, 919 W. Franklin St., where the league was founded on Nov. 20, 1909. It will include marchers dressed in period attire and an accordion band and drummer playing the suffrage song "Votes For Women."

The events, also sponsored by the League of Women Voters, are open to the public.

-- Karin Kapsidelis