This artwork was created by Madi Lutz, Kayleigh DeLaet, Grant Shaffer, and Emilee Weir. They all attend the Dayton Regional STEM School. Based on the study of the Temperance Movement, and the ERA we feel America needs to continue to address the issue of passing the ERA.

The two events depicted in the piece are the Women’s Suffrage Movement and the fight to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). The Women’s Suffrage movement took place in the mid-1800s early 1900s. This movement was trying to get women the right to vote. There were a lot of troubles that they faced trying to get it passed. One of these was African American men getting voting rights first and the women having to not give up hope. Women focused on this right for about 72 years. ERA started in 1923 and women worked to pass this in order to get things like equal pay and to end discrimination. Women are still fighting to pass this amendment  today.

One thing that is still the same is that it is taking women more than 70 years to get people to pay attention and pass the laws, also the protests that the women are doing. Since the beginning, women in America have been protesting many different things and protesting in different ways. During the Temperance movement women protested by praying and using the Cult of True Womanhood to help them get what they want. In the Suffrage Movement, women gathered together and made posters and took more action to raise awareness more. Today, with the ERA movement, women continue to take a more active form of protest by giving speeches and making protest posters and going out and talking to people. The U.S. has allowed women to vote but still hasn’t taken action and passed the ERA. America still needs to give women equal rights by passing the ERA.

In the piece there are different techniques we used to draw emphasis and tell a story through our work. On one side there is a man, who is the largest silhouette in the piece, yelling. We made this piece to show the power that men hold and the affect they have on women. Shape was a very important factor to distinguish between past and present and men and women. We used the rule of thirds with our large silhouettes words and the people rising and falling from them. We did this because this is the main thing we were trying to show that before women were repressed by men’s words and rule but are now rising up. 

America has made significant progress over the years but women still don’t have all the rights they should. One example of this is equal pay. In order for America to move on the Equal Rights Amendment needs to be passed.