History of Voting

Episode 8: Voting today and tomorrow

Prof. Martha Kropf of UNC-Charlotte talks about contemporary issues with voting and where we might go from here.

Episode 7: Native American voting rights

Prof. Paul Rosier of Villanova University talks about the long struggles for Native Americans to access the ballot and the obstacles that still exist.

Episode 6: The Civil Rights Era

Prof. Brett Gadsden of Northwestern University talks about the foundations of the Civil Rights Era, when voting was both a goal to achieve and the means by which to achieve it.

Episode 5: Women's suffrage

Prof. Lisa Tetrault of Carnegie Mellon talks about how women won the right to vote and why the fight for the ballot didn't stop with the 19th Amendment.

Episode 4: The Progressive Era

The late 19th century saw a movement to root out political corruption and enhance the power of the individual voter. It also saw the start of the largest decline in voter turnout in the country's history. Professor Emeritus Shelton Stromquist of the University of Iowa explains how this happened.

Episode 3: Reconstruction

Prof Kate Masur of Northwestern University discusses the impact of Reconstruction on the story of voting in America.

Episode 2: Jacksonian Era

Professor Harry Watson of UNC-Chapel Hill talks about what really made the 1820s-1840s a time of record-breaking turnout in American elections.

Episode 1: Early America

Professor Ed Countryman of Southern Methodist University joins the pod to talk about how voting mattered (or didn't) in the colonial era, during the Revolution, and in the years following.