Women's suffrage event at Dana-Thomas House this weekend features living history performances

[September 17, 2009]  SPRINGFIELD -- The women's suffrage movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries had a champion in Susan Lawrence Dana, and a new special event at her Springfield home will bring suffrage to life through living history performances on Saturday and Sunday.

"From Victorian to the Vote" will be presented both days from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Dana-Thomas House State Historic Site at Fourth and Lawrence in Springfield. Re-enactors portraying Mrs. Dana and her fellow suffragettes will gather in the home to discuss both sides of securing for women the right to vote, as well as other social causes of the early 1900s.

In the cast of characters are Amy Zepp as Susan Lawrence Dana; Pam VanAlstine as Mrs. Dana's cousin, Florence Lawrence; Kathy Liesman as Mrs. Harris Hickox; Kathy Whitworth as Illinois' first lady, Mrs. Charles Deneen; Nancy Long as Mrs. George Day; and Regina McGuire as Mrs. Stuart Brown.

The early 1900s were turbulent times for women because many believed in the old Victorian ways, where women belonged in the home and nowhere else, while others began to see the need for change both inside and outside the home. Susan Dana supported the suffrage movement, serving for a year as president of Springfield's Equal Suffrage Club and entertaining delegations of women, including Jane Addams and her Chicago colleagues, who came to lobby the state legislature.

Dana became interested in what she called her "great commission," to promote racial equality, the right of women to vote and children's issues. She gave a talk on "Children and the Home," with a theme of progressive education for children and women, and argued that mothers often made "slaves of themselves and tyrants of the little ones." She believed that every child had the right to a happy childhood and a good education.

The Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Dana-Thomas House State Historic Site, administered by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, is open for public tours Wednesday through Sunday, with the first tour starting at 9 a.m. and the last tour of the day at 4 p.m. A donation of $5 for adults, $3 for children and $13 per family is suggested.

[Text from file received from the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency]