Elizabeth Leads the Way: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Right to Vote written by Tanya Lee Stone & illustrated by Rebecca Gibbon, talks about how life use to be before everyone was equal.
Elizabeth Leads the Way: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Right to Vote starts off with a question that gets your mind thinking. “What would you do if someone told you you can’t be what you want to be because your a girl?” It talks about how men had a better life, and how a woman lost everything because “Without a husband, the law stated, nothing belonged to her. Elizabeth was horrified by this unfairness.” She set out to do everything men could do. Later on she gathered women together and shared with them ideas that she and her friends had written down in a document. “Their Declaration of Right and Sentiments challenged the idea from the Declaration of Independence that “all men were created equal.””
Curriculum Connections
Elizabeth Leads the Way: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Right to Vote is a great resource when you are studying equality under the law. It incorporates how things were in the past, and one woman’s fight to change it. It is connected to VA SOL Social Studies Civics 3.11 (a). The student will explain the importance of the basic principles that form the foundation of a republican form of government by describing the individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and equality under the law.
Additional Resources
- Being Treated Equally is a lesson plan that has a few of ideas to help students with understanding equality.
- On Elementary Lessons from Cradel, under grades 1-4, the equal rights link will take you to a great activity to use with students.
- Rosa Rosa, Roll On is a song students can learn about how Rosa Parks stood up for her rights.
- If you are looking for a webquest, take a look at The Civil Rights Movement.
General Information
Book: Elizabeth Leads the Way: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Right to Vote
Author: Tanya Lee Stone
Illustrator: Rebecca Gibbon
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company, LLC
Publication Date: 2008
Pages: 32 pages
Grade Range: 2-5
ISBN: 9780805079036