The nationwide commemoration in 2020 of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment is an opportunity to explore not only women's long struggle to achieve this landmark moment, but also to engage in an exploration of women's civic engagement during the woman suffrage movement. The terms "woman suffrage" and "suffragist" often bring to mind images of women marching down wide boulevards in major cities, picketing at the White House gates, or gazing through prison bars. While these dramatic images represent the most visible activities that suffragists pursued, they were primarily carried out by a select group of mostly middle to upper class white women. Recent scholarship about the history of the woman suffrage movement has stressed the importance of broadening the story of women's struggle for the vote to include the diversity of activists and activities that proved critical to its success. Studying women's petitions in the classroom engages students in this history. Suffrage petitions flowed to Washington, D.C., from around the country, bearing signatures from women with backgrounds as diverse as the arguments they contained. Petitions also provide an opportunity to examine an essential strategy in the woman suffrage movement that reveals why women needed the right to vote. The petitions featured in this story are a few of the thousands of woman suffrage petitions and memorials at the U.S. National Archives that demonstrate how the lack of the vote resulted in economic, political, and social harm to women, their children and their communities.