UNLADYLIKE: The Change Makers

Timed with the 2020 women’s suffrage centennial, American Masters – Unladylike2020: The Changemakers takes a look at women whose courage and tenacity 100 years ago shaped the political life and future of this nation. Their accomplishments were instrumental in accomplishing voting rights for women — but also in improving the quality of life for all citizens. This hour-long PBS American Masters animated documentary film will present profiles of five little-known women trailblazers who were active in government, civil rights, and citizenship rights, behaving in ways that placed them outside the mainstream of expected behaviors for ‘ladies’ at the turn of the 20th century. They include: Martha Hughes Cannon, the country’s first female state senator; Jovita Idar, a journalist, and president of one of the first Mexican American women’s civil rights organizations; Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress; Mary Church Terrell, a leader in the anti-lynching movement and a founder of the NAACP; and Zitkála-Sá, aka Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, who lobbied for U.S. citizenship, voting rights and sovereignty for American Indians a century ago.