A friend of mine sent me this historically-minded music video that a student of her husband’s brought to class recently. While I don’t follow Lady Gaga’s career all that closely, I’m fascinated by the visual details in this production. They were clearly based on some of the photographs and ephemera of the woman suffrage movement which are preserved at the Library of Congress.

For example, compare the picketing scene in the video to this photograph from the LoC collection:

Women suffragists picketing in front of the White house (February 1917)

I’m also reminded of Katja von Garnier’s Iron Jawed Angels (HBO, 2004) which used anachronistic music to great effect as part of the soundtrack to tell the story of Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party. It remains one of my favorite popular-culture uses of the struggle for female suffrage, which doesn’t gloss over the internal fissures along age, class, and race lines.

Do you have any favorite depictions of the suffrage movement (in the U.S. or elsewhere) in popular culture? Share ‘em in comments!