Constitution Day talk focuses on women's influence in American politics

KALAMAZOO, Mich.—Western Michigan University professor Dr. J. Kevin Corder will speak on whether women's right to vote altered American politics as he delivers the U.S. Constitution Day Lecture at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 19, in 3301 Friedmann Hall. His presentation, titled "Why Women Won the Vote: Did the 19th Amendment Change American Politics?," is free and open to the public and sponsored by the departments of political science, history, and gender and women's studies, and the College of Arts and Sciences.

Corder examines the 1920 presidential election, when the number of eligible voters nearly doubled as the Constitution was amended to extend suffrage to women. He asks the questions, did the introduction of millions of new voters radically alter American politics, and what did people expect at the time?

J. Kevin Corder

Corder is a professor of political science. He earned his Ph.D. at Washington University in 1993.

His research has appeared in the American Political Science Review, the Public Administration Review, the Journal of Politics and other outlets in political science and public administration. Much of his work focuses on economic policy, and he is the author of two books on the Federal Reserve System.

In 2013, Corder received a Fulbright-Schuman European Affairs program grant to study the regulation of banks in Malta and the United Kingdom. Corder’s work also extends to electoral politics. He and Christina Wolbrecht of the University of Notre Dame are the authors of "Counting Women’s Ballots," a comprehensive assessment of women’s voting in the 1920s and 1930s, that received the American Political Science Association's Victoria Schuck award for the best book on women and politics in 2016.

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