This is one of the takeaways from an ongoing project Boylan undertook in 2016. That year, Tom Dublin, a peer from Binghamton University in New York, reached out to the social historian. In anticipation of the 2020 centennial anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guaranteed women the right to vote, Dublin had begun a crowd-sourcing initiative that, with the help of researchers nationwide, set out to produce more than 3,500 biographical sketches illuminating the work of grassroots suffragists. (In America, activists preferred this spelling instead of the British “suffragette.” Because of that “ette” suffix, meaning small or diminutive, this term was often deployed in a derogatory way by those opposed to the movement.) This compilation, still in progress, tells the stories of all the suffrage leaders we learned about in junior high. But, critically, it also includes the activists forgotten by history — namely, African American suffragists.

“Women’s history has always been suppressed,” Boylan said. “It hasn’t been accorded the same importance. And this is especially true for women of color. That’s why projects like this are so crucial. Without them, these stories just disappear.” (March is Women’s History Month.)

Despite being on the cusp of retirement, Boylan agreed to serve as the project’s Delaware coordinator. She partnered with local researchers, elementary school teachers and their students, as well as five student collaborators from a UD course on the history of African American women. She worked as editor and fact checker, while the students researched and wrote. They began by digging into seven names Dublin had passed on.

“I thought: How long could it possibly take to come up with seven biographies?” Boylan said. “Well, five years later, we’re up to 60-plus suffragists.”

Using a variety of resources — including digitized newspapers, live interviews with the descendants of their subjects, and the Ancestry genealogical site available at UD’s Morris Library — the group pieced together a more complete picture of the Delaware suffrage movement and its agitators.

For starters, this was a far more diverse movement than your typical school curriculum would have you believe. It comprised Jewish, Catholic and Unitarian members. Working class and elite members. Natural born and naturalized citizen members. And, importantly, white and African American members.

“These weren’t delicate or naive women,” said Boylan, who wrote a book on this research called Votes for Delaware Women, forthcoming from the University of Delaware Press. “These were women who got things done.”

Boylan estimates about 20 percent of suffrage leaders in this state were Black. You won’t see them in photos, because the more confrontational tactics that made for front-page news were risky business for women of color, who were subject to racist abuse from onlookers. Instead, like most suffragists of any race, these women were largely focused on the less sensational — though equally important — work of petitioning, lobbying and organizing.