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New documentary highlights women making history, then and now

photo provided

The mood in Mt. Hope Cemetery on Election Day in 2020 was palpably different than it was four years earlier, when more than 10,000 people passed by the gravesite of suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony.

On Nov. 8, 2016, many Americans thought they would be electing the United States' first female president. "People were celebrating like it was a party," said filmmaker Linda Moroney. 

In her new documentary, "Women and the Vote," premiering at 9 p.m. tonight on WXXI-TV, Moroney contrasts the hope felt by supporters of  Hillary Rodmam Clinton in 2016 with the tension of 2020, when President Donald J. Trump sought a second term.

The film takes viewers to five cemeteries across New York state on Election Day 2020, where voters reflect on the sacrifice of suffragists who fought for women's rights and weaves in historical photographs and reminders of the suffragist legacy. 

The documentary is part of a larger project to collect and share information about New York suffrage activists through 1920, when the 19th Amendment was passed, and beyond. 

Click on the LISTEN link above to hear an interview with Linda Moroney. 

Beth Adams joined WXXI as host of Morning Edition in 2012 after a more than two-decade radio career. She was the longtime host of the WHAM Morning News in Rochester. Her career also took her from radio stations in Elmira, New York, to Miami, Florida.