A former St. Catherine University student’s project on women’s voting rights has gained attention by the League of Women Voters. 

Briana Turnbull ‘17 produced a graphic design project that showcases the various limitations placed on women in the United States in voting, St. Catherine University reported on its website. The series of artwork show women of various ethnicities, with pieces of tape over their mouths. The women, who are representative of various ethnic groups, have text above them, denoting until which year they were unable to vote in the U.S. 

“The first year I was old enough to vote in a presidential election was 2016 and at the time I was a student graphic designer at St. Catherine University,” Turnbull said, the website reported. “I thought, since this was my first election, I could focus on the suffrage movement. The first thing I noticed as I did the research was that not all women were granted the right to vote at the same time – and that's where the idea for this project originated.” 

Turnbull’s work got the attention of social media, where people reacted with a great deal of positivity, overjoyed that the message of inequality throughout the ages was being spoken about freely. 

Turnbull said that the posters were more popular than she ever thought they would be. 

For the 2020 elections, the posters got a bit of a facelift, Turnbull said, the website reported. Now, the posters have more information and the artwork has been freshened up. 

I think voting is so important, but I also completely believe that it’s kind of the least that we can do,” Turnbull said, the website reported. “Voting is a hard-won right for many of us, and to take that information and encourage people to use that right and use their voice… there is something kind of jarring-to-action in the idea that your people might not have always had a voice.”