As contemporary women prepared to vote early, in-person or by mail, for the 2026 mid-term general election, the Workhouse Arts Center provided a reminder of just how recent, and hard fought, is that right of women’s suffrage. On October 16th, as part of their “Learning at Lunch” series, the Lucy Burns Gallery of the Lorton Prison Museum, featured award-winning poet, scholar, and performer, Dr. Susanna Rich, presenting her work “SHOUT! Poetry for Suffrage”.

During the hour-long, free program, Rich stepped into the shoes of iconic historical figures to bring to life monologues and dialogues of those fighting at the core of the women’s sufferage cause. The period between the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention and the 1920 ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, is the subject of her original collection, of specialized historical poetry.

Rich shared that her inspiration for the collection began during a November 2019 visit to the museum at the Workhouse Arts Center. She was moved by the historic site and its chronicle of the brutal night of November 14, 1917, when imprisoned suffragists were tortured after their arrest for picketing at the White House. Rich gives voice to over 65 central figures of the movement in her work. “SHOUT!” was published on the 200th anniversary of Susan B. Anthony’s birth, in February 2020.

"We're so excited to welcome Susanna Rich back to the place where her collection was born," said Katie Crooks, Director of Museum and Visitor Experience. "Her poetry bridges the gap between historical artifact and human emotion, offering our community a powerful way to reflect on the legacy of the women’s suffrage movement.” 

Susanna Rich is a 2009 Mid-America Emmy Award nominee for poetry, a Fulbright Fellow in Creative Writing, and recipient of the Presidential Excellence Award for Distinguished Teaching at Kean University. With over 1,000 publications, performance, and presentation credits, she is the founding producer, writer, and principal performer at Wild Nights Productions, LLC, through which she crafts immersive visual-poetic experiences.

Workhouse Arts Center is in its fourth season of Learning at Lunch, a series illuminating aspects of the former prison’s 91-year history. Each month, an expert, often an author, tackles a complicated topic related to the past. The 30-minute talks are followed by a question /answer period. Next in the series: Nov. 13, “Prisoners After War”, with professor and author, Jason Higgins; and Dec. 11, “The Foggy Bottom Gang," with author Leo Waring. Free, no registration required. See workhousearts.org for more.