When movements are successful they transform the way we think, the way our society and our communities are structured, the way we live, and even who we are.
Movements may span years or decades and have periods of low visibility building and consolidation. Sometimes, when the external conditions are ripe, a "movement moment" occurs in which the long-term movement building takes off, becoming a large-scale public manifestation that makes headlines and history books. The tipping point and exact spark of a movement is sometimes unpredictable. Nonetheless a critical mass of people, many who are unconnected to each other, identify with the vision and the movement and take action on their own.
"The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire."
That's how Malcolm Gladwell defines it in his book "The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference" but we as union members who understand organizing know it's not magic, it's a lot of hard hidden work that sometimes will go unrecognized, unsupported and under encouraged. The movie nor this blog could cover all those people who took action by becoming tipping points themselves (think of the "U" in union) and turned the tide for suffrage.
How do you put the "U" in union? How do you help others to find their "U" in union? What if their pathway to putting the "U" in union looks different than yours?
As we watch the next clip think about the different pathways that each woman chose. Did they really have to split into two groups? Why or why not?
To follow along with blog and discussion watch movie from 1:38:34-1:50:27.
The lifeblood of a movement is the relationships and human connections we build with each other.
"Where is she? Tell me where she is!"
Miss Katherine Morey of Brookline , Mass., accompanied Mr. Obrien to the prison this afternoon. She demanded of Superintendant Whittaker to see her mother, Mrs. Agnes Morey, and was refused. She was ordered to leave the grounds. Failing to comply with this request promptly she was escorted to her automobile by a marine.
"I am sorry to do this," the marine told her; "but we are under military orders."
"What would you do if I refuse to obey your orders? Would you shoot?" Miss Morey asked.
"I cannot say what I would do, but I have strict orders, Madam." she quoted the marine as saying. -The New York Times November 17, 1917
"Emily...I want you to come home."
Before the World War I, women typically played the role of the homemaker. Women were judged by their beauty rather than by their ability. Their position and status were directed towards maintaining the annual duties of the family and children. These duties consisted of cleaning and caring for the house, caring for the young, cooking for the family, maintaining a yard, and sewing clothing for all. Women had worked in textile industries and other industries as far back as 1880, but had been kept out of heavy industries and other positions involving any real responsibility. Just before the war, women began to break away from the traditional roles they had played. As men left their jobs to serve their country in war overseas, women replaced their jobs. Women filled many jobs that were brought into existence by wartime needs. As a result, the number of women employed greatly increased in many industries. In the U.S. there were, before the war, over eight million women in paid occupations. After the war began, not only did their numbers increased in common lines of work, but as one newspaper stated, "There has been a sudden influx of women into such unusual occupations as bank clerks, ticket sellers, elevator operator, chauffeur, street car conductor, railroad trackwalker, section hand, locomotive wiper and oiler, locomotive dispatcher, block operator, draw bridge attendant, and employment in machine shops, steel mills, powder and ammunition factories, airplane works, boot blacking and farming."
We associate with the people who occupy the same small, physical spaces that we do.
"I'll speak to President Wilson. He can issue a pardon."
By an innovative action that visualized their arguments, the NWP pickets stepped to the doors of power and opened a silent conversation with the President and the nation about the rights of women. It was, as Mabel Vernon soon would relate, a conversation destined to become more heated with the advent of war.
"For what? I haven't broken any laws."
"Your honor, I have a nephew fighting for democracy in France. He is offering his life for his country. I should be ashamed if I did not join these brave women in their fight for democracy in America. I should be proud of the honor to die in prison for the liberty of American women." -73-year-old Mrs. Nolan's words to the judge, as he sentenced her to 6 months for protesting Paul's arrest.
"The girls keep asking for you."
Don'ts for Girls: A Manual of Mistakes By Minna Thomas Antrim
"Don't give free rein to your imagination, or before you know it you'll pass the mortal limit.
"They are the only reason I am here."
The stakes grew higher for the suffragists, as they were subject not merely to harsh weather and boredom on the picket line but to physical attacks and arrest, there was an increased need to remain tenacious in the fight. Assured that theirs was a just war, that they reflected "the demand of women in all parts of the country that this question of democracy at home should be settled at a time when we fight for democracy abroad" they strengthened their resolve for further action.
"I'm sorry."
When a movement helps people feel deeply connected to themselves, to each other, to a vision, and to their collective power, it is a strong movement.
"I know."
"New York has voted to enfranchise women."
'Thousands of registration fliers and copies of 'What Every Woman Needs to Know About Voting' were sent out,'' one post-election report of that year observed. ''On Election Day, the day of days, it seemed that every woman not suffering from Spanish influenza voted.''
That triumph was achieved despite the fears of antisuffragists that when a woman received the right to vote, ''political gossip would cause her to neglect the home, forget to mend our clothes and burn the biscuits.''
New York quickly became a pivotal state in the suffrage campaign.
"I've never pressed you for a federal amendment Mr. President, New York, that's 232 presidential electors."
Following the state success, Mrs. Catt organized the New York State League of Women Voters, a move that prompted her to say: ''What are we going to do? We know nothing about politics. We've got the vote. Now we must learn to use it.''
In order to create one contagious movement, you often have to create many small movements first.
"We're at war."
''War today is not the business of a group of fighting men but the affair of a whole people,'' Mrs. Vanderlip said. ''It has revolutionized the curiously antiquated arguments about women's suffrage.'' Although she also said the census effort would be concluded ''without any thought of propaganda,'' she added: ''I can't help feeling that in the end this work and all the work which women may be called on to do in this national crisis will unavoidably influence public opinion in that direction.'' -Narcissa Cox Vanderlip
Mrs. Vanderlip later became the first president of the New York State League of Women Voters.
"Then call it a war measure."
World War I was to give women a chance to show a male-dominated society that they could do more than simply bring up children and stay at home. In World War I, women played a vital role in keeping soldiers equipped with ammunition and in many senses they kept the nation moving through their help in various industries. Women found employment in transportation including the railroads and driving cars, ambulances, and trucks, nursing, factories making ammunition, on farms in the Women's Land Army, in shipyards etc. Before the war, these jobs had been for men only with the exception of nursing.
World War I was to prove a turning point for women. Women began to earn a great deal of respect through their active participation in labor and society during the wartime crisis.
"Congress will never pass it."
March 4, 1917 – Jeannette Rankin becomes first Woman to take a seat in US House of Representatives
Elected to Montana's at-large seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the first female member of Congress. During her term in the 65th Congress women did not have universal suffrage, but many were voting in some form. "If I am remembered for no other act," Rankin said, "I want to be remembered as the only woman who ever voted to give women the right to vote."
Just after her term began the House held a vote on whether to enter World War I. Rankin cast one of fifty votes against the resolution, later saying, "I felt the first time the first woman had a chance to say no to war she should say it." Some considered Rankin's vote to be a discredit to the suffragist movement and to Rankin's authority in Congress. But others, including Alice Paul of the National Woman's Party and Representative Fiorello LaGuardia of New York, applauded it.
"If you support it they will."
If you want to bring a fundamental change in people's belief and behavior...you need to create a community around them, where those new beliefs can be practiced, expressed and nurtured.
"I'm sorry. You've been very patient, I know. Be patient a little longer."
The Wartime Policy
Presidential interview granted to one representative of each of the five political parties (including the Woman's Party) on May 14, 1917. This interview with Wilson followed the American entrance on April 7, 1917, into what was then called "The Great War." Intriguingly, Mabel Vernon (the official coordinator of the picket campaign) was chosen to be the NWP representative. After hearing appeals for woman suffrage as a war measure, Wilson (apparently dropping the fiction of his own lack of power) said, "I am free to tell you that this is a matter which is daily pressing upon my mind for reconsideration"
"Who ordered the force feedings?"
By their silent vigil, the suffragists declared the breakdown of their relationship with the administration and their distrust of Wilson's words and goodwill.
The pickets' banners "had been the chief sight which met the President's eyes every time he went out and every time he came in". By appearing at his gate, the picketers hoped to appeal to Wilson's conscience, to stimulate a soul searching that might yield a new awareness and action. It was the silent call to conscience that caused the daily "pressing" upon the President's mind.
"Let's not waist time with pleasantries. I'll be blunt, may I? The foreign press will pick this up! You can tell the president he can look like a damn fool or deal me in!"
Speech Before Congress
Carrie Chapman Catt, 1917
Woman suffrage is inevitable. Suffragists knew it before November 4, 1917; opponents afterward. Three distinct causes made it inevitable.
First, the history of our country.
Ours is a nation born of revolution, of rebellion against a system of government so securely entrenched in the customs and traditions of human society that in 1776 it seemed impregnable. From the beginning of things, nations had been ruled by kings and for kings, while the people served and paid the cost. The American Revolutionists boldly proclaimed the heresies: "Taxation without representation is tyranny." "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." The colonists won, and the nation which was established as a result of their victory has held unfailingly that these two fundamental principles of democratic government are not only the spiritual source of our national existence but have been our chief historic pride and at all times the sheet anchor of our liberties. Second, the suffrage for women already established in the United States makes women suffrage for the nation inevitable. When Elihu Root, as president of the American Society of International Law, at the eleventh annual meeting in Washington, April 26, 1917, said, "The world cannot be half democratic and half autocratic. It must be all democratic or all Prussian. There can be no compromise," he voiced a general truth.
It is too obvious to require demonstration that woman suffrage, now covering half our territory, will eventually be ordained in all the nation. No one will deny it. The only question left is when and how will it be completely established.
Third, the leadership of the United States in world democracy compels the enfranchisement of its own women. The maxims of the Declaration were once called "fundamental principles of government." They are now called "American principles" or even "Americanisms." They have become the slogans of every movement toward political liberty the world around, of every effort to widen the suffrage for men or women in any land. Not a people, race, or class striving for freedom is there anywhere in the world that has not made our axioms the chief weapon of the struggle.
Do you realize that in no other country in the world with democratic tendencies is suffrage so completely denied as in a considerable number of our own states?
Do you realize that when you ask women to take their cause to state referendum you compel them to do this: that you drive women of education, refinement, achievement, to beg men who cannot read for their political freedom?
Do you realize that such anomalies as a college president asking her janitor to give her a vote are overstraining the patience and driving women to desperation?
Do you realize that women in increasing numbers indignantly resent the long delay in their enfranchisement?
Your party platforms have pledged women suffrage. Then why not be honest, frank friends of our cause, adopt it in reality as your own, make it a party program, and "fight with us"? As a party measure--a measure of all parties--why not put the amendment through Congress and the legislatures? We shall all be better friends, we shall have a happier nation, we women will be free to support loyally the party of our choice, and we shall be far prouder of our history.
"There is one thing mightier than kings and armies"--aye, than Congresses and political parties--"the power of an idea when its time has come to move." The time for woman suffrage has come. The woman's hour has struck. If parties prefer to postpone action longer and thus do battle with this idea, they challenge the inevitable. The idea will not perish; the party which opposes it may. Every delay, every trick, every political dishonesty from now on will antagonize the women of the land more and more, and when the party or parties which have so delayed woman suffrage finally let it come, their sincerity will be doubted and their appeal to the new voters will be met with suspicion. This is the psychology of the situation. Can you afford the risk? Think it over.
Woman suffrage is coming--you know it. Will you, Honorable Senators and Members of the House of Representatives, help or hinder it?
Our fates are bound together; united we stand, divided we fall.
Up next Checkmate! and HERstory is OURstory.
RESOURCES:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Sentinels
http://books.google.com/books?id=-jQEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA12&dq=%22don&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q=%22don&f=false
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/tipping-point
http://vserver1.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/~spage/ONLINECOURSE/R7Tips.pdf
http://www.jffixler.com/capacity-building-part-2-creating-a-tipping-point-change
http://movementbuilding.movementstrategy.org/resources
http://movementbuilding.movementstrategy.org/media/docs/9018_MSCAllianceToolkitPre-ReleaseDraft.pdf
http://depts.washington.edu/labhist/strike/kim.shtml
http://archive.vod.umd.edu/citizen/vernon1917int.htm
