EXPECTATIONS!

Two crazes swept the country in the closing decades of the 19th century; croquet became all the rage and the low-framed "safety" bicycle came to replace the high-seated model and by 1893 a million bicycles were in use and thousands of young women were turning to this new "spinning wheel," one that offered freedom, not tedium.

"Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel." --Susan B. Anthony

Rise up!

As we watch this next clip think about things you would fight for and why? Who you would fight for and why? How do you deal with fear?

To follow along with blog and discussion watch movie from 41:57-58:22.

That was a jam packed clip! I know lots of thoughts must be going through your mind. This blog post is jam packed too! I hope you don't mind I wanted to share a glimpse of the magnitude of this struggle.


In the early-twentieth century one of the most significant developments in presidential politics was the institution of the presidential primary. Kathleen A. Kendall argues that presidential primaries "were seen by early reformers as a way to take away the power to nominate the president from the party bosses and give it back to the 'the people.'" By the 1912 presidential election, as many as twenty-one states had adopted a presidential primary system, and by 1915, only a handful had yet to do so.


"A movement is not really alive which does not ask for immediate action . . .



"Did you see the paper? The National Women's Party (NWP) is traveling west by train."

Paul and Burns directed their militant campaign toward agitating Democratic members of Congress between 1913 and 1916. Exhibiting their political motives, one Committee member wrote to another: "If we can but continue a constant agitation which will rivet the eyes of Congressmen upon our measure, there is great hope it may go through this Congress."


"They will embark on a speaking campaign urging women voters to vote against the Democrats in this election who oppose the federal amendment."

Prior to the Seventeenth Amendment, which ensured the direct election of senators, U.S. senators were selected by their state legislatures. Throughout the latter decades of the nineteenth century, the labor movement pushed for the direct election of U.S. senators as a way to ensure full representation and to curb the corrupt promotion of certain senators. The ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in April 1913 also increased the potential of Congress to represent the political demands of U.S. citizens.

"I use my monthly allowance. It has nothing to do with you."

Woman's Party mimicked the strategies of a national political party by establishing headquarters in every state, stationing organizers in every congressional district, and launching a number of nationwide campaign strategies.

They harnessed the united voices of U.S. women through its May 2, 1914, nationwide demonstrations. On this day, national, state, and local organizers orchestrated and participated in suffrage demonstrations in more than 1,000 U.S. cities. Many demonstrations included between five and ten thousand marchers. All over the country, on hundreds of platforms the women's cause is being argued, and that hundreds of people are listening. Tomorrow every newspaper in the United States will rehearse the story of the women's demonstration, thus swelling the audience to millions. Never, in the history of the world, have women been as vocal as they are on this day in May.

For it's great to fight for freedom
With a Rebel Girl.

Exactly one week after the May 2, 1914, nation-wide demonstrations, 531 suffrage "delegates" representing every congressional district in the nation traveled to Washington, D.C. to present suffrage petitions to every member of Congress.

To greet Maryland state congressmen at the opening of the state's legislative session in 1914, at least thirty Maryland suffragists marched from Baltimore to Annapolis, where they presented the legislators with a petition of over 200,000 signatures of Maryland voters.

 For it's great to fight for freedom
With a Rebel Girl.

April 30, 1915, 200 New York women visited Senator James A. O'Gorman. The meeting was preceded by an open-air meeting and a marching band.

Similarly, in 1915, at the conclusion of the first Convention of Women Voters, two "envoys" embarked on a cross-country road trip to Washington, D.C., where they accumulated more than 500,000 signatures on a single petition more than 18,000 feet in length.

In a parade much like the one held the year before, thousands of women marched through the streets of Washington, D.C., to the Capitol Building. There, the chosen 531 delegates from all over the nation marched up the capitol steps into the rotunda, where they were enthusiastically received by eleven senators and eleven representatives.

For it's great to fight for freedom
With a Rebel Girl.

In Salt Lake City, Utah, the envoys were greeted on the State Capitol steps by Governor William Spry, Mayor Samuel C. Park, and U.S. Representative Joseph Howell.

In Lincoln, Nebraska, Governor John H. Morehead met the envoys as a procession of ten cars carried them to the capitol building.

"They count on my monthly contributions."

Chicago, Illinois, 1,000 people and fifty cars gathered as Mayor William Hale Thompson and his wife gathered with the women and signed the petition.

 The envoys enjoyed receptions such as these in at least twenty-three states and forty-two cities.

For it's great to fight for freedom
With a Rebel Girl.

Evanston, Wyoming, the envoys met with Republican Senator Clarence D. Clark in the city's court house, where the Senator stated that he believed strongly in the state method. According to The Suffragist, Sara Field "told the Senator and the people present of the untold waste of women's life force which the state campaigns entailed." To this, Senator Clark "listened attentively" and reported that he "was amazed and interested to learn of the difficulties of that form of work." When Field pressed the Senator to approve a printed statement of his endorsement, he relented: "Say anything you like and I will stand for it." By noting that the Senator listened and then capitulated to the envoys' case.


Moreover, of the forty-three Democrats running for election or re-election in 1914, twenty-three were defeated. Proudly, the WP credited itself with unseating six of those men.

For it's great to fight for freedom
With a Rebel Girl.

The WP's ultimate coup, however, was pressuring the Democratic National Convention to endorse woman suffrage. Section XX of the party's platform said, "We recommend the extension of the franchise to the women of the country by the States upon the same terms as men." Although the plank recommends a state-by-state strategy, it represented the first time the Democratic Party officially endorsed woman suffrage.

On the day of the 1916 congressional and presidential elections, the WP organized women to take post at 2,100 polling booths in Chicago alone. Many of these women reported converting 50-100 women voters before they cast their ballots. One WP organizer said that on voting day, "Every available speaker was drawn into service and as many meetings as possible arranged . . . At the same time a large amount of literature was distributed and thousands of posters were sent out and placed on display throughout the suffrage states."

One thing we may be sure of—until we ask for instant action, no one else will ask for it." - NWP Just before waging its 1914 campaign.

Of the WP's campaign, The Suffragist said, "It put the Democrats on the defensive. It forced them to declare greater and greater enthusiasm for national woman suffrage. The election ended with Democrats and Republicans vying with each other as to which was more devoted to the enfranchisement of women."

Although Democrats lost sixteen House seats and Wilson secured the presidency with 158 fewer electoral votes than he did in his 1912 election, they ultimately declared: "We did not care who won . . . we were simply pro-woman." One of the three lost Democratic seats in the suffrage states went to Jeannette Rankin of Montana, who secured a Republican seat in the House with 2,000 more votes than her Democratic opponent.

To challenge fear find hope.

Inez Milholland's last public words...

"Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?"

In 1916, she went on a tour in the West - speaking for women's rights as a member of the National Woman's Party - despite suffering from pernicious anemia and despite the admonitions of her family who were concerned about her deteriorating health. On October 22, 1916, she collapsed in the middle of a speech in Los Angeles, and was rushed to Good Samaritan Hospital. Despite repeated blood transfusions, she died on November 25, 1916.

　

Alice Paul chose the Capitol rotunda for their memorial tribute to beautiful young Inez, who gave her life for the "cause." They took possession of it and made it ready for the ceremonies without permission. The gold and purple colors of the militants bedecked its great marble posts. Senators who came to protect remained as silent and touched spectators.

"Beautiful and courageous, she embodied more than any other American woman the ideals of that part of womenkind whose eyes are on the future. She embodied all the things which make the Suffrage Movement something more than a fight to vote.

 She meant the determination of modern women to live a full free life, unhampered by tradition." -The Philadelphia Public Lodger at the time of her death

 

Forward, out of error,

Leave behind the night,

Forward through the darkness,

                                        Forward into light.


Next up FINISH THE ROW! Plant seeds and grow.


RESOURCES:
http://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/1903/8759/1/umi-umd-5778.pdf
http://yesteryearsnews.wordpress.com/tag/inez-milholland/
http://www.adkhistorycenter.org/edu/pdf/WomenOfThePast.pdf
 
 

              SUFFRAGIST or SUFFRAGETTE?

"In youth, it was a way I had,
To do my best to please.
And change, with every passing lad
To suit his theories.

But now I know the things I know
And do the things I do,
And if you do not like me so,
To hell, my love, with you."
― Dorothy Parker


Until women's history became a legitimate academic field of study in the early 1970s, and women began to write their own history, suffrage was barely mentioned in history textbooks. Indeed, militant activism by American women in the suffrage movement was almost unknown. Even in our own time - outside the ranks of women historians and feminist activists - leader Alice Paul and the militant National Woman's Party (NWP) which she founded, are hardly known. Few know that it was women who first picketed the White House for a political cause, or faced jail, hunger strikes, and forced feeding while they were in prison. For that matter, few know about Carrie Chapman Catt and the mainstream suffrage organization which she led, the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), and their years of public education, strategizing, and lobbying in the fight for the vote.

Activism = self-expression; organizing = movement-building.

Women have been agents of change throughout American History.


Synonyms for Change - adjustment, advance, development, difference, diversity, innovation, modification, reversal, revision, revolution, shift, switch, transformation, transition, variation, about-face, addition, break, compression, contraction, conversion, distortion, diversification, metamorphosis, modulation, mutation, novelty, permutation, reconstruction, refinement, remodeling, surrogate, tempering, transmutation, turn, turnover, variance, variety, & vicissitude.

Whew! That's from just one thesaurus! Change is constantly happening with or without us. I think it's fair to say that both Carrie & Alice wanted the same thing, one woman = one vote. As you watch this clip think about how you would respond to changes that are happening if you were Carrie? And Alice? Have you ever been in a similar situation?

To follow along with blog and discussion watch the movie from 37:40-41:57.


Radical ideas of one generation are often the common sense of the next.

If you have been following along in this blog we recently looked at generations in our unions. Let's look at this clip again through a generational lens.

By virtue of when they were born, members of each generation live through unique times shaped by unexpected historical events, changing political climates, and evolving socioeconomic conditions. Generations also come in different sizes and changing mixtures of ethnicity, helping to shape the choices individuals will make in life. A generational perspective offers fresh insights into contemporary society by emphasizing both the distinctiveness of each generation in its particular historical context and the persistence of such distinctions across an individual's life. When different generations respond in unique ways to common problems and choices, businesses, governments, and we as individuals need to recognize and understand such distinctions.


Carrie Chapman Catt
The Progressive Generation (Artist, born 1843–1859)
(Example among today’s living generations: Silent.)


Spent childhood shell-shocked by sectionalism and war. Overawed by older "bloody-shirt" veterans, they came of age cautiously, pursuing refinement and expertise more than power. In the shadow of Reconstruction, they earned their reputation as well-behaved Ph.D.’s and lawyers, calibrators and specialists, civil servants and administrators. In midlife, their mild commitment to social melioration was whipsawed by the passions of youth. They matured into America’s genteel yet juvenating Rough Riders in the era of Freud’s "talking cure" and late-Victorian sentimentality. After busting trusts and achieving "Progressive" procedural reforms, their elders continued to urge tolerance upon less conciliatory juniors.

Artist generations are born after an Unraveling, during a Crisis, a time when great dangers cut down social and political complexity in favor of public consensus, aggressive institutions, and an ethic of personal sacrifice. Artists grow up overprotected by adults preoccupied with the Crisis, come of age as the socialized and conformist young adults of a post-Crisis world, break out as process-oriented midlife leaders during an Awakening, and age into thoughtful post-Awakening elders.
Due to their location in history, such generations tend to be remembered for their quiet years of rising adulthood and their midlife years of flexible, consensus-building leadership. Their main societal contributions are in the area of expertise and due process. These have been complex social
technicians and advocates for fairness and inclusion.

Alice Paul
Lost Generation Nomad (Reactive) 1883–1900
(Example among today’s living generations: Generation X.)

The members of the Lost Generation were born at the turn of the 20th century, when the world was changing at a rapid pace. The automobile was making its mark on society, becoming a popular mode of transportation. The Wright Brothers took the first airplane  flight. Sigmund Freud released his groundbreaking work, "The Interpretation of Dreams."

As this generation was coming of age, millions of  immigrants poured into the United States, searching for a better life. With the competition for jobs and ever-increasing class distinction, the members of the Lost Generation became independent and self-sufficient, not looking to their elders for guidance.

Nomad generations are born during an Awakening, a time of social ideals and spiritual agendas, when young adults are passionately attacking the established institutional order. Nomads grow up as under-protected children during this Awakening, come of age as alienated, post-Awakening adults, become pragmatic midlife leaders during a Crisis, and age into resilient post-Crisis elders.

Due to their location in history, such generations tend to be remembered for their adrift, alienated rising-adult years and their midlife years of pragmatic leadership. Their main societal contributions are in the area of liberty, survival and honor. These were shrewd  realists who preferred individualistic , pragmatic solutions to problems.   

Don't take your eyes off the prize.

"Before you sit down Miss Paul."

To push the vote in New York state in 1912, there was a 12-day, 170 mile "Hike to Albany"; the next year, the suffragist "Army of the Hudson" completed a 225-mile walk from New Jersey to Washington, D.C. These physical stunts were part of the "new womanhood" that showcased active, fit women in the public sphere to undermine any thoughts of women’s inferiority, physically or politically.

"It was collected by the Congressional Union."

The Congressional Union was a radical American organization formed in 1913 and led by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns. It campaigned for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing  women's suffrage. It was inspired by the United Kingdom's suffragette  movement.

Radical

a : very different from the usual or traditional : extreme

b : favoring extreme changes in existing views, habits, conditions, or institutions

c : associated with political views, practices, and policies of extreme change

d : advocating extreme measures to retain or restore a political state of affairs

"I move to suspend the activities of the Congressional
committee..."

Under Catt the suffragists de-emphasized the argument that women deserved the vote as a right, because they were in all respects the equals of men; instead Catt stressed the desirability of giving women the vote if they were to continue to discharge their traditional duties as homemakers and mothers in the public world of the city.


"For the safety of the Nation
To the Women Give the Vote

For the hand that Rocks the Cradle
Will Never Rock the Boat!"

"We can run our own campaign to hell with NAWSA!"

Heads or Tails?

"I don't want to fight other women."

By February 1914, consequently, the NAWSA and the CUWS severed after a bitter dispute over ideological and financial differences.

Harriot Stanton Blatch expressed her dismay with the NAWSA's leadership. She said, "again and again I have seen vigorous young women come forward, only to be rapped on the head by so-called leaders of our movement."

Suffragists were peaceful. Suffragettes were militant.

Suffragist is a more general term for members of suffrage movements, whether radical or conservative, male or female. American campaigners preferred this more inclusive title, while those Americans hostile to women's suffrage used "suffragette" as a pejorative, , emphasizing its feminine "-ette" ending.

Suffragette is a term originally coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for members of the late-19th and early-20th century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom. However, after former and then active members of the movement began to reclaim the word , the term became a label without negative connotations.

Although both Carrie Chapman Catt, NAWSA president, and Alice Paul shared the goal of universal suffrage, their political strategies could not have been more different or incompatible. Where NAWSA concentrated a majority of its effort upon state campaigns, Paul wanted to focus all energy and funding upon a national amendment. While NAWSA endorsed President Wilson and looked to members of the Democratic Party as allies, Alice Paul wanted to hold Wilson and his party responsible for women's continued disenfranchisement (a tactic of British Suffragettes). In 1914, after initially forming a semi-autonomous group called the Congressional Union, Paul and her followers severed all ties to NAWSA and, in 1916, formed the National Woman's Party (NWP).

Never ever, ever, ever give up!

Next up EXPECTATIONS! and what democracy looks like.

RESOURCES:
http://www.armstrong.edu/Initiatives/history_journal/history_journal_fearless_radicalism_alice_paul_and_her_fight_for_womens_suf
http://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/WIC/Historical-Essays/No-Lady/Womens-Rights/
http://www.catt.org/carrie%20timeline.html
http://www.alicepaul.org/alicepaul.htm
http://www.lifecourse.com/about/method/def/progressive-gen.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory

http://people.howstuffworks.com/culture-traditions/generation-gaps/lost-generation1.htm 

PRESS ONWARD!

These First Amendment Rights are like a muscle: if we don’t use them, they atrophy:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Thankfully, Alice Paul and her suffragist colleagues used those rights. The struggle between social movements and power holders is like a chess match, in which both sides keep reacting to events and the moves of the other in order to win the confidence of the public.


Think big!

"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. - Carrie Chapman Catt Speech before Congress 1917

As we watch this next clip think about how our unions are talked about in the media. What stories are chosen and why? Who decides what is news worthy? What can we do to make our voices heard?

To follow along with blog and discussion watch movie from 29:13-37:40.

 "Before you visit a congress man look him up in our card index."

Ultimately, the suffrage movement provided political training for some of the early women pioneers in Congress.

Doris Stevens

Doris Stevens believed fervently in militancy and in "new woman feminism," the idea that women should reclaim their power from a male-dominated society. She was born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1892 and graduated from Oberlin College in 1911. Stevens was a social worker and high school teacher in Ohio and Michigan before going to work as a regional organizer for the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).

As a participant in the March 3, 1913 Washington, D.C. suffrage parade, Doris was told by an onlooker, "You ought to get yourself a man. You can get what you want without that [marching]." Instead, she joined the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage in 1914 as executive secretary, and organized the first convention of women voters at the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco. In 1916, she served on the first executive board of the newly formed National Woman’s Party (NWP) and was the vice-chairman of the NWP’s New York branch.

Congress reflects us in all our strengths and all our weaknesses. It reflects our regional idiosyncrasies, our ethnic, religious, and racial diversity, our multitude of professions, and our shadings of opinion on everything from the value of war to the war over values. Congress is the government's most representative body ... Congress is essentially charged with reconciling our many points of view on the great public policy issues of the day.
:— Smith, Roberts, and Wielen

X-tra!
1910 the push for suffrage took on a new urgency under the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and the more radical National Woman’s Party (NWP). Their campaigns reached wide audiences, in part because suffragists had learned to spread their messages through imaginative use of various media. Supporters held old-fashioned pageants and street parades as well as statewide tours, thanks to the relatively new technology of automobiles. Suffragists also reached large audiences through newspapers. In Alice Duer Miller’s "Unauthorized Interviews," originally published as newspaper columns in the New York Tribune, the pro-suffrage writer spoofed male legislators with clever reversals of gender stereotypes: the men were petulant and irrational, while the women suffragists remained cool and logical.

Enjoy Alice Duer Miller’s Satiric Journalism

Suffragists.
Please, sir, to tell us, if you will,
How you will vote upon our bill?


1st Legislator.
Ladies, observe my easy grace,
My manners and my pleasant face;
I hope you see I bow, I smile,
call you "ladies"—all the while
My heart is black with seething hate
That I, who am so very great,
Should have to waste a single minute
On your affairs—there’s nothing in it.

Suffragists (to another legislator).

And you, sir, if we recollect,
Are much opposed. Is that correct?


2nd Legislator.
Opposed! O ladies, no, indeed!
I vote against you, I concede;
I may continue so to do,
But I am not opposed to you.
To call me so is most unjust.
I make myself quite plain, I trust.

Suffragists (to another legislator).

And may we hear from you, sir, how
You’ll vote?

3rd Legislator.

I have no option now;
I listen to my district’s voice;
It voted no; I have no choice.


Suffragists.
O sir, I think there’s some mistake,
Your district carried.

4th Legislator (hastily interrupting).

Let me make
His statement clear; he means that we
All come here absolutely free.
Not at our districts' beck and nod,
We vote to please ourselves and God;
And we are not in all events
The slaves of our constituents.

Suffragists (slightly puzzled, to another legislator).

And you, sir, shall you vote for it?


5th Legislator.
No, though I think you will admit
I have a very open mind;
If in my district I should find
The women want it (which they don’t)
I’d vote for it. Till then I won’t.


Suffragists.
And have you asked so very many?

5th Legislator (astonished).

Why, no, I don’t think I’ve asked any.

Suffragists (to another legislator).

And what, sir, is your attitude?


6th Legislator.
I hope you will not think me rude,
If, ladies, as a friend I say
You do not work the proper way.
It’s time you disappeared, and let
The public utterly forget
That there are women wish to vote.
Then at some future time, remote,
In twenty years, or twenty-five,
If you should chance to be alive,
You’d see a change—at least you ought—
A striking change in public thought.
This from a friend.

Suffragists.

But are you so?


6th Legislator.
A friend? Oh, well, I voted "no,
But surely you can comprehend
That I advise you as a friend.

Suffragists alone.


1st Suffragist.
The men in favour talk much less.


2nd Suffragist.
They haven’t much to say but "yes";
The men opposed explain a lot
How they’re opposed and yet they’re not.
It takes some time to make that clear.

1st Suffragist.

How very bad the air is here!

2nd Suffragist.

Do you refer to ventilation,
Or to the general situation?


A real movement touches everyone.

"Ever wish you were a man?"

Elizabeth Cady Stanton married an abolitionist against her father’s will. She was a wife and mother of seven children who spoke against organized religion because she believed it reduced women to second-class status. She came from a traditional, upper class family and spent much of her young life trying to please a father who clearly favored sons.

"I wish you were a boy," he once said to her as she showed him a hard-earned academic prize. But her conservative father, a lawyer and judge, did allow his daughter into his law office where she witnessed firsthand how the law treated women as men’s property rather than as citizens equal to men. She vowed to change women’s legal status.

"She's calling it the Congressional Union, see who's on the advisory board?"
 
Helen Keller
Helen Keller was part of wide circle of reformers and radicals who participated in a variety of overlapping causes. She was a strong advocate for women’s rights and women’s suffrage, writing in 1916: "Women have discovered that they cannot rely on men’s chivalry to give them justice." She supported birth control and praised its leading advocate, Margaret Sanger, with whom she had many mutual friends. Keller argued that capitalists wanted workers to have large families to supply cheap labor to factories but forced poor children to live in miserable conditions. "Only by taking the responsibility of birth control into their own hands," Keller said, "can [women] roll back the awful tide of misery that is sweeping over them and their children."

After 1924, Keller devoted most of her time and energy to speaking and fundraising for the American Foundation for the Blind, but still supported radical causes. Even as feminism began to ebb, she continued to agitate for women's rights. In 1932, she wrote an article for Home magazine, "Great American Women," praising the early suffragists Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She also penned a humorous article for the Atlantic Monthly, "Put Your Husband in the Kitchen."

She was also a member of the IWW.

X-tra!

This video was inspired by historian Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner who brilliantly determined to preserve and document the writings of suffragist Matilda Joslyn Gage. In the 19th century, Gage complained that women of means funded their husbands’ alma maters, churches and the ballet, but rarely stepped forward to fund their suffragette sisters. Imagine how different the world would be today if women had begun funding women sooner!

"Read the editorial, she's telling women to boycott Wilson in the next election."
 
A boycott, like a strike, is a tactic of last resource, - it should only follow at the end of a long campaign to allow the guilty party to do the right thing.

A "girlcott" is preferential purchasing from those we wish to reward for their good actions.

Many women contributed financially to the suffrage movement. Some women would purchase hats on their husbands accounts and return them for money to donate.


Don't just read the news make it.

Goal

"To make this paper a force to be reckoned with in the political life of the United States."

As Paul explained, "[The Suffragist] is not issued to appeal to women's clubs or to small suffrage organizations at all . . . Our subscription list is national and our newsstand sales should be national."66 Thus, the creation and circulation of The Suffragist enacted the CUWS's militant push to enter the arena of national politics and to generate publicity for a national audience.

The Suffragist on November 15, 1913 as the official organ for her Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage. Rheta Childe Dorr was listed as its first editor, and its focus was to lead the charge for a Federal Amendment, subordination all other issues to this goal. In many ways, the new publication, which she brought with her when the Congressional Union split off from NAWSA in 1914, resembled Christabel Pankhurst’s English publication, The Suffragette, in size, length, and the use of a front-page cartoon, later drawn by Nina Allender, whose drawings were to have considerable impact. Although Paul was not listed as editor, she insisted on editorial control, a fact that led to Dorr’s resignation in 1914, although she continued to support Paul and the aims of the Union. Paul along with her friend, Lucy Burns then served as the paper’s editors. This arrangement continued until 1917 when Edith Houghton Hooker, who previously had served as the founder and editor of the Maryland Suffrage News, took over. When the Congressional Union evolved into the National Woman’s Party in 1916, The Suffragist came along, and continued to be a powerful voice for suffrage throughout the war. The Suffragist ceased publication after the passage of the Federal Amendment in 1920. It was to morph several years later into a similar publication called Equal Rights that was started in conjunction with Paul’s work on an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.

X-tra!

Nina Allender
Around 1910, Nina Allender became actively involved in the suffrage movement, serving as president of the DC branch of the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association (NAWSA), and of the Stanton Club, a local suffrage organization in the District. In 1913, Allender and her mother Eva Evans (one of the first women employees at the Department of the Interior) received a visit from Alice Paul, whom they did not know, asking them to contribute money and time to the suffrage cause. They agreed, thus beginning Allender’s lifelong association with the National Woman’s Party (NWP).

In 1914, Paul persuaded Allender to draw cartoons for The Suffragist. While Allender’s hesitated, saying "she painted, and preferred to paint," Paul convinced her to try the new format. Her political cartoons appeared regularly in The Suffragist (and its successor Equal Rights) until 1927. In 1915, in addition to her position as art editor for The Suffragist, Allender was also named Chairman of the D.C. Branch of the Congressional Union. By 1916, she was labeled the "Official Cartoonist" for the organization. It was in The Suffragist that Nina Allender’s point of view sparked a surge of support for the suffrage amendment and changed the traditional image of the suffragist to a new, modern, and intelligent woman ready to take on the political world and defend her civil rights. Her cartoons were "quick, vivid headlines" that captured the news of the week and the spirit of the cause.

Nina’s image of the suffragist—the "Allender Girl"—portrayed her as young, slender, and energetic—a capable woman with an intense commitment to the cause. Allender used her illustrations to present a spectrum of "The Modern Woman": feminist, wife, mother, student, and activist. This much more complex and positive representation was critical in garnering public support for women’s rights.

In a 1920 interview with the Christian Science Monitor, Allender reflected on her major artistic contribution by saying, "political cartooning gives you a sense of power that nothing else does."

("Learning New Tricks" by Nina Allender, February 1, 1920
A woman tries to train the Republican Elephant and the Democratic Donkey, using her "Votes." The caption on the original drawing is: "Training the Animals.")

"Those who hold power are responsible not only for what they do but for what they do not do."

"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." -Carrie Chapman Catt Speech before Congress 1917

Never underestimate the power of a story.

"I don't know how to type."

Here we see the Senator's wife, Emily, who found the courage to take a first step to support her beliefs by making a donation. Alice asks her to type, something Emily has never done before and she just sits down to teach herself. Imagine what it would feel like when you were finished.

As union women think about what we can teach ourselves. How can we teach others? Encourage others? Should we use today's technology? What has worked for you?

"Women like you are worse than anti-suffragist. You perpetuate the lie everyday at breakfast."

Your story + their story = our story.

Next up SUFFRAGIST or SUFFRAGETTE? and a looking through a generational lens.


RESOURCES:

Sewall Belmont Collection
http://www.sewallbelmont.org/collectionitems/suffragist-newspapers/
Woman's Suffrage Memorabilia http://womansuffragememorabilia.com/woman-suffrage-memorabilia/suffrage-journals/

THE MOVEMENT ACTION PLAN
http://www.thechangeagency.org/_dbase_upl/practical_strategist.pdf

History Is A Weapon
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/moyermap.html

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=95833

JUST DO IT!

The day before President Wilson's inauguration, a massive suffrage parade was held on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.. Alice Paul lead the Congressional Committee which raised funds, and recruited workers and followers. By March 3, the committee had organized the floats, banners, speakers, programs, tableau and all of the money going towards the march. Suffrage groups across the nation contributed to funds of the march. The total cost was $14,906.08.

Sisters we stand on the shoulders of giants! We can learn a lot from our history and sometimes when you need it you can borrow their courage too! Imagine organizing a parade in Washington D.C. having never done it before. What thoughts would be going through your mind? Would people want to get involved? Would they show up?

Leadership is taking the responsibility for enabling others to achieve purpose in the face of uncertainty.

"We had opposition to everything we did. Everything." -Alice Paul

"Failure is Impossible" -Susan B. Anthony


Go ahead have a parade.

As we tune into this clip think about how using creativity can be fun and empowering. Are there ways we can include the positive & celebratory in our union meetings, websites or newsletters? Do we have union members who are talented in art or music? 

To follow along with blog and discussion watch movie from 17:26-29:13.

"Who is that woman on the horse?" I can imagine the people in the crowd asking themselves.

Inez Milholland

She attended the Kensington Highschool for Girls in London, a nondenominational private school close to her home that was most noted for its freedom from class distinctions. The school allowed the daughters of earls to study alongside the daughters of shopkeepers, perhaps fueling her later efforts toward class equity.

When it came time for Milholland to choose a college, she knew she wanted to study in the United States and she decided on Vassar. When the college wouldn't accept her certificate from Kensington, she was sent by her parents to the Willard School for Girls in Berlin in order to gain an acceptable diploma. Finally, in the fall of 1905, Milholland went with her mother to Poughkeepsie, New York, and tested successfully for entrance into Vassar.

At Vassar, she pushed herself hard, trying to get all she could out of her college experience with a full schedule of classes in addition to extracurricular activities. In her freshman year she played Romeo in a Romeo and Juliet, the first of many roles in student productions during her time at Vassar. Inez also joined the Current Topics Club, the German Club, and the debating team, as well as the unrecognized but active Socialist Club. She also helped organize a children's court in Poughkeepsie as well as playing basketball, tennis, golf, and field hockey on campus. Inez was a recognized athlete, breaking the school's shot-put record in her sophomore year, and, in her junior year, winning the college cup for best all-around athlete in addition to serving as president of the junior class. In just her first two years at Vassar, she had become an overwhelming campus personality. An active and unconventional student, she was always looking for a new or alternative way of going about things.

After her graduation in 1909, she made her first appearance as a suffrage orator, stopping a New York campaign parade for President William Howard Taft when she began speaking through a megaphone from a window in a building the parade was passing. As she spoke hundreds of men broke ranks to see and hear her, thus beginning her reputation as the one of the most powerful, persuasive, and beautiful orators in the suffrage movement. In the same year, she applied to the law schools at Yale, Harvard, and Columbia only to be rejected on the basis of her sex. Eventually, she entered the New York University School of Law from which she would receive a law degree in 1912. While studying for her degree, she continued her suffrage work as well as other social activism, most notably participating in the shirtwaist and laundry worker strikes in New York City, for which she was arrested.

In 1913 the 27-year-old suffragist made her most memorable public appearance, as she helped organize the suffrage parade in Washington D.C., Inez cemented her charismatic identity when she led the parade, through crowds of drunken men, wearing a crown and a long white cape while riding atop a large white horse.

Plan actions that build momentum.

Ruza Wenclawska
also known as  Rose Winslow

Born in Poland, Rose Winslow was brought to the United States as an infant with her immigrant parents. Winslow’s father worked as a coal miner and steelworker in Pennsylvania. She began working as a mill girl in the hosiery industry in Pittsburgh at age 11 and was also employed as a shop girl in Philadelphia, but was forced to quit work temporarily at age 19 when she contracted tuberculosis, leaving her disabled for the next two years. Winslow became a factory inspector and a trade union organizer in New York City with the National Consumers’ League and the National Women’s Trade Union League. In addition to her labor and suffrage activism, she was an actress and poet.

Winslow’s NWP activism is emblematic of the somewhat uneasy role of working-class women and labor rights advocates in the suffrage movement, as well as the NWP’s stated–but imperfectly realized–desire to reach out to women across the social spectrum. Winslow differed with Alice Paul over the former’s desire for outreach to male miners and factory workers and whether the NWP program was too focused on upper- and middle-class women.

Winslow brought her speaking and organizing powers first to the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage (CU) and then to the NWP by addressing gatherings on the streets, in union halls, and at suffrage rallies. In February 1914 she and Doris Stevens spoke at a mass meeting for working women, after which a contingent of working women marched to the White House to meet with Woodrow Wilson on suffrage rights.

  
What did you think of the parade?  Would you have worn a costume?

College graduates were encouraged to wear their graduation gowns. There were also a number of women in costumes representing liberty, justice, Joan of Arc and other symbols of women’s suffrage. A division of male suffrage supporters also marched in the 1913 parade.

Color can be symbolic.

The American suffrage colors of purple, white and gold could be seen on suffrage banners, clothing, sashes and posters. Purple stood for loyalty or dignity, white for purity and gold for enlightenment.

In an age prior to electronic communication and television, the use of color served as an instant means of visual recognition and became vividly symbolic in the suffrage movement. Two major color themes were used throughout American suffrage imagery: (1) the indigenous American tradition using gold or yellow coupled with a variety of subordinate colors; (2) the imported use of the British suffrage colors purple, white, and green, and its American variant purple, white, and gold.

The use of gold began with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony's campaign to help pass a suffrage state referendum in Kansas in 1867. The Kansas state symbol was the sunflower, which was adopted by the pro suffrage forces in the campaign. The sunflower, and the color gold or yellow, was associated with the suffrage cause thereafter. Suffrage supporters used gold pins, ribbons, sashes, and yellow roses to denote their cause.

"Get off the streets go home to your mothers!"

The suffragettes had to fight their way along the street, only able to walk three abreast at some points. They were subjected to taunts, spitting, slapping and burning cigars being thrown at them. The bedlam created caused army troops to be called out to settle things down. Because of the fighting and aggravation, over one hundred marchers were taken to the local Emergency Hospital. Woodrow Wilson arrived in Washington, D.C., the day of the March and when he stepped off the train, there's hardly a crowd to greet him because the crowd was lining Pennsylvania Avenue, watching the parade instead.

A movements power rests on grassroots support.

Isn't there a union chant that says something like that?

There ain't no power like the power of the people
'cause the power of the people don't stop!


"When was the last time the suffrage was on the front page?"

Even though women’s suffrage had received local and state feedback and attention, it was extremely difficult for the women’s suffrage movement to gain notice and recognition on a national level. This march created national attention, so it could not have come at a better time.

This march caught the attention of the American country and it's government and government officials. The New York Times covered the suffrage parade and portrayed it accurately. Although a violent event, the newspaper frames the event and woman's suffrage in a very positive light. They use words like "astonishing, wonderful, splendid, zest and brilliant spectacle." and "This parade as the greatest parade of women in history."

Acknowledge and take credit for success.

"We need to press our advantage."

Later, when Paul got the chance to ask Wilson what his intentions were toward suffrage, the president replied that he would have to have more information before making up his mind. From that point on, she would not let Woodrow Wilson forget the issue of woman’s suffrage.

Political power rests ultimately with the general population. The official power holders in any society can only rule as long as they have the consent of the people. Ultimately, the general population will only give this consent as long as those who govern are seen to be upholding the public trust and basic morals, values and the interests of the whole society.

"Now's the time to train them."

Do you have an hour to spare? Would you like to make a contribution? How about a pledge?

Just Do It!

Next up Press Onward! Ripening conditions and creative X-tras! 

RESOURCES:

Votes For Women Exhibit
http://www.nwhm.org/online-exhibits/votesforwomen/exhibit_text.html
Bill Moyer Eight Stages of Social Movement Success
http://paceebene.org/nonviolent-change-101/building-nonviolent-world/methods/eight-stages-successful-social-movements
The Change Agency
 http://www.thechangeagency.org/_dbase_upl/practical_strategist.pdf

LEAD, FOLLOW, ACT!

As union women who have made the choice to get involved let me just say this, YOU ROCK! You are taking actions big and small that make lives better for us all! When did you first learn about unions? Who encouraged you to participate? Who inspires you?

Alice & Lucy, with no money and a list of names set out to build support for a constitutional amendment that would guarantee all women the right to vote. How will everything they do from this point on create the change they want to see?


 More than a great idea, building a movement takes planning.

"Roll up your sleeves, set your mind to making history!"- Carrie Chapman Catt

"American women have begun to go over the top. They are going up the scaling ladder and out into All Man's Land." -Harriot Stanton Blatch

Starting in 1910, some states in the West began to extend the vote to women for the first time in almost 20 years. (Idaho and Utah had given women the right to vote at the end of the 19th century.) Still, the more established Southern and Eastern states resisted. In 1916, NAWSA president Carrie Chapman Catt unveiled what she called a "Winning Plan" to get the vote at last: a blitz campaign that mobilized state and local suffrage organizations all over the country, with special focus on those recalcitrant regions.

Build awareness and support.

Let's watch!

As you watch think about what you might be doing if you were there. What skills do you have that could help them? What would you be willing to learn? Who would you talk to?

To follow along with blog and discussion watch movie from 8:20-17:26.

Whoa! Are you thinking what I'm thinking? These women are absolutely amazing!

This clip begins with Ruza Wenclawska (better known as Rose Winslow) outside of the textle mill where she works. Now she is passing out flyers to coworkers stating "A vote is a fire escape!" Remember when we first saw her she said "give me a raise! Screw the politicians!" and "children don't eat ballots!" What can we learn as organizers from this exchange?

People commit to things they care about.

"Hi, Mabel Vernon, I played hockey with Alice at Swarthmore."

 Mabel Vernon
Mabel, regarded by many as the National Woman’s Party best organizer. She met Alice while attending Swarthmore College. After graduating in 1906, she taught German and Latin at a Pennsylvania high school. In 1912, she worked as an usher at the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) Convention. Leaving her career as a teacher, she joined Alice in 1913 as the first national suffrage organizer for the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage (CU). She served as a regional fundraiser and recruiter for the CU shortly after its formal organization in 1913.
 
"Lucy Burns."
 Lucy Burns
Lucy studied at Vassar and Yale Graduation School before teaching English at Erasmus High School.
In 1906-1908 she moved to Germany to study languages. This included spells at the University of Berlin and the University of Bonn before continuing her studies at Oxford University.

While in England, joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and her activities resulted in her being arrested and imprisoned. She met Alice Paul, another American working with the WSPU and when they returned home the United States they formed the Congressional Union for Women Suffrage (CUWS).


"Miss Paul, Ida Wells Barnett from the Chicago delegation."

Ida Wells Barnett
When Ida was only fourteen, a tragic epidemic of Yellow Fever swept through Holly Springs and killed her parents and youngest sibling. Emblematic of the righteousness, responsibility, and fortitude that characterized her life, she kept the family together by securing a job teaching. She managed to continue her education by attending near-by Rust College. She eventually moved to Memphis to live with her aunt and help raise her youngest sisters.

It was in Memphis where she first began to fight (literally) for racial and gender justice. In 1884 she was asked by the conductor of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad Company to give up her seat on the train to a white man and ordered her into the smoking or "Jim Crow" car, which was already crowded with other passengers. Wells wrote in her autobiography:


I refused, saying that the forward car [closest to the locomotive] was a smoker, and as I was in the ladies' car, I proposed to stay. . . [The conductor] tried to drag me out of the seat, but the moment he caught hold of my arm I fastened my teeth in the back of his hand. I had braced my feet against the seat in front and was holding to the back, and as he had already been badly bitten he didn't try it again by himself. He went forward and got the baggage man and another man to help him and of course they succeeded in dragging me out. .
Her suit against the railroad company also sparked her career as a journalist. Many papers wanted to hear about the experiences of the 25-year-old school teacher who stood up against white supremacy. Her writing career blossomed in papers geared to African American and Christian audiences.

In Chicago, she helped develop numerous African American women and reform organizations, but she remained diligent in her anti-lynching crusade, writing Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases. She also became a tireless worker for women's suffrage, and happened to march in the famous 1913 march for universal suffrage in Washington, D.C.  

"I expected more from a Quaker. I'll march with my peers or not at all."

A movement needs many leaders who work together.

The word "woman" is believed to have derived from the Middle English term wyfman, broken down simply as the wife (wyf) of man. In Old English, women were described simply as wyf, while the term man was used to describe a human person, regardless of gender.

"I really don't follow politics Miss Burns, I haven't the head for it."

Women
1. Could not vote
2. Could not own property in their own name.
3. Had no legal right to the money she earned when she worked.
4. Could not divorce their husbands without severe cause, and even with that could not keep her children.
5. Could not bear witness in court.
6. Could not serve on a jury.
7. If tried, they were tried by an all male jury.
8. Could not attend the major universities.
9. Could not use birth control and had to have baby after baby until her body was worn out and she died.
10. It was legal for a husband to beat his wife black and blue as long as the cane or rod he used was no larger in circumference than his thumb.

"We're citizens or we're chattel, you don't really need a degree to figure that out."

chattel - an item of movable personal property, such as furniture, domestic animals, etc...

One of the big voices against giving women the vote was the organization National Association OPPOSED to Woman Suffrage. In the 1910s it published a pamphlet explaining why women shouldn't be allowed to vote:

The stated reasons to "vote no" include:
BECAUSE 90% of the women either do not want it, or do not care.
BECAUSE it means competition of women with men instead of co-operation.
BECAUSE 80% of the women eligible to vote are married and can only double or annul their husband's votes.
BECAUSE it can be of no benefit commensurate with the additional expense involved.
BECAUSE in some States more voting women than voting men will place the Government under petticoat rule.
BECAUSE it is unwise to risk the good we already have for the evil which may occur.

Stay focused and keep moving forward.

"That's what people think of when you say suffragist?"


What do people think of when you say union? Are we sharing our stories with others? How has being a union member made your life better? Your family's life better? Do you have an hour to spare? Would you like to make a contribution? How about a pledge?

Being a union member isn't just about attending meetings and paying dues, it's about making lives better!

Alice & Lucy, along with others, in less than 2 months, without internet, social media, cell phones etc.. raised funds, mobilized 8,000 supporters to "march in a spirit of protest against the present political organization of society, from which women are excluded", as the official program stated, down Pennsylvania Ave. on March 3, 1913, the eve of Wilson's inauguration. To bring home the point that women needed the vote: now!

Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent.

 Union Sisters, what will you do to build our union movement?

Up next JUST DO IT! Looking at part 3 and people power.

 RESOURCES:
Women's History Timeline
http://dpsinfo.com/women/history/timeline.html
Bill Moyer Eight Stages of Social Movement Success
http://paceebene.org/nonviolent-change-101/building-nonviolent-world/methods/eight-stages-successful-social-movements
The Fight For Women's Suffrage

http://www.history.com/topics/the-fight-for-womens-suffrage