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