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