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