ADD MY NAME!
"I live .... For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance And the good that I can do." ~Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Heads or Tails?
"It is unthinkable that a national government which represents women should ignore the issue of the right of all women to political freedom." ~Lucy Burns
Institutional Oppression- The idea that one group is better than another group and has the right to control the
other gets embedded in the institutions of the society--the laws, the legal system and police
practice, the education system and schools, hiring policies, public policies, housing development, media images, political power, etc.
As we watch the next clip think about what freedom means to you. At what points do you say you are not free to do that? Have you ever experienced a situation in which you felt your freedom was being oppressed? What did you do?
To follow along with blog and discussion watch movie from 1:22:04-1:28:57.
Bearing witness is to show by your presence or by the way you act that something is true or right.
"We are not guilty of any crime. We are political prisoners. Now I want these women fed and given pen and paper to write to their families and we want our own clothes back! NOW!"
Five hundred suffragists were arrested for picketing and 168 were sentenced to terms in jail for the minor traffic offense of blocking the sidewalk. In court, the suffragists stood on their First Amendment "right of the people peacefully to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." They also denied the authority of the court.
"You're hurting me! You don't have a right!" On the night of November 15, 1917, according to Barbara Leaming in Katharine Hepburn:
"Under orders from W.H. Whittaker, superintendent of the Occoquan Workhouse, as many as forty guards with clubs went on a rampage, brutalizing thirty-three jailed suffragists. They beat Lucy Burns, who served longer than any other protester, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head, and left her there for the night. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed, and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, who believed Mrs. Lewis to be dead, suffered a heart attack. According to affidavits, other women were grabbed, dragged, beaten, choked, slammed, pinched, twisted, and kicked."
Solidarity Forever!
"Where are the girls?"
Before the 19th Amendment was ratified in the U.S. in 1920, women already had the right to vote in these countries: New Zealand . . . . 1893 Australia. . . . . . . . 1902 Finland. . . . . . . . . .1906 Denmark . . . . . . . . 1915 Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . 1917 Russia . . . . . . . . . . . 1917 England . . . . . . . . . 1918 Ireland. . . . . . . . . . . 1918 Scotland . . . . . . . . 1918 Germany . . . . . . . . 1918 Hungary . . . . . . . . . 1918 Canada. . . . . . . . . .1918
"I had Mrs. Quinn take them to my mothers. To free you up. I know how busy you are with all your suffrage activities."
From January 1917, the NWP found ways to present its case to the American people on an almost daily basis. The government was unable to stop the picketing of the White House. When thrown into jail, their story could have ceased to exist. The public could have forgotten about them. But the NWP found ways to keep the story in the national media. Women who had been imprisoned made speeches and the NWP organized the "Prison Special", a train in which formerly imprisoned suffragists toured the country.
Resist nonviolently to institutionalized injustice.
"He said I wasn't holding any cards. That I should know when to fold."
Nonviolent mass action forces change in three ways. It changes hearts and minds of the public and of the opponents of the protesters. Second, it hurts the pocketbook of those whose behavior it seeks to change. Third, it prevents those whose behavior it seeks to change from going about business as usual.
"He doesn't know about the ace up your sleeve." Alice Paul was born in 1885 in Moorestown, New Jersey. She was raised as a Quaker, a Christian sect which is nonviolent, pacifist and active in movements for social reform. The Quakers follow the teachings of George Fox, an Englishman who, beginning in 1647, advocated the doctrine of "inner light" or "Christ within". Quakers believe that following the true path of Jesus means improving the lives of others. They are encouraged to select a "testimony", a life’s work with a goal of reform.
The failure of the central power holders to change either their minds or policies is a poor indicator of the movement’s progress.
"Mabel, add my name!"
Executive Producer Lydia Dean Pilcher wrote of the film: There was a quote I read many years ago: ‘freedom is the sound of opinions clashing.’ And I think that’s something we’ve gotten very far away from in our country, that hopefully our film will help inspire that kind of lively debate, people stepping up and being passionate.
Do you have an hour to spare? Would you like to make a contribution? How about a pledge?
The avenue is misty gray And here beside the guarded gate We hold our golden blowing flags And wait...
Up next JAILED FOR FREEDOM and a closer look at power.
BEYOND WORDS! Have you found yourself in the midst of this unfolding story? In this next clip think about times when you have had to make a difficult decision. What were the consequenses? Have you ever had to have a difficult conversation? How did you prepare yourself? To follow along with blog and discussion watch movie from 1:09:12-1:22:04.
Mic Check!
"You under estimate your heart."
On Valentines Day, 1916, the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage (CU) delivered valentines to President Wilson and members of Congress. The valentines, which were personally tailored to each politician, use pleasant rhymes and cartoons to advocate for the passage of the Susan B. Anthony amendment, which would grant equal suffrage to women. Though many of the valentines are lost or their specific recipient unknown, the record which remains provides a fascinating example of the persuasive rhetoric employed by the CU to advocate for constitutional change.
This valentine was sent to Robert Lee Henry (1864-1931), Democratic Representative from Texas who worked as a lawyer and a city mayor in Texas before being elected to the Fifty-fifth Congress on March 4th, 1897. Henry served in nine subsequent Congresses, until 1916, when he stepped down to pursue an unsuccessful senate nomination.
Henry was Chairman of the Rules Committee at the time the valentines were sent. The Rules Committee is a committee of the House of Representatives which determines how and if bills proposed by other committees come to the floor. The committee decides under what rule the bill comes to the floor, which includes establishing the amount of speaking time assigned to the bill and setting the number, or type of amendments allowed to the bill. As Chairman of the Rules Committee, Henry's feelings towards the Susan B. Anthony amendmentwere crucial towards the success of the bill. The decisions of the committee affected the time given towards discussion of the bill. Because the suffrage cause relied on publicity generated by this discussion, Henry had the power to suppress this publicity by allotting little or no time to the bill. The valentine makes reference to the power of the Rules Committee with the line "R is for Rules - which must bend to the fact." As a Texas democrat, Henry was likely anti-suffrage. The line "Y is for You - with statesmanlike tact" is perhaps advocating for Henry's separation of his own opinions of suffrage from his role as Chairman. An appeal to Henry's "statesmanlike tact" is an appeal to his ability to decide the rules of the Susan B. Anthony amendment when it comes before Congress on its own merits, rather than on Henry's personal feelings towards the bill.
"The war changes everything!"
By the beginning of the 20th century, the efforts of suffragists had begun to bear fruit. Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho had given women full suffrage rights and in many states women were allowed to vote in municipal and school board elections.
During the Progressive Era (1890-1920), women played more active roles in the larger economic, cultural, and political transformation of American society. This growth in women's public roles allowed suffragists to be more aggressive in support of their cause as they developed stronger bases of support in the settlement houses, temperance organizations, labor unions, and reform movements that now sprang up across the country.
Sixteen states, including New York, had given women the right to vote by 1917, but the U.S. Constitution was not amended to enfranchise women until after World War I.
"If we push Wilson now, there's going to be consequences." No Justice No Peace! Hariet Stanton Blatch believed that the time had come for suffragists to escalate the pressure on President Woodrow Wilson, whom she supposedly told: "I have worked all my life for suffrage, and I am determined that I will never again stand in the street corners of a great city appealing to every Tom, Dick, and Harry for the right of self-government."
Heads or Tails?
"Land hard, roll left!"
The NWP effectively commanded the attention of politicians and the public through its aggressive agitation, relentless lobbying, creative publicity stunts, repeated acts of nonviolent confrontation, and examples of civil disobedience and other "unladylike" tactics to draw attention to the cause. The NWP forced the more moderate NAWSA toward greater activity.
"I'm sorry Miss you're under arrest."
Nonviolence accrues support and participants.
Nearly 2,000 suffragists traveled from 30 states to take turns on the picket line. Special days were set aside for women representing specific states, schools, organizations, and occupations. When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, however, some women resigned from the NWP because they viewed picketing as unpatriotic as well as unwomanly. These departures, however, were offset by new recruits–including many socialists, labor organizers, and average working women–who were attracted to the militancy, justice, and free speech aspects of the campaign. "Obstructing traffic!" Banners, emblazoned with thought-provoking messages, were essential elements of the picketing campaign. They were the medium for explaining the picket’s purpose and for embarrassing and pressuring Wilson into action. Many years later Paul still expressed pride, noting, "Our banners were really beautiful."
"We haven't broken the law." Sacrifice can be widely shared. The banners also sometimes inflamed onlookers and became targets of vandalism. The first of the famous "Russian" banners lasted less than a day. Pulled away from its bearer, it survived only a few minutes before the crowd shred it to pieces. The same fate befell the "Kaiser Wilson" banners. Many of the most effective banners carried quotes lifted directly from Wilson’s own speeches. Parroting Wilson’s words helped to highlight the government’s hypocrisy in supporting democracy abroad while denying its women citizens the right to vote at home. Also, as one historian noted, the tactic may have helped the suffragists avoid prosecution under federal espionage and sedition laws during a period of unprecedented government repression.
Even if mob violence was the exception rather than the rule, underlying tension and intimidation existed on almost any given day. Suffragist Inez Haynes Irwin wrote of the "slow growth of the crowds; the circle of little boys who gathered about . . . first, spitting at them, calling them names, making personal comments; then the gathering of gangs of young hoodlums who encourage the boys to further insults; then more and more crowds; more and more insults. . . . Sometimes the crowd would edge nearer and nearer, until there was but a foot of smothering, terror-fraught space between them and the pickets." When skirmishes broke out, the police invariably stood and watched, or else they arrested the women on charges of obstructing traffic.
"These arrests are purely political. The charge of obstructing traffic is political subterfuge..." Lucy Burns’s sympathy with labor organizations and the Left helped develop her responses.
Most important among the strategies used in court–and later in detention–in either the District of Columbia jailor Virginia’s Occoquan Workhouse, was the demand that arrested suffragists be treated as political prisoners. Arrested on criminal charges of obstructing traffic, NWP activists emphasized that their assembly on city sidewalks and their silent and peaceable picketing had been conducted entirely within legal grounds. Under the leadership of Paul and Burns they began insisting that the courts acknowledge that the real motivation for their arrests was politically based. They also placed the blame for the repressive response to their actions squarely on the Wilson administration.
"Not one dollar!" 1917 Price List Eggs, Choice Western, .39/dozen
Lemons, large juicy, .15/dozen
Wash boards, .39/each
Borax, 20 Mule, .08/10 oz box
Women's boots, black, 4.95/pair
Because sometimes that is the point – we have to act.
Up next ADD MY NAME! and the personal is political.
FINISH THE ROW! "Not to know what things in life require remedying is a crime… It leaves you at the mercy of events – it lets life manipulate you – instead of training you to manipulate life." -Inez Milholland
Few people devote their entire lives to one cause as Alice Paul did. She never married, spending her life crusading for women’s rights. When asked why, she replied with a quote of her mother’s, "When you put your hand to the plow, you can’t put it down until you get to the end of the row."
I can imagine her whole life of organizing groups and committees, rallies and demonstrations, dedicating her time, energy, and talent to progressing humanity forward.
As we watch this next clip, think about the decisions Alice had to make, to give up or continue? Have you ever felt like giving up? To follow along with blog and discussion watch movie from 58:22- 1:09:12.
"We laugh too."
Why We Oppose Votes for Men
Because man’s place is the army.Because no really manly man wants to settle any question otherwise than by fighting about it. Because if men should adopt peaceable methods women will no longer look up to them. Because men will lose their charm if they step out of their natural sphere and interest themselves in other matters than feats of arms, uniforms and drums. Because men are too emotional to vote. Their conduct at baseball games and political conventions shows this, while their innate tendency to appeal to force renders them peculiarly unfit for the task of government. Alice Duer Miller’s sarcastic column was published as a poster by the National Women Suffrage Association. 1915. You are making a difference!
"Heads we milk cows, Tails we go and find Wilson's boots."
Special to the New York Times Washington, Jan. 9, Women Suffragettes, representing all parts of the country, disappointed over the result of an appeal which they made this afternoon to President Wilson in the East Room of the White House, held an indignation meeting and decided to adopt a new plan of campaign. They intend to post pickets hereafter about the White House grounds. Their purpose is to make it impossible for the President to enter of leave the White House without encountering a picket bearing some device pleading the suffrage cause. The pickets will be known as "silent sentinels."
Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch, daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who precided over the indignation meeting, coined the title silent sentinels for the White House pickets. These silent sentinels, all young women, commencing at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning will take up their stations near the entrances to the White House.
Develop stronger and deeper opposition to current conditions and policies.
"Sentinels at every gate, dawn until dust."
Special to the New York Times Continued Washington, Jan. 9, The President expressed his surprise, reminded the spokesmen of the party that he had not been apprised of their full purpose, and was not prepared to say any more than he had on previous occasions. His speech follows:
"I had not been apprised that you were coming here to make any representations that would issue an appeal to me. I had been told that you were coming to present memorial resolutions with regard to the very remarkable woman whom your cause has lost. I therefore am not prepared to say anything further than I have said on previous occasions of this sort. I do not need to tell you where my own convictions and my own personal purpose lie, and I need not tell you by circumscriptions I am bound as a leader of a party."
Bound by Party Commands. "As the leader of a party, my commands come from the party and not from private personal convictions. My personal action as a citizen, of course, comes from no source but my own conviction, and therefore my position has been so frequently defined and I hope so candidly defined, and it is so impossible for me, until the orders of my party are changed, to do anything other than I am doing, as a party leader, that I think nothing more is necessary to be said.
I do not want to say this. I do not see how anybody can fail to observe from the utterances of the last campaign that the Democratic Party is more inclined than the opposition party to assist in this great cause, and it has been a matter of surprise to me, and a matter of very great regret, that so many of those who were heart and soul for this cause seemed so greatly to misunderstand and misinterpret the attitude of parties. Because in this country, as in every other self-governing country, it is only throught the instrumentality of parties that things can be accomplished. They are not accomplished by the individual voice, but by concerted action, and that action must come only so fast as you can concert it. I have done my best and shall continue to do my best to concert it in the interest of the cause in which I personally believe."
Another world is possible. "They'll get tired of the cold. It won't last." Their vigil started January 10, 1917 and lasted until June 1919 when the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution passed both the House of Representatives and Senate. During those two and a half years, more than a thousand different women picketed every day and night except Sunday, and many were arrested during the vigil. Maintain discipline.
We shall not, we shall not be moved
We shall not, we shall not be moved
Just like a tree that's standing by the water
We shall not be moved We shall not, we shall not be moved
We shall not, we shall not be moved
We're fighting for our freedom,
We shall not be moved "You are a brave girl." "The best protection any woman can have...is courage." -Elizabeth Cady Stanton "Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputations...can never effect a reform." -Susan B. Anthony
One day longer. One day stronger. "This continued picketing by the NWP is the single greatest obsticle to the suffrage amendment!"
The following are examples of banners held by the women: "Mr. President, what will you do for woman suffrage?" "Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?" "We shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts--for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments." "Democracy Should Begin at Home" "The time has come to conquer or submit, for us there can be but one choice. We have made it." (another quotation from Wilson) "Kaiser Wilson, have you forgotten your sympathy with the poor Germans because they were not self-governed? 20,000,000 American women are not self-governed. Take the beam out of your own eye." (comparing Wilson to Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, and to a famous quote of Jesus regarding hypocrisy)
"We do not support it and we have made that clear to the President."
In this tempest-tossed condition of mind I received an invitation to spend the day with Lucretia Mott, at Richard Hunt's, in Waterloo. There I met several members of different families of Friends, earnest, thoughtful women. I poured out the torrent of my long - accumulating discontent with such vehemence and indignation that I stirred myself, as well as the rest of the party, to do and dare anything. My discontent, according to Emerson, must have been healthy, for it moved us all to prompt action, and we decided, then and there, to call a "Woman's Rights Convention." We wrote the call 1 that evening and published it in the Seneca County Courier the next day, the 14th of July, 1848, giving only five days' notice, as the convention was to be held on the 19th and 20th. The call was inserted without signatures — in fact it was a mere announcement of a meeting — but the movers and managers were Lucretia Mott, Mary Ann M'Clin- tock, Jane Hunt, Martha C. Wright, and myself. The convention, which was held two days in the Methodist church, was in every way a success. The house was crowded at every session, the speaking good, and a religious earnestness dignified all the proceedings. At the first session a Declaration of Sentiments, 1 patterned after the Declaration of Independence, was read. As we had had but five days from the time of calling the convention until the date set for convening, all preparations had to be made with the greatest despatch. The statement of woman's grievances was drawn up the Sunday before July 19th. There was little time for consultation; each one of the rebellious group had to develop some side of the great drama. Beside the Declaration, eleven resolutions covering our aims and demands were prepared. I was wholly responsible for the IX resolution, which proved to be the con- tentious plank of our platform. My revolutionary sentiment read: "Resolved, That it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise." When I spoke to Lucretia Mott about my intention to present this, she amazed me by objecting, "Why, Lizzie, thee will make us ridiculous. " But I persisted, for I saw clearly that the power to make the laws was the right through which all other rights could be secured. In the convention all other resolutions were carried unanimously, but with the help of Frederick Douglass, and after a heated discussion, the IX resolution was finally passed by a small majority, and was embodied in the complete draft signed by one hundred of the persons who were present. These were the hasty, initiative steps of "the most momentous reform that had yet been launched on the world — the first organized protest against the injustice which had brooded for ages over the character and destiny of one-half of the race." Elizabeth Cady Stanton writing about the Declaration and Resolutions at Seneca Falls, July 19 and 20, 1848.
Plant seeds and encourage them to grow. Put your hand to the plow and finish the row. Next up BEYOND WORDS! And the whole world is watching.
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." - NWPJust 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
"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.
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.
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.
