Suffragists & the 19th Amendment : CSPAN2 : August 17, 2024 3:00pm-4:20pm EDT : Free Borrow & Streaming : Internet Archive (2024)

my name is stewart mclaurin and i'm the president of the white house. historical association. and it's my privilege to welcome

you, many of you, back to historic decatur house and the white historical association for another one of our wonderful lectures. tonight is one of the annual national heritage lectures that we do in partnership with the u.s. capital historical society and the u.s. supreme court historical society. and we have our wonderful colleagues from both here tonight. and my great friend jane campbell's the new president of the capital historical society. and like to welcome you here, join. on june fourth 1919, the 19/4 amendment was passed and sent to the states for ratification the suffragist used the white house as a backdrop to challenge age, inequity and attention to their cause. and tonight, art, we look forward to hearing more about their successful efforts to secure women's right to vote. but before i introduce our

speaker i have a couple of other introductions and things i'd like to share. first of all, we have guests from smith here tonight, the washington club, smith college. you all stand up stand up to washington. the smith college crowd. that's right. there are special tonight and we're honored to have them. i'd also like to tell a little bit about the white house historical association. and for those of you who have been with us before, i know that i love to talk about our wonderful mission that was begun in 1961 by first lady jacqueline kennedy. and remember, she was only 31 years old when her husband was inaugurated president of the united states. but at that young age, she had the vision, the foresight to know that what she and president kennedy needed there and others would need over the course of time, and that would be to have a private partner were not nonprofit. we accept no government whatsoever but all of the resources we raise go to our education to teach and tell stories of white house history.

going back 1792. and tonight, as a of that education outreach program. but we also provide resources directly to the white house to maintain the museum standard of the floor, on the ground floor, and the nonpublic historic rooms that mrs. kennedy envisioned maintaining. and we have done that with every president and first lady since the kennedys. we're honored to do so tonight. our format will i will introduce our wonderful speaker and then following in her remarks, ann compton, who you all know is a wonderful friend of ours and a wonderful friend yours, will come up and have an interview session. and don't worry this podium is going to be removed and set aside so all of you can have an unobstructed view of their conversation. but and we have been very good friends with for many years she's been very supportive of us as an organization and as she is of many things here in washington. you know, her best as a former

reporter and white house correspondent. she was the first woman assigned to cover the white house for network television. she worked for abc news for 41 years, retiring in 2014. but really haven't retired completely because you're very involved and active and engaged things. i know. with us with the miller center and many other endeavors, her career spanned seven presidents and ten presidential campaigns. she traveled to all 50 states, six continents and. an interesting of the many, many interesting anecdotes and stories about ann's years in covering the white house and the president is the compelling story of her being with president george w bush on september 11th. 2001 is the only broadcast reporter that traveled around the country with on that day and will soon be. coming up on 20 years anniversary of that occasion, we'll want to do something special to talk about the white house on 911.

so we thank and for her friendship and for being with us to take this series of lectures forward. we'll have another one in september on the role of pat nixon in the white house. this is the 50th anniversary of the nixon's coming into the presidency and mrs. nixon first lady and i think she is an unheralded first lady in terms of her legacy with the white house and what she contributed in terms of artifacts, the really american artifacts to the white house collection. and we'll be celebrating that with a lecture in september. and then in october. very exciting news. our dear friend chef roland mazda has a brand new that's going to be out october. and for the first time ever, he's finally unlocking his recipe box. and he's going to actuabesharins service to. five american presidents from jimmy carter to george w bush and his wonderful confections he

created as the executive house pastry chef for those many years. jennifer, who you may know, is an author of white house the white house christmas is going to have a new book out on ceremonies at the white. and so we'll have a conversation with chef messina and jennifer pickens at our event in october. so stay tuned for news on both of those occasions and now for prime event that we're very fortunate and we're in for a treat tonight to talk about this very important and timely happening in our nation's history and on the centennial, this important historic occasion, we have robert rebecca boggs roberts here tonight is our speaker. and rebecca has been i many things in her life in her career and not limited to just these. she's been a journalist she's been a producer. she's been a tour guide. she's been a forensic anthropologist. she's been an event planner. she's been a political

consultant. she's been a jazz singer. she's been a radio talk show host. and currently is curator of programing planet word, a museum set to open in 2020. she's also time to be the mom to two twin boys and, a wife and a great keeper of the family. in line. and on top of that, all of that. she's an author and she has written a wonderful book on the subject that we are here to learn about tonight and this part of american history and white house history. with that, we'll have rebecca come up and then we'll remove the podium. and rebecca and ann can have a conversation at the end. you're invited to your to pose your questions as well. thank you all so much having me. thank you, stuart. and just set the record straight. i actually have three sons. not to brag, but the twins have

a little brother. so the suffrage movement really dates from seneca falls in 1848. and finally to ratification of the 19th amendment in 1920. in the of both brevity and focus am not going to cover all 72 years. in fact i'm going to more or less ignore the 19th century and in fact the first decade of the 20th century as well. and really focus on the final push for the amendment. but if you have any questions about, other parts of the movement other players in the movement, i'd be more than happy to answer them when we go to q&a. so i like to start with this image of the program from the 1913 suffrage march down pennsylvania avenue. and i like to use it because it's really the only image in color. the great thiut writing 20th century history is all the great photographs. but they are, ofe, black and white a this original program you how extraordinarily co evething was in this march and all the contemporary talk about that as well, but

deliberate colors are really in fact, almost everything the suffrage movement did was really deliberate. but purple i a rich, saturated color. goldso wte of course is the absence of color. these th show really well in black and photograp that's all on ppose. and also, if you want to see the artifacts, the movement in all their beautiful, colorful glory, the belmont. paul house on capitol hill. on the senate side, it can constitution a second. has all of the original, but also because we're in the centennial year, there are a bunch of terrific going on. there's one at the portrait gallery. there's one at the archives. there's one at the library of congress there will be one opening soon at the smithsonian american history museum. so go out and see all of these artifacts in their glory. we are lucky enough to be in the town where. they are curated so. this march, the 19th, 13 march

was the first civil rights march. there have been parades down avenue, but this idea of taking a cause to the core of federal was alice paul's. and it started with the capitol at the legislative branch and it marched the way down pennsylvania avenue to the white house, to the executive branch. and that was absolutely symbolic and it was the day woodrow wilson's inauguration. so if that sounds familiar, a women's down the middle of washington on the same weekend as the inauguration of a president they hadn't voted for. in order to remind him that he ignored women's voices at, his peril from the very beginning of his administration and those parallels obviously are very, very strong. so the march to make sure this is actually advancing. i, of course, don't have my glasses on. so if it's not on, i don't have any way of knowing that. so this obviously the capitol and the pennsylvania avenue. pennsylvania avenue is a really, really broad was then is now.

and so they were ae to plan this really grand procession all of these floats marching bands working women marcheby profsion in matching outfits. this is the herald, the parade. jane burleson. and the idea was she would get up on her horse at the beginning, way down on the capitol enof pennsylvania avenue and a bugler would sound that the parade had begun. and a few blocks later th bugler call would be picked up by another bugler on all the way down 15th street to the treasury department, which is, you know, has that big bar of a plaza out front and a tleau of event would begin on the treasury steps. we' get to the tableau in mo, but you can see how this is all the hors are all spaced perfectly and they all have fabulous hats on and this is all very, very troughly planned. right. just jane ferguson was ina's mill holland on her horse. and you all have probably seen this image, especially at the state of the union this year

when the women members of congress chose twe white hor the suffragists this image showed ua lot as an example of a suffragist white. i also love this image bau this shows you what a great publicist alice paul. so i milhoanwas aab lawyer. she was a really accomplished but all of yokn, breathlessly sexist press of the day never failed tk about how pretty sheas. they called her the most beautiful suffragist. and alice u's reaction was, basically, you know what? if you're going to talk about our british is instead of how smart she is, i'm going to put in a white dress on a white horse and stick a star on. her forehead never lead my parade. and then maybe you'll take her picture and we'll get a little coverage out of it. so this image of comes back in suffrage law, but was inez milholland up on horse? the working women, as i said, march by profession. these are the nurses the teachers marched together the writers marched er. they purposely stad stumes with ink. college women marched alma

mater. won there we have picturesh from somef thother seven sisters schools. i looked for smith i couldn't find them. and the whole idea was that this grand procession would and at 15th street, at the eary department, where this tableaux go on. table w a fascinating art form that involves some sort of torture lery where people would come out and pose and this allegory is colombia sumni the virtues. that's colombia in the armor and. the virtues reike peace and prosperity. it involved children in togas an iv doves. and it was a wlehing. and d ry little to do with suffrage. but boy, did it look great in pictures this is sti the cover of my book 100 years later. an againbsutely strategically planned to be that way. ere was a grand stand in front of treasury seupor the inaugural parade that was set for the next day. and alice paul did get

permission for her vip's to sit. so there was a live for this tableau, but that was not the main audience. the idea was that this would be published in newspapers all around the country the next day there the children in togas. so it was march third. it's a little chilly in early march in washington. these children were barefoot on, the marble steps to the treasury. but parade begins. e bugle sounds. the tableau gets the signal to start. they start. they pform their beautiful tableau. and then they stand there an dignified silee. and the plan was that the parade process by in front of them, they would fold into the back of the parade and then all end up at dar hall, where the tableau would perform again in triumph to. a rousing applause. the audience. and it would be a great day. so the tableau goes ahead and there's a parade. and the tableau, and they're maintaining their poses. no parade. they can't they have no way of knowing where the parade is, why

it's held up. it's getting a little cold up there on the treasury steps, their togas, they wait as long as they can and finally have, to go inside the treasury department, where's the parade? why hasn't the parade come down pennsylvania avenue? that's why. so for orien, we're standing this picture is taken about 12th street, where w, that tower that dominates is now the trump hotel pitore looking back towards the it's a six oad th really broad sidewalks. and it was absshouer to shoulder, crowded. l can see.ow how much detail you there's lot of bowle in that picture. it's all men they weren't there for the suffrage. they were there e inauguration. the next day the sufpara was a sideshow and they were very poorly. these men,tripd the men ey spit on them. they yelled names the police did ing stop the in some cases, the police joined in the spitting and the tripping

the me calling. and you can't get a parade throug that. alice paul reazed her perfectly planned parade was about to go south, and she got the car. in ademic robes. she was going to march with this fourth marlon's and she drove a car up and down the parade route trying to sort of zigzag through the crowd, get them back up. and it didn't work at. all the crowd just poured back in behind her as soon as the car went by. finally, they literally called in cavalry, they had some officers standing by at fort myers and they came in and rode their horses into crowd enough so that parade could fight their way down. so instead of, the tableau performing at da crawl in triumph, all the show up at our hall, filthy, furious coal, angry, horrified side that this massive crowd of these jerky men have completely ruined what should have been this

meticulously planned, triumphant day. alice paul realized the very beginning. it was the best thing that ever have happened that a parade would be in the news for a day and a near riot would keep the suffrage movement in the news for weeks. and that's exactly what there was a congressional hearing. the police almost lost his job. there was a whole thing. and again, to notice how good these women were at manipulating press. so i'm not entirely sure what i should be pointing this out. order to make it change. what's over here? okay, so this is the washington post. the next day. and i love these headlines. the the is so spectacular. i don't know if you can read but so this ou be woodrow wilson, the nation's 28th president. right so instead, wilson gets halfow wson arrives to become nation's head today and the other column says women's grace and art bewilder the capital milesutteng

femininity present in trouncing suffrage a and there's a photo of the tableau. right. so this was not particularly well planted story from the national women's party. this is how men covered the parade without any guidance from the women. so it all is talking about how pretty it all was. and oh, by the way, there was some bad behavior. this is a much better example thago ily tribune. so woodrowilson not headline this column here. bs at capital defy block suffrage parade guards powerless before bars hoodlumcaustic remarks at the marchers and then this paragraph down. the lead hase 17 superlatives in, you know the crowd the widest s the angriest mob, the most girls all ess.ugh and it is terrific but also look athe ctoon right there is like little

thking he gs the spotlight on the day of his inauguration but total there's auffragists just sort of bright eyed right there, literally stealing the spotlight from him. so the 1913 march was sort of the turning point for the final to actually get the amendment through congress. and in addition being a great publicity ploy it was a reintroduction of the federal amendment as a strategy. so i got to race through a little bit of political history here. again, feel free to ask questions about it later because i'm going to go really fast. the original suffragists and you know their names, elizabeth cady stanton, susan b, anthony lucretia mott, lucy stone. they were abolitionists and some of them came to suffrage because what they really wanted was abolition and they figure they couldn't get that done without the vote. there were people like stanton who were major women's rights advocates on across the board when after the civil war, the

reconstruction amendments were passed and they enfranchised black men, no women that caused a major rift in the suffrage party. there were people like lucy stone and julia ward. how who said where abolitionists will take this? it's important black men get the vote. we'll fight for women next. and there were people like elizabeth cady stanton, this is anthony, who said, please stop telling us to wait. our if we don't get this now, it's going to be another generation. and we can't support the 15th amendment. if it doesn't include women. and so was a huge split and they started tearing each. they formed competing organizations. they passed other's donors. they tore each other down in the press. but also they continued on two separate avenues for getting suffrage passed with the stanton and anthony faction pushing federal amendment and the stone on how blackwell faction pushing a state by state strategy in part because these reconstructs and amendments had been as

federal overreach by the confederacy. and so a by state strategy was considered a little bit safer. but also, it's not crazy to go state by state, right? like eventually if enough states suffrage, you'll have enough men in congress, women that a federal amendment becomes inevitable. so the federal amendment had really languished since just after the civil war. so this 1913 march just behind inez milholland on her white horse, there was a big old banner said, we demand a constitutional enfranchising. the women of this country. and that is called the great demand banner. you can see it at belmont. paul so this march in addition to just being a really great publicity ploy, was an announcement that the federal amendment was back, that was really going to be a major strategy going forward. so it was really alice paul who was pushing this to the amendment and also much more public tactics and she had she was very young. she was only in her early

twenties at the time. the 1913 parade, but she had gone to grad school in england and had become a follower of emmeline pankhurst, the british suffrage also had its kind, slow and steady color within the lines suffrage movement, and then they had the pankhursts and the pankhurst mother emmeline daughters sylvia and christabel were totally and very, very militant. eventually, alice paul's faction of american movement became called militant. they had nothing on the british movement. these were started by throwing bricks through windows. they escalated to try to set the prime minister's house on fire. i understand they burned down glaswegian botanical gardens. they smacked in the face on purpose to get arrested, were not playing around. in fact. i think i have to this i love this so this is a paper the headline says expected in lond tonight suffragettes to force their way into parliam

nt aer dark. ms. pankhurst says the women will certainly break into the house. everyone expected the other thing is an ad from a glazier saying if suffragettes k your windows, call me if i get it. was in the edinburgh paper. t's got this greatttis break windows, but i'm the wee boy who can put to bed. by the way, suffr, suffragette. the word is the british press made fun of the british suffrage movement. by calling them suffragette, it was meant be derisive and like nasty women and deplorables. generations later, the british co-opted the title and wore it with pride and kind of leaned in so most properly is a suffragist suffragette refers to the british movement, specifically the militant wing, the british movement. there was your lesson for the day. so with these from the british movement and alice was arrested,

she went to jail, she was force fed in british jail. she absolutely participated in these guerrilla tactics. when she moved back to the us in 1910, she wanted to use some of those tactics, breathe new life into the american movement was really languishing. stanton and anthony founding mothers were dead by then. this split had really lost everybody time and energy. so she alice paul worked with the national american women suffragists and the two factions after civil war had finally come back together and, formed this over writing major group carrie chapman and anna howard shaw were the leaders and they let alice paul set up a washington office just like lots of nonprofits and ngos and trade associations have a washington office. and it was right here on lafayette square. that's men house. 's across the square from where we are now.

it's got a light yeacade. it's those historic facades that was preserved by jackie kennedy. and now the structure sort of s up behind it. riginally it was congressional office lobbying arm of the national american suffrage association, an was their headquarters but almost from the very beginning, alice paul of went rogue and she blishing a competing newsletter and sheout and set some of her own money and the national american moment suffrage ation kicked her out and told her they were already pretty nervous about her tactics. and they if you're going this pankhurst aggressive stancecan't do itnder umbrella of the national. so they split. they stayed at cameron house and evly calledelves the national woman's party. so throughout. 1914, 1915, they continued to

push for a federal amendment. they continued to have pretty public events, parade they had a big booth at the world's fair in san francisco in 1915. they had a cross-country road trip. it was still sort of shocking to see women drive where they gathered petitions, signals, signatures across the country. they had some success with some publicity, not a whole lot of success with getting support for the federal amendment. meanwhile, the national was considered continuing to push the state by state strategy, and they were having very little success there by the. 1916 election every there ten states that allowed women the right to vote all the big empty states out west so wyoming was first montana, idaho. and they had, you know, like 11 people living in them. and so they were enfranchising everybody to sort of maximize their political. so but in 1916, every state that had suffrage on the ballot voted it down. woodrow wilson, who was a real

enemy to suffrage he was against it for so many reasons. he kept coming up with new ones. he had lots of reasons to be against suffrage. and he was reelected in a landslide. so 1916 felt like it just, you know, it wasn't at all successful for the movement they felt like their tactics weren't working. and then at the very end of 1916, inez milholland, she of the white dress on the white horse, literally collapsed on stage. she was one of their best stump speakers, and she had pernicious anemia. no one really realized how sick she was and she was giving speech in california, and she fainted on stage and never recovered. she in the hospital a couple of weeks later and her sister, who was in the audience, said her final words were. mr. president, how long must women for liberty? maybe they were. it's a great line. but she, as you might imagine, immediately became a martyr to the cause.

right. she literally died in its cause. that image of her on the white horse, this looks like a holly card, right and she became almost sainted. that was the very end of you can see the original of this painting at belmont paul, too, by the way, that was the very end of 1916. so 1917 dawned the national women's thinks nothing that we're is working. we haven't gained a single state. we haven't twisted a single voter we haven't we still have this president who is not interested helping us sway anybody in congress. we need to do something new. and at the beginning of 1917, they up with the idea of picketing the white house. i promise you if you go to the white house right now, there will be picketers there. there always are. feel free to remind them it was paul's idea. this was the first time anybody had ever done this. and again, check out visuals. right? these women in their dark coats against the white house, that banner that says, mr. president

how long this women wait for liberty? i know maybe last words in this very simple sans sarah font dark letters a light background this is all made the pictures and pictures are great so at the time live the space. they were sort of a curiosity. people were interested in the white house pickets. i thought that was pretty interesting. this is february 1917. it's very out there, but would sort of come by and sometimes would come to washington to participate and there were themed days. there was a college day where, again, i looked for smith college pictures. there's new york day, looks li new york but a really rainy, terrible and they stayed out there throughout and february of 1917 every single day and there are stories of thebrging warm bris r the women to stand on. anonwoman had a fur coat and would pass around. everyone got to wear the fur coat 20 minutes and it was just

rt of a curiosity at first, even though this wacoletely new and so often you'll hear someone say, oh, you know, the women chained themselves to a white house, so no one ever chained themselves. everything doing is totally legal. standing in front of the white house with a sign is not against any law. and they didn't want to keep it up. first of all, it was hard to recruit people to it, but also all tactics get stale after a while and the intention was that it? wilson second inaugural in 1979 that have one big last grand picket and then they'd go meet with wilson. so unlike in 1913 and his first inaugural march of 1917, this was one of those gross early spring days in washington where the rain is coming in sideways and the wind is just bitter. and but they were out there. there's a great news aount describing so that they're holding these wooden poles that had so wd stain on them with the banner and the ai dripping the women's wrists in

the freezing rain. so ty outnd march around the white house and they try to go into the white house to meet with president wilson. and e're barred the security says, you can't come in here. so they go around to the 15th street gate barred try, the ellipse barred so what do you do now they just keep marching around the white house. they circled the property for five times. finally, they back to cameron house right here on lafayette square and they say, well, we're going keep the pick it up. you know, he won't even meet with us. we're not stopping we're going to keep going with these pickets. so they keep it up throughout the spring of 1917, by the end of april, us is now involved in a world war one. now what do you do right? do you keep criticizing the president this very public way while we're at war. you know, public opinion is going to turn you people are going to think you're traitors

traitors. they decided you, you know, if if president wilson going to be out there saying that this war is important to make the world safe for democracy while continuing to be the biggest block to enfranchising half of his own voters yet we're going to keep the pickets up. in fact, they leaned in. this is the russian envoy banner. it says president wilson, envoy route are deceing russia. they say we are a democracy. help win a world war. so the democracies may survive. we, the women of america tell you america is not a democracy. million americen are the right to vote. president wilson is the chief opponent of their national and franchise melp us make this nation free. tell our government that it must li itseoe. it can claim free russia as an ally. and again, this is message is not for the people by this message is for photographs and newspaper coverage today this would be a tweet, right?

that's the whole idea public opinion does in fact turn against the women here tearing down the russian envoy banner. the police never did to stop this kind of stuff. by the way, what do the women do? well, they go ahead and call president wilson, kaiser wilson. have you forgotten your sympathy with the poor germans because they were not self-governed. 20 million american women are not self-govern. take the beam out of your own. now they're calling president a kaiser while we're at war with germany. finally, the president had enough. tell us police force. get them off my sidewalk. i care what you have to do. they're not breaking any laws. so the police start arresting them for a completely made up charge of obstructing the traffic on the sidewalk, which is not a thing. right. and haul the women into jail and say a $5 fine or a night in

jail. assuming that all the women will. here's my $5. i can't possibly go to jail. i'll never do it again. every single one of the women say, bring, i'll go to jail. there's 30 more women who'll pick up the pickets tomorrow. so that whole crew gets arrested $5 fine for nights in jail. fine. four nights in jail. i got no problem with that. there's more women who will do it. so this escalates so crazily throughout the summer and fall of 1917 that these women getting sentenced to 60 days in the workhouse for standing on the corner with the sign, which is not, in fact, breaking any laws. but they kept calling the bluff of the sentencing judge and they choosing the jail time and took the pankhurst tactics of demanding political prisoner status. when that was denied, as it always was going on a hunger strike, some of them were force fed here in dc jails, which is as horrible as it sounds, by the way. right it involves forcing a tube down your throat, pouring liquid in and then yanking the tube

out. women got their teeth broken if they closed their mouths against, the tube and they're not breaking any laws. they're demanding a voice. and democracy, the national the major women's suffrage association, it was horrified by all of this. that the national women's party was being this tacky tacky, but it kind of worked for both of them. right. carrie chapman, cat could say not that crazy. alice paul president wilson. you can meet with me. i'm a reasonable human being that worked for her. and if it had just been the national women's party, then this would have just been a sideshow. you needed real work of lobbying and organizing at the same time. so finally, in the fall of 1917, and i'm sure most of you have heard the story, a bunch of women were sent down to the workhouse at occoquan, virginia and the warden down there decided that he had had enough and he ordered guards to pick

the women up bodily and that workhouse. for the most part, women were sent into sort of communal area where they stayed together. but were punishment cells, individual and the warden ordered his guards to pick the women up and drag them through the dark to. these punishment cells, which were unlit, unheated and open toilets and rats and everything horrible, you can imagine. and the women were physically picked up. the guards picked them up and put them into these cells so that several of them smacked their heads against the cinder block. one woman passed out. her cell mate thought she was dead. a heart attack. lucy byrne starts calling out the role of the women who have been arrested in the dark to see if they'll answer or who's okay. the warden yells lucy for stop calling the name. she refuses they chain her. lucy burns her arms above her head in this dark, freezing cell all night long for standing on a corner. a sign right?

this becomes known as the night of terror. word gets out about this of treatment and public starts to turn back in favor of the women. the other thing that happened in fall of 1917 is new york passed suffrage, which was hugely important. populous state. finally, even some of the most recalcitrant members of congress thought, gosh, it looks like women are going to vote. maybe they should vote for me. so as 18 dawned, there some momentum around a federal amendment. the president still not on board. so these are i don't usually these pictures, but since we're right here on lafayette square, i wanted to say this is the lafayette statue. right, right in front of the white house on t f side o square. throughout the spring of 1918, they would hold national women's party would hold protests at the lafayette statue. at one point, they were finally kickedf cameron house because the cosmos club, which was then the next building over

before they moved up massacses avenue, cosmos clght cameron house a into it. so the national women's party to the jackson place. the square so they would stand at lafayette statue. and every time the president ga apeech about democracy, which was like every ten or 15 minuteng world war one, that burn would write his words and set on fire. they did tha in front of the white house as well. that banner says president wilson is, deceiving the wor when he appears as the pph of democracy. president wilson has opposed those who demand docracy for this country. he is responsible for. the disenfranchisem*nt of millnsf americans in americ know this. the world will find him out. so these were called the watch fire women continued to be arrested, lighting a fire after dark and other completely made up this. throughout 1918, 19. by fall of 1918. there's midterm, right and there are a couple of votes in

congress that don't quite make it there it makes passes house and the senate to pass some of the house. it doesn't get there. 1918, a new congress is elected enough pro suffragists are elected in that wave in part because of things like new york passing suffrage that 1919 looks like it might actually happen. so almost exactly 100 years ago in june of 1919, the 19th amendment finally passes both the house and the senate. so now it goes to the states for ratification. this is alice paul. she made a flag where every time a state ratified should sew a star on. and there were 48 states at the time. and so you needed 36. so a bunch of states passed it right away wisconsin. michigan, a bunch of states voted it down over the summer of, 19,lmost entirely in the south and almost entirely for overtly racist. they we not interested in enfranchise a single new black voter. they were systematicay male

black voting rights with jim crow laws that was working for them. they wanted part of new black voters. so momentum kind of stalls by spring of 1920. 35 states have ratified. you only one more five have voted it down. and of the eight left, five won't bring it to a vote. and that those were all very specific reasons about governors, not wanting to call special sessions and blah blah, blah. a lot of inside politics, which i'll be happy to go into if anyone is interested. there's a crazy in delaware. whichever one thought would be the 36 state and it loses in delaware. so now the last states are north carolina and tennessee which the way the south has been going, neither look like a great prospect. right. north carolina votes it down. it's all down to tennessee. it's the summer of 1920. it's in nashville. it's really hot.

everyone says up in. all of the pro suffragists, all of the anti suffragists, the entire national press corps, all the catholic church, the civil war veterans, the liquor lobby, they're all staying at the hotel. they're all in the hermitage hotel in nashville, the suffragists, where a yellow rose in their lapel. the antis wear red. there was one who wore one legislator who were both just to confuse you. the liquor lobby is there. they've set what they call the jim beam suite where they're all the legislators too drunk to vote. there's unbelievable politicking where members get a phone call saying you need to get back to memphis. your son is sick. their son was fine. you know, this on for like a week august and no one's got a good whip. no one knows how this is going to go. the state senate passes it so it's all down to the state assembly. a couple of days, the actual vote, there was a vote could be seen as a proxy. it was to table something and you could sort of see it as an

indication of how the real vote's going to go. it's a tie. we're down to the last house of the last state. it's tied. a tie is a loss for suffrage. right? you have to win win. so finally, the actual day arrives. some people are you know have their red roses in their yellow roses. it's a million, billion degrees. they've all been in the same hotel together for a week. it's if people are hanging all over the gallery of the state statehouse and they call the roll and, one guy changes his vote. harry no one had harry byrne in the column. he was in his twenties. he was the youngest member, the legislator. let's just later, his mentor in the legislature was an absolute dyed in the will women are too stupid and fragile to handle the vote kind of an anti separatist. but he changes his vote to yes and it takes be at the beginning of the alphabet it sort of takes a little while for people to realize that early in the roll somebody changed their vote. did you hear harry byrne? yes. did harry byrd change his vote?

it only takes one to win. at this point. what? why did harry byrd changes? who is harry byrd? the entire national press shows up. poor the larry bird. mr. byrd, why did you change mind? mr. burton? you're responsible for suffrage, mr. burton you just single handedly enfranchised half of the american voting populace. what was it? what changed your mind? well, it turned out his mama told him to. slow. he had in his a letter from his mother fed tt says in part hurrah and vote for suffrage and don't keep them in doubt. and he says to all these reporters, it's because my mom wrote me this letter. and i really think that a mother's advice is the best thing for a son. follow. so the mother of three sons embroider it a pillow. but that is how close. it came right. finally, alice paul was able to embroider the 36 star on the flag. she unfurled from the balcony of

the jackson place headquarters right out here. and that is how close a american women came to not getting the 19th amendment passed in the summer of 1920. it's an amazing story. and with that background, anna and i are going to talk a little bit and we will take your questions. so thank you very much. for. well, do any of those political tactics sound familiar. rebecca? what was it the women in that time who were able to pull together the strategy and the

effectiveness? these were smart, educate did and incredibly inventive women who wouldn't. no for an answer they really were. i am continually impressed. the more i learn with how savvy they were. i think we a tendency to think that history is linear and progressive and that every generation does little little bit better than the generation before and maybe the radical envelope a little bit more. and these women were doing it 100 years ago. and they couldn't introduce or vote for it while. female right. so they could do everything up to actually making it happen. and it's, it's amazing to me now, especially because so much this history is taught in kind of, a condescending way. there's this like look at their dresses and banners they affected largest historical change american democracy. it was a revolution.

it was a bloodless revolution. they did it with their brains and they did it on their own and they did it with no power. by definition, they had no power and they made it happen. took a long time and there were lot of defeats along the way. but it is an unbelievably impressive feat and. what what made them able to do it that? final push, i think some of it was a new generation. all the things we see in social movements now, you know, younger voters being more tolerant of all kinds of social issues. i think that there were more educated women. i think that there were more opportunities for women to have a public life. so a lot of the objection to women voting was that it would tear down the you know, the home would be destroyed, women would abandon the domestic sphere for

the public sphere. and as more women were in the public sphere already, that was less shocking and then? i think the leadership that emerged i mean the original ladies really impressive and radical but these final this final group and i don't want to take anything away from carrie chapman and howard trott the national they were also brilliant strategist character in particular. and so the fact that they were to lead it through to the end, i think there's an interesting when the actual amendment went through wasn't it carrie chapman was not invited nor was was alice paul in part because. well, were they good friends? no. ho, ho, ho. can you imagine within the effective they it was said they detested each other. and so whoever was hosting the kind of signing and everything they said, we just won't fight either one of them to come here

but this. but the idea that they all were able to pull that same direction. think of the what we know at what i remember in history when you get past the victorian era they edwardian and the industrial revolution we're into a time this this new of there is a progressivism and there is a kind of movement sense communications getting better is getting as it was and but it's the political tactics that now show that even the 20th century and into the 21st it is these kind of skills talk a little bit about by slide is the newspaper i'm a reporter for and i a dear friend of her parents both reporters co*kie roberts and steve roberts, who i've known since were born and when you

look at the front page of the the the washington paper on inauguration day and president elect wilson has to share the front page with the bewildered editors who don't know what to muttering from entity they had to against so much to get that kind of how could they be so media savvy? is it because they were on the outside pushing through? isn't that amazing? i mean, not only were they media savvy, had no allies within the paper there weren't female reporters, at least not routinely. there were a few here and there so they the washington post was fairly the new york times anti suffrage unapologetically. anti suffrage all the way through. and their coverage is really brutal. but one of the things the women did was so smart, so the day of

the 1913 parade, all these women come from all over the country to participate before left town, the national women's party got them each to write a first person account of their mistreatment at the hands of the mob and. send it to their hometown paper. so like the springfield paper would say mrs. george thurman was manhandled at this crowd and it became a local story. yeah. so it was the, the ability to make turn story in their favor when it all went south. that's not the story they thought they were going to be publicizing. and to get maybe unsympathetic reporters to cover it in a sympathetic way. and there was plenty of critical press, too but they were really good at staying in the news and especially as world war one dawn, when there was a lot of big news dominating the front, that's what the pickets were all about. the the war comes along and have a president who actually had a

showing of birth of the nation in the white house. the the early movie that glorified the klan. and he thought it was just a wonderful movie so you not only had the radicals but you had in a political establish movement that didn't feel they to give anything. yeah. woodrow wilson does sort of emerge as the villain of the story. he really does. so i am hesitant to judge a historical figure from norms, but his own contemporary ideas were pro suffrage. i mean, in the 1912 election, teddy roosevelt had a suffrage plank in his platform, so it wouldn't have been out of the question for a presidential candidate to be pro suffrage. and he was so craven about it. he kind of started with oh, i haven't really thought suffrage, which is the lamest political excuse ever. and then he tried you know i'm the leader of the democratic party and there's not a platform the democratic party put. you know, they're not a plank in the he had written the platform

right. that was his excuse then he tried it's a states rights issue which is racist. right. that was really just i don't want to tell the south they have to enfranchise black and then finally the only excuse of his that i give him a little bit of sympathy for was i really need to pay attention to world what right now so point he said he'd only pay attention to war measures but it just he came up with so many roadblocks and it was really just basic sexism at end of the day. and since he managed to also be anti-semitic and racist and sexist. i have a lot of nice things to say about woodrow wilson. when you think about how this era is taught in schools. when i grew up, the big wars, the big depression, the big things that that shook and shaped american do the

suffragists, the credit deserve not even a little bit. i'm hoping that's changing. i mean, i think that the sort of white hot spotlight of the centennial will certainly change it right minute but in terms of ongoing curriculum i mean i think if you asked an average american who would take american history to name a suffragist that, come up with susan anthony and. susan g. anthony was terrific pick, but she was dead the time it actually passed. and i don't think people learn history anywhere near well enough. and it's not even just, you know, that we should learn more women's history and we should have these role models for girls and all of that. it's you're actually learning it wrong if you don't learn the history you know, it's actually inaccurate. american history. if you don't understand the biggest political movement of the 20th century, we are going to open to this to your questions. but i want to bring forward rebecca, because here we sit in a year where we just had a presidential election where for the first time ever, one of the

major party candidates, a woman who, in fact, got won the popular vote. we live at a time right now where there is a half a dozen are declared candidates for the presidency. and do women vote? oh, yes, women better than 50%. yeah. of the and new york has lost its number one place california is the biggest texas is second and new york has lost out to florida as as the as the third largest and the number of women who vote in all those places makes a difference why what should we draw from what we see now the place that there are women always in the cabinet in many places of leadership yet still isn't it kind of a story. but my gosh, the first woman something or we still have a

hard time pulling away from that secondary role. i think it's changing unbelievably quickly. i mean, in just one election cycle, we've gone from first woman nominee, a major party to the fact that there are so many women running for the democratic nomination that it's not even a remarkable thing. them is now the second sentence about them right. and i think that all of the cabinet positions and in government it's going to change pretty fast. i think the you know fortune 500 ceos and board members and stuff is changing more slowly. but i feel like every day there's a new stat that women outnumber men, medical schools, women outnumber with graduate degrees. women are poised to take their place with 50% of the power. there just need to be more men giving it a little bit, but think that's all a legacy of

this movement. so when the 19th amendment finally passed the national the big organization became the league of women voters so they immediately recognized their next role was to make women educated parts of the democracy because voting is a habit. there was just all kind of logistics. how do you register? where do you go and is it safe and, you know, all of those things that take a little while to become ingrained in the voting populace. and it's been 100 years now, you know, and as you say women voters now outnumber male voters and there was a huge wave of female after the 2016 election. and i think that's going to be more the norm than the exception going forward. one more question for me on just what a remarkable location we're sitting in right now, lafayette square, originally called president's park. i forget when they made the made

change, but the idea the statues out there represent the the the heroes and that the homes like the carter house with the with the steve and a strong wife susan the houses cameron house was i forget who cameron was i say senator i think senator cameron from pennsylvania who had a gorgeous younger wife i'm told who was having an affair, her neighbor henry adams. or do i get say, you know, did and a lot of but but the idea that this park and can say this because i was married at st john's church across my four children were all baptized there were married there why was because covering white house for over seven presidents. i the youngest kid on the staff i to go over every week and cover the president and say it's going to church at st john's is the only church i knew in town when when my husband future

husband bill. but what is it about the real estate of the white house that the suffragist realized was kind of their pot of gold? yeah. of it was an accident, right? so cameron house headquarters originally if you're going to set up a dc office of a political movement and want to have access to federal power, that's a pretty good spot. and then of they moved across to jackson place the lafayette statue they directly drew the connection with the marquis de lafayette and his role as a revolutionary that was not just the most convenient statue to the white house, that was the symbolism of him and also at the base of the statue, there's this naked female allegorical character reaching up to lafayette and she's supposed to be america, right? so they stood in front of female with the markings on, the on the

plinth and you saw those pictures. i mean, we've all seen these pictures of the in front of the white house just having a female in that public space in the teens was pretty transgressive already. and it was president wilson's backyard. you know, they weren't they were very deliberate about making sure they stood in his way, almost literally. and where, of course, a century plus protests have been out on that sidewalk and covered them. and i think those anti-nuke people basically live there. still. do we would love to take your questions. so we'll to get to as many of you and we've got a couple of microphones why don't we start one microphone over here do we have a microphone on the side of the. okay, come on down here if you can. let's give a microphone right here. well, it will start here if that's right.

and then over here and as you want to ask questions, catch the eyes of our our microphone handler. so we'll get as many questions as we can welcome. good evening. and you so much for remarkable and it's a really it's a privilege to be in this space and question to rebecca rebecca what who could you point as your role model and did you learn from their old model and what we need to learn from a role model to move forward and get a female president in the white house and get more females in senate and just have them have a have a title because if it's you know, it, we have to do something together, please. so did you all hear the question? so from the suffrage movement, i kind of pick and choose the best aspects of each of these women.

so alice, paul was incredibly savvy and impressive and bold. she really punted on some race issues. she when the delta sigma theta sorority howard wanted to march in the 1913 parade, she told them they had to march the back. they didn't. they marched where they wanted to march out to be wells, who had also she had to march in a segregated section, just went on in with the illinois delegation. but so you want your heroes to be perfect in their super or not so. i would take sort of her boldness. i think she's someone would admire more than like i'm not sure i'd want to have dinner with our sponsors terrifying and realize areas. carrie chapman kat was very funny and very organized. she was the one who had these grassroots organizations in every state and continue to motivate women to build on them. and so if you could kind of take

the best them personally, i have a role model in my grandmother, lindy, who was a member of congress from a she represented downtown new orleans in congress and when she was in the house, there were very few women in the house and one of her political mottos was you can get anything you want to get done as long as you don't have to take the credit for it. which when you think about it is pretty radical right, and also very female. so she was born before women got the right to vote. she was born in 1916 and went on to become a senior member of the us house of representatives. then the ambassador to the vatican. and so the fact that she lived this history and was able to exploit it for her own good ends is will always be a girl and watch her daughter and yes, yes, yeah. it was very matriarchal. carol, we're going to question right over here and then let's

pass this microphone. thank for the next question. good, good. thank for a wonderful lecture. what was the reaction in old washington, the town hotels to this mass of group of thousands of dare i say it and be women coming to town for something on and never for the parade or for the movement in general. the march and yeah you know what was the reaction in town and yeah so it was interesting leading up to the march. so for instance police chief richard silvester was really nervous about this parade. he knew his police force was going to be stretched thin because the inauguration was the next day. and also that end of pennsylvania avenue where like the national theater is now that, was red arrow. so all the bars were there and he knew that, you know women marching in the street, which was already pretty shocking. plus, drunk men town for the

inauguration. plus stretch. then police force made equal bad news. and he kept saying things like, why don't you march down 16th street? you could still end at the white house. right. and alice gets i know the whole point is to go down the corridors of power so washington i think sort of didn't know what to make of it they they hadn't been the headquarters suffrage the the groups had always been based in new york and then you know on the actual day of the parade, you saw the reaction. the crowd was. and then as more and more of these publicity stunts happening here in town, i think sort of those of us who are locals, you know, our equivalent 100 years ago were kind of baffled plenty were supportive, plenty were appalled. i think they of represented the national opinion in. but the women weren't run out of

town on a rail or anything and washington always been a town where women can make their i mean, going to the early days of the city at the turn of the 19th century, there were women who were able to start businesses here and have more power than other places because wasn't this kind of legacy history because it was a planned town and certainly wars because people fled to the capital during war there roles for women when men off fighting and so i think washington has actually historically been an interesting place for women's history and the suffrage movement was no example. have a question right here thank you. thank both of you. my question, can you address the role of edith and how she felt about all this? edith wilson is such a fascinating character, so president wilson's first wife, ellen, died during his first term and he married edith wilson, who was a socialite.

and she was anti suffrage occasionally of theory will be sort of floated that. maybe he came around because of her influence. there is. no evidence for that. any public statements she made was anti suffrage. his daughters were a little more sympathetic. but edith was not now by the end of his second term, wilson had had a pretty devastating stroke. and edith wilson was running his administration much more than i think we will ever know. and i don't think there's some cache of papers somewhere that will show us how powerful edith wilson was. i think that will always remain a secret. but she was the power behind the throne. definitely the last of his administration. and there is no to think that she's the one who finally said, actually should vote. he re i know it would be a great story. he really came around to the

lukewarm degree. he came around it all for totally political expediency, really reasons. he realized that it was going to happen and he thought the democratic party should get a little bit of the credit for it. next question over here. yes. thank you both so and i was wondering once the 19th amendment passed, how did women outside of washington react, how how were they eager to register to vote? i'm just curious how process happened. yeah. so the reason there was that big push in the summer of 1920 and all that focus on tennessee was so that women would have the vote in time for the 1920 presidential action and when the amendment was finally passed church bells toll there was celebration in the streets there. jubilation all around how that actually played out into women's voting behavior was disappointment. some states purposely it hard for women to register in time

for the election, but even states where women could again it's a habit they hadn't necessarily done that before. they didn't necessarily know to do. it felt a little. like it wasn't their place. so there's no good data on voting by gender in those years. but anecdotally did not turn out in enormous and more important, they did not vote substantial really differently from the men in their socio economic class. so there are a bunch of hand-wringing, clutching editorials in the years after 1920 about women are just voting the way their husbands and fathers tell them to. yeah, or another interpretation could be that their race and socioeconomic class and geographic location actually dictated their priorities more than their gender. and they shared those with the men in their lives. women did not start voting substantially from men until the

eighties. and and i was going to say now the gender gap is something measurable. and politically significant. but is an artifact of the last 35, 40 years. question right here. well, it's so brilliant the way you lay out sort of, you know, alice paul's sort of strategy in the white house and in congress. but clearly the actual strategy to get women's suffrage was a state strategy or a congressional strategy. so the decision target, the white house was really a political and publicity strategy. so i wonder if you could sort of talk a little about that, because that's i mean, obviously, they wanted wilson but that wasn't where the real power of the decision. right. where the decision came from. no, that's true. the targeting of wilson only had so much political effect. it had tons of publicity at the same time. and i don't want to imply that the national was doing all the hard work and the national women's party was doing the publicity stunts. the national women's party also had this lobbying effort.

they had a card file that became quite famous where they kept a like two dozen cards on every member of congress and they listed how he had ever voted on any suffrage issue. was his wife of suffragists, what clubs didn't belong to updated with any quotations he had given on the suffrage issue, but also a little tips about lobbying him. so, you know, he's a golfer. go someone to play golf with him and bend his ear or he's a drunk. talk to him before five. you can see these cards. these cards are at belmont park. his wife is smarter. he is talk to her that there are amazing. so they were while all of these attention grabbing, targeting, well, some things were going they were also quietly, you know, bending the ear of members who actually had the power. so it was certainly contemporary. interesting point, too, because that's a little more invisible. you make the political statement and you catch the nation's attention.

you can't the spotlight, but you have to work it at right behind the scenes. you're still doing the long, hard work right question. high early suffrage were were pro abolition. many of them also was. so would you a little about what happened there? sure. so the temperance movement was definitely a major way. a lot of women came to suffrage, like abolition. there were women who actually wanted temperance and realized they wouldn't get it without the vote. so they became suffragists, a sort of a sidebar to getting temperance. and at first the suffrage association with the temperance movement very useful to the suffragists they learned how to be organizers. they learned how to give stump speeches, they learned how to raise money because the temperance was much better organized and historically more dug in. eventually, you know, when you associate yourself another movement, you inherit their enemies to. and as the 18th amendment became

more and more likely and prohibition and looked like it was going to happen, the suffrage movement kind of pull themselves away from temperance a little bit in, part because they didn't want to make enemies of, white voters, but also really hard to amend the constitution as it should be. and so you don't really want to support another amendment. get in there before so there was a lot of back and forth. there was a lot of overlap. women's christian temperance union under frances willard officially supported and there were a lot of women who became politically active through temperance the move to suffrage and vice versa, but ultimately the final countdown the suffrage movement was trying to backpedal that association to have time for one more question. where's the microphone, please? right. you get the last word. great. well, so you mentioned and i

interested to see if you had done any exploration of women color in this movement. yeah. and maybe if you could comment on some of the division between white women suffragists and women of color. yeah. so this is an area of scholarship that i think you're going to see a more coming out in the centennial year. there's a lot more focus on paying attention to african-american suffragists starts with this centennial celebration, as there should be, because they have largely been written out of this history, specifically within the national women's party. after that. 1913 march with the segregation there continued to kind of be ongoing debates about how to welcome african-american suffragists or not. and there were some pretty ugly chapters in there. there were overt appeals on the state by state strategy of going to southern states and saying, enfranchise women, we will overwhelm the black vote.

it is your best way. ensure white supremacy. and that wasn't subtle it wasn't in code. they actually said those words. women's suffrage is the way to ensure white supremacy and there were women like mary church, terrell, who was who had like six master's degrees and spoke ten languages and was impressive. and so the white organizations felt that she was sort of non-threatening and so she did invite her to things and then she'd get there, say, you need to pay attention to race. and then there were women like to be wells who was not generally welcome at those meetings but started african-american associations. the alpha alpha suffrage club and others. so there were, for the most part separate movements there were black suffrage clubs and several clubs that weren't super welcoming to black voters and

people like marita sherrill and i'd be wells barnett and mary mcleod bethune would occasionally say like we we we share all of your discrimination as women plus black and you've really got to pay better. but it's not again you want your heroes to be perfect it is not part of the movement that you can be proud of as a 21st century american woman. and i think we're going to learn much more about coming. let me bring this to a conclusion by asking you one more question from. the purple sashes to, the pink -- cat hats. what should a who want to bring playing field even more level now for women? what they draw. what important lesson or two can they draw from 100 years ago that will make a really difference now. it's such a great question. i mean, i actually think any political activist could learn

from the suffrage movement, because they were successful and. so whether your causes feminism or something else, there's just a lot of tactics you can from them. if you want to be a successful activist. but specifically in terms of the contemporary women's movement, i think this idea of the and the mainstream balancing each other out and making each other look good in control just embracing that each has a role to play. i think the idea of paying attention to how things look, you know, in an instagram, we think of that as a modern artifact but actually paying attention to how things work. look there's a really long way towards a shortcut to your message. and i also think that that declarative sentence that we demand a constitutional amendment enfranchising women subject object that's pretty easy to get behind you know it's a really clear goal. it's got a very clear end point. it's very easy to explain and

understand. and i think the contemporary women's movement demands a lot of things which we have evolved to do. but sometimes the message can get married, all those different voices. so it really does come down to branding and messaging up. ladies, please thank thank rebecca roberts roberts, you. thank you very much, rebecca ann compton. and for all of you joining us here tonight. for our on c span who have been watching. if you want to know more about this subject or other matters relating white house history, our website white house. history dawg is an excellent resource. as we close, i would like to ask everyone to please exit through the courtyard there three doors with, a little medical situation here and we'll directly through blair excuse me carter house and out onto lafayette park.

thank you so much and have a good evening.

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