Transcripts For CSPAN3 Global History Of The 19th Amendment 20240711

Provided the video. Mona siegel it is such a pleasure to collaborate with the world war i museum and i am particularly thankful to lora for making this program possible. I have about 45 minutes of stories and information i am excited to share with you. I feel that i hope you will pose any question you might have. I dont always have the answers but i will give it my best shot. The cover you are looking at there on your screen is the cover of my most recent book, peace on our terms. It is fundamentally tied to the history of world war i which makes this collaboration so important to me. My book is a snapshot of a singular moment in history. Almost exactly 100 years ago. As the world finally began exiting from the devastation of the First World War and was able to begin the dreaming and planning for the peace and the new world that would come afterwards. At this moment, i show in my book that women from farreaching and incredibly diverse parts of the world began stepping onto the global stage and asserting an agenda of womens rights and gender equality that at the core demanded the rights for women to help shape this new world order and transform it into something that was fundamentally different than what had given way to world war i. My book is a story of women from north america, europe, asia, and the middle east. It is a story of white, wealthy women and also sometimes desperately poor, workingclass women. It is a story of women that were married to tremendously supportive husbands and also women that engaged in lifelong singlesex relationships. It is a story of white women and women of color, a story of christians, muslims, jews, hindus, and women that professed no religion at all. It is a story of women from powerful, global empires as well as subjugated and powerless colonies. I argue that at the end of world war i in 1919, these pioneering female activists transformed womens rights into a global rallying cry and it is a rallying cry that continues to reverberate around the world right up to the present day. Here in the u. S. , many of us are focused on this moment, 100 years ago because it marks an important anniversary in our own National History which is the passage and ratification of the 19th amendment to the constitution which granted women the right to vote. And that kind of begs the question these two things happened at roughly the same time, women gained the right to vote in the United States and global feminists began to speak out and establish womens rights as a global agenda were these two things related . And the answer to put it right up front is absolutely yes. And so, while my book is not specifically a book about American History, the stories recorded in it, i think, have a very Important Message about American History and the 19th amendment which is that this long battle that women fought for economic, social, and Political Rights in this country are embedded in a Global Movement that was designed to secure the equality and humanity of half of the population of this earth. In particular, my talk tonight and my book will emphasize the fact that american women owe the passage of the 19th amendment in small part at least to foreign women. To their International Sisters that brought pressure on americans and particularly on the american president , Woodrow Wilson, to live up to his own rhetoric of democracy. And then, the other thing, the equally important thing that my book explains is why some american women at this moment in 19191920, just as the movement for suffrage was reaching its climate and it looked as though it was finally going to pass the senate and move on to the states for ratification. At this critical moment, why is it that quite a few dedicated american suffragists chose to leave the United States and go to advocate for womens rights are broad instead of here athome . This is particularly true of women that found themselves somewhat on the margin of the american suffrage it Movement Including pacifist women, workingclass, labor women, labor suffragists as well as a fairly large group of africanamerican suffragists. I want to zero in on the global history of the 19th amendment and in the process introduce some of the pioneering womens rights activists featured in my book who made this post world war i period such a watershed for womens rights in america and around the world. Because i am a historian, i always have to trace back in time. We will start our story in 1914 just before the outbreak of the First World War. At that point in time, there were very few women anywhere in the world who enjoyed the right to vote at the federal level, the national level. And in fact, there were only four countries and the world that had granted women the right to vote by 1914. The first country to break that threshold was new zealand. As you can see this photo on the screen, women fought tenaciously for the right to vote in new zealand in the light 19th century and in 1893, they won that right and interestingly and importantly, it was a right that was not qualified by wealth or education level and it also enfranchised white women and indigenous maori women at the same time. That was the first country. Shortly thereafter, australia granted white women the right to vote. And then also, prior to world war i, both finland and norway had established the right to vote at the national level. But that was about it. Suffrage movements had been growing steadily in the years leading up to world war i. That is most famously true in Great Britain and the United States where suffragists were gaining headlines and attention for increasingly militant tactics including heckling speakers and staging marches out in public demanding womens rights to vote. This was in no way uniquely an anglophone phenomenon. Women in asia were beginning to establish certainly individual suffragists are beginning to speak out and movements were beginning to form as well. In china for example, women were very involved in the revolutionary movement that overthrew the Chang Dynasty in 1911. In 1912, when the First Provisional Parliament met in china to try to establish what the new constitution would be, women were not invited but they broke their way into the meeting hall and smashed the windows to get the attention of the men and had to be forcibly removed. They refused to quiet down. Also in the early 20th century in the british empire, women from india were also beginning to call for both a home rule in india but also for women to share in the political responsibilities in india. And during world war i in 1917, indian suffrages put forward their first formal request for the franchise during world war i. It was also true in Continental Europe that women Suffrage Movements had been growing exponentially. And this photograph is taken in paris. You might recognize the background scenery there. Somewhat movingly, this photo was taken in july, 1914, just several weeks before world war i broke out and this was the first major public demonstration that french suffragists staged in demanding the vote. And i want to point out the woman in the front row in the middle who was wearing a white blouse and a fantastically feathered hat on her head. That woman is marguerite de wittschlumberger. She was the head of the largest french suffragists organization in france. She will play a role in a story i will tell in just a moment so i wanted you to recognize her face. When world war i broke out in 1914, Suffrage Movements, not everywhere but by and large halted their activism in order that women might turn their attention to the war work that their nations were calling upon them to complete. From 1914 through 1980, women in the warring nations stepped into all kinds of social, economic, and even political roles that had been considered rightfully mens spheres up to that point. On the screen are a few of the economic and duties that women engaged in vital to the war efforts. You can see two british ambulance drivers that shuttled Wounded Soldiers from the frontlines to some of the immediate hospitals and triage stations. Women were also vital as farmers. They took over family farms but also large, commercial farms as well and the picture in the center of the screen is celebrating female farmworkers in france. You can see also on the top row, women that began working in munitions factories by the tens of thousands. And also women that volunteered to serve as nurses, many for the red cross providing vital medical aid. What all of these women shared in common was that the work they were doing was considered to be absolutely of vital and fundamental importance to the nation. They were told that what they were doing was not just important to their family but it was important to their country which gave them a new sense of confidence and citizenship. The United States did not initially join world war i. Woodrow wilson had campaigned on the promise that he had kept america out of the war and would continue to do so. But in april, 1917, nonetheless, Woodrow Wilson went before the American Congress to request a declaration of war on the central powers. And he did so insisting that american boys should put their lives on the line because the world must be kept safe for democracy. Now, american suffragists had to decide how to react to this declaration of war. On the one hand, the militant wing led by alice continued to prioritize their campaign for the vote. They said there is no reason for us to put it aside and all the more reason to amp up pressure. You see one of the many women who stood sentinel outside of the white house insisting that wilson should not be preaching democracy to the rest of the world while denying democracy at home. These were some of the women that famously served hard times in prison for their refusal to back down. The majority of suffragists however followed the lead of the national suffragists association and its president who is the woman all in white with the American Flag on her sleeve. She thought that it would behoove suffragists to throw their support behind the war. That women were ready for the full responsibility of citizenship. Historians have been arguing for years which of these two groups, the militant or moderate, were more responsible for finally convincing Woodrow Wilson support suffrage after a lifetime of opposing it and also turning the majority of the public and the male politicians to supporting the 19th amendment. What my book shows is that another force was at work in addition to these two that pushed Woodrow Wilson and others as well to finally endorse a federal amendment. And this force was foreign women. Women from abroad who took Woodrow Wilson at his word when he said this was going to be a war fought for democracy and indicated to him that american would never be seen as a democracy abroad unless democracy was established at home. We need to understand that when Woodrow Wilson spoke publicly during world war i, he was never just addressing an american public. His words and speeches were carried all over the world and in fact the United States created its first modern propaganda wing, a committee of public information, specifically to make sure that his words made headlines all across the globe. They made front pages of newspapers as we can see from this french newspaper on the screen. Other historians have noted that in places that wilson could scarcely imagine, his words were taken as a sign of support for liberation and anticolonialism. In places as far away as egypt and colonial vietnam and china nationalists listened to what he said, that this war must create conditions of National Determination and democracy. What my research showed was that women were paying just as much attention as the male nationalists and they were strategizing to make sure that wilson was going to follow up on his words with tangible action. In this effort, still in the midst of world war i, marguerite de wittschlumberger, the french suffragists i pointed out earlier was the first to see that wilson might prove to be the key to establishing womens rights to vote not just in the United States but all over the world. In 1917, she began sending out letters in the midst of the war to women from other allied nations in europe, australia and north america saying let us write a letter to wilson and let us get him to commit, go public with the idea that womens rights are key. On the screen, you are seeing a portion of a draft of the letter. It says to wilson that the women from the allied countries have a wish we want president wilson in one of his upcoming messages to declare the principal of womens suffrage to be a fundamental pillar of future national law. We want you to go public. Not just in america but womens suffrage needs to be a part of democracy. They got the letter together by early 1819. It took a while to get it into the hands of the president. Finally, in the spring of 1918, Terry Chapman gave the letter to Woodrow Wilson and much to his shock, he immediately responded. The response he sent off to the suffragists in europe but he also gave permission for it to be published. On the left of your screen, you can see the New York Times article covering wilsons response. He said to french women i have read your message with the deepest interest and i welcome the opportunity to say that i agree without reservation that the full and sincere democratic reconstruction of the world for which we are striving and for which we are determined to bring about at any cost would not be completely or adequately attained until women are admitted to the suffrage. Man, amazing those women had him now publicly saying i support women suffrage and the fundamental pillar of the Suffrage Movement. There was an extra reason to be excited. An added paragraph highlighted at the bottom where it says as for america, it is my hope that the senate of the United States will give an unmistakable answer to the question adding this to our constitution. This was not the very first time that Woodrow Wilson had publicly endorsed federal amendment but one of the first and there was pressure coming from abroad and that was on his mind as he finally made that decision. In france and in europe, women were elated as well. They sent it out to all of the press agencies and got it in the newspapers as well. And so, wilson was now on record as saying he supported womens suffrage as a pillar of this new democratic world order. European, allied suffragists now had this as a tool in their tool chest and were ready to bring it out as soon as the war was over. Chapter one of my book chronicles the lobbying campaign that womens rights activists waged in paris during the paris peas conference, the negotiation came at the end of world war i with all of the allied governments but with Woodrow Wilson in particular throughout these long months of negotiating. French and european feminists were at the center of this push. We are back to marguerite de wittschlumberger who was so active. This is a letter she sent to wilson on january 18, 1919, the opening day of the paris peas conference. She got him right at the beginning. She reminded him of his promises that he had made publicly during the war and she was writing on behalf of french feminists saying that we beg you to use your immense influence. They asked him again to publicly express his sympathy for the more than half of humanity represented by women who in so many countries had been condemned to an unjust and cruel silence by the denial of the vote. They did not just want a pledge from wilson. They wanted tangible action. This letter informed him of one thing and asked him for another. It informed him that french women were convening a conference to help make sure that they were listened to during the peace process. She also asked if they could meet with him facetoface at his earliest convenience. Wilson was a pretty busy man at the beginning of the paris peace conference. He had dozens and dozens of people knocking on his door asking for his time and attention. He could easily have dismissed this but he did not. He gave them an appointment. Less than two weeks later on generate high seven, he met privately with a number of suffragists. Wilsons response to them that day was incredibly encouraging and he said it would seem impossible to me to refuse to listen to women after the service they rendered after the the war. Whatever it is in my power to do for them, i will do. French women were again elated and the conference rather on february 10, 1919 in paris. This was just some of the allied women that participated. You can go to books that covered the peace conference and you may find women mentioned in a sentence or a footnote but that is about it. Reducing their lobbying effort to a sideshow in the greater diplomatic history of the war and i think this is a huge mistake. The Pressure Campaign that women activists waged with serious and relentless, the conference met nonstop its success would be critical to shaping policy in the 20th century and it would help explain why International Relations remain such a maledominated profession up to the current day. This conference demanded a voice for women at the peace negotiations and they also laid out a long agenda of items they felt needed to be addressed. If the diplomats really wanted to create lasting and stable and Peaceful World order. Their demands included the right to vote and hold office. They wanted the nations that had been forced the league of nations which was later the united nations. They wanted recognition of womens economic rights including equal pay for equal work. And they call for an international denunciation of violence against women and girls in wartime including rape and forced deportation. This last issue became very important to them in february, 1919, when a woman came to paris. She was a survivor of the Armenian Genocide the attempted ottoman genocide of the armenian population in world war i and she spoke about the incredibly difficult and murderous treatment that women were under during those circumstances. Most directly, what they wanted was a seat at the table. They got their second audience with Woodrow Wilson on the first night of the conference, february 10, 1919. He met with a group of them and they proposed that he ask the allied powers to create a Womens Commission at the peace conference that could advise the male diplomats that were at the peace conference. Wilson said he would. He brought the issue before the meeting of the supreme council. Some of the male diplomats in the room and he told them that he desired to satisfy the women suffragists. But he followed that up by saying that he did not wish to urge this against the opinion of the conference. Take that in for a minute. He said im willing to go far enough to propose this thing that the women want me to do what i am not willing to expend any Political Capital to make sure that it actually happened. And sure enough, all of the men in the room, one after another, said they thought it was a terrible idea to allow the women into the peace negotiations and they promptly dismissed it. There is an interesting story. Wilson blamed it on the asian diplomats in the room which was a blatant lie. I can tell you more about that during the q a. Women did not get their Womens Commission in 1919 but they did eventually win the right to testify before two of the commissions, the advisory commissions to the peace conference. The labor commission. They demanded that women have the right in the new Labour Organization to representation and also calling for equal pay and paid Maternity Leave. And at the second, the league of Nations Commission in april, 1990, they came before and put their agenda items before the commission again and in the end, they convinced the peacemakers to open the league of nations, all positions, appointed and otherwise, to men and women on an equal basis. This was in article seven which is enshrined in the versailles treaty. This was a far cry from the universal support for womens suffrage they had initially hoped for but it was also a huge breakthrough. British suffragists said that the league of nations will be the First Political body in the world it will be hard to see anyone refuse. All political positions and all civilized countries in the world will be open to women. This is overly optimistic to be sure. It is a reminder that political events here in the United States, because this was happening at exactly the moment, two months before the Senate Passed the 19th amendment here at home, this International Pressure from abroad to live up to the terms of democratic governance was part of the reason why there was this global story behind the passage of the 19th amendment. So far, i have loosely talked about western suffragists and white women. But this was not a movement that was only taking place in paris or only among white suffragists either. Some of these very vociferous demands for liberty and democracy were coming from all over the world specifically egypt. March, 1919, women in egypt led by the remarkable feminist and nationalist you see on the screen, a woman by the name of huda shaarawi, began staging a revolt against the british colonizing power in egypt and also directed at Woodrow Wilson and the peacemakers demanding democratic liberation for egypt. Let me give you the tiniest bit of background of huda shaarawi. Huda shaarawi she was born in the late 19th century to the family of a very wealthy egyptian landowner. She was the daughter of an elite social class. She was groomed from a young age to live a life of domestic seclusion in the family home. But she rebelled against this. She sought out education whenever she could. She was upset when her family contracted for her to marry a much older cousin, a man in his 40s who already had a wife and children of his own. It was a move designed to keep the Family Wealth in the family. But she resented it and rebelled. She managed to obtain a small amount of freedom into her adulthood. She founded a number of important philanthropic works and also started a lecture series for women in cairo to talk about social and economic questions that were of particular interest to them. After world war i, she would lead upperclass women in joining in the nationwide revolt against british feudalism that coalesced in the 1919 in egyptian revolution. This was a movement that was led by a handful of egyptian male nationalist leaders including huda shaarawis husband. It called for an immediate end to british occupation. The british had occupied egypt since the 1880s but they really tightened their hold during world war i declaring egypt to be a protectorate. And enforcing martial law. Almost as soon as the war was over, just days after it was over, some of these egyptian male nationalist leaders went to the british leaders and demanded the right or requested an audience so they could begin to negotiate the terms of egypts liberation and the establishment of an independent state. The british said we are not in the mood to talk about this right now. Go away. The nationalist leaders came back and said that if you will not talk to us, let us go to london or paris and we will talk to the peacemakers and make it part of the settlement. Now, they felt they needed to silence these leaders. They responded by arresting some of the leaders and exiling them to malta. The men saw the writing on the wall and they began to prime some of their wives to take over the movement. Elite egyptian women began joining publicly in the struggle. But they had been meeting independently for years. They had ideas of their own about what a liberated and free egypt would look like. And so they did not want to just become caretakers of a movement. They were prepared to act as men s equals. In their first major public act of march 16, 1919, one of two rare photographs of that day, she led several hundred egyptian women through a march through central cairo carrying flags and banners reading long live freedom. Their goal was to march all the way to the quarters of the americans and the french and the italians in cairo to put forward this demand and ask for peacemakers to put pressure on britain to recognize egyptian liberation. This march that you see on the screen was met by an Armed Police Force in cairo. The Police Commissioner encouraged the egyptian policeman essentially to sexually harass these women, to talk them, to question their honor for being seen in public. They were left to swelter under the blazing sun for hours on end, and then the march was finally dispersed. But the egyptian women did not back down. They were back in the streets days later staging more protests. They joined in a nationwide boycott against British Goods and they began petitioning anyone who they thought would help them achieve their goal. In particular they turn to their attention again to Woodrow Wilson, who claimed to be this champion of selfdetermination and democracy. So you can see this letter on the screen. This was signed in the name of the women of egypt, and it says on there, we believe in president wilson and his principles of women and fraternity. We believe in american disinterestedness and american chivalry. We big you to send our message to america and to president wilson personally. Let them hear our calls. We believe they will not allow liberty to be crushed in egypt. Clearly the priorities of these egyptian women in 1919 was to bring about an end to colonialism and to establish national liberation. But that does not mean that womens rights were not a fundamental part and baked into their activism, i would say. They were fighting simultaneously for the liberation of their nation and the liberation of their sex. And they very much expected that when freedom finally came to egypt that women would be invited to share equally in the governing of this new democratic state. Four years later in 1922 when egypt finally did win partial independence from egypt, they were to be very sadly disappointed when egyptian nationalist men established a Constitutional Monarchy that did not give women right to vote, did not address most of the concerns of the family or the economy, and essentially told women thank you for your help, you can now return home. She did not accept that message. In 1923, she founded the egyptian feminist union, which would become the largest and most active feminist organization in the arab world for decades to come. She would also begin to collaborate with International Feminist to form a global womens rights agenda. The photograph you see here is sharawi in the middle with two other feminist activists in a rome 1923 meeting of the womens suffrage association. The passage of the 19th amendment, it took place against this global backdrop. There was a movement that was very much aimed directly at americans and a president wilson, who claimed to be supporting democracy in the world. And the blatant injustice in a nation that promoted itself best a nation of democracy and selfdetermination even if they would not provide that at home. Now, if foreign women were directly and indirectly Holding American politicians feet to the fire and challenging them to live up to their rhetoric, american women also helped assure that the 19th amendment would have a global history to it. Because they were staging the fight in part outside of americas borders in that final year leading up to the passage of the suffrage amendment. These were women who opted to leave the United States at the apex of the movement to advocate for womens rights abroad. This was an incredibly controversial decision. It was one that most suffragists were unwilling to make. Most notably, mary, who we see here again now with all the flowers in her arms, being congratulated upon passage of the 19th amendment, she was not just the president of the National American womens suffrage association, she was also the International President of the International Womens Suffrage Alliance. And so when world war i ended at the end of 1918, european feminists began writing her regular letters saying we need you here in europe. Your place at the head of the International Womens Suffrage Alliance is here helping us advocate for womens rights as peace negotiations. However, she was not going to have anything of it. She wrote back to european suffragists that americans were in the, quote, hot and final suffrage campaign, and she simply could not imagine leaving the United States for four years. So kat remained here at home advocating for the 19th amendment. But other very prominent american suffragists made a different decision, sailing off to europe at the exact time the 19th amendment was soon going to head to the senate for its final vote. Now, there were three categories of american women who went to europe in 1919, although there was some overlap between them. The first of these were pacifist suffragists. These were american women who believed firmly that women needed the right to vote, but the major reason that they believed that it was so necessary for american enfranchised women was because they believed that women as nurturers of humanity, and those who gave birth to the next generation, would never, ever allow another war to occur. They believed that women were natural pacifists. And so making sure that a Peace Agreement laid the terms for lasting peace was the greatest act that they believed they could accomplish as suffragists in 1919. You are looking at two american women on the screen who traveled to europe after world war i. The woman on the left, i am guessing many of you have heard her name, jane addams, who was a very prominent progressive reformer, active in all kinds of circles in the late 19th and early 20th century. She would also later become the First American woman to win the nobel peace prize. Jane addams went to europe, so did the woman on the right of your screen, jeanette rankin, the first woman to serve in the American Legislature in the house of representatives. She was the representative from the state of montana. And these two women and a dozen other american women traveled over to europe. They did not go to meet with that interallied womens conference that we were talking about earlier, because they saw that conference as fundamentally flawed because it only included women from the victorious nation. And they said if women are going to help build a lasting peace that is going to establish new terms for a new world order, then women from the victorious powers, neutral powers, and defeated powers need to be able to sit around a common table and talk about this forever. Together. So the two of them on the screen, these american women traveled to zurich, switzerland, which of course was a neutral state where they gathered in may of 1919. They became the First International organization anywhere in the world to denounce the versailles treaty as a treaty of retribution and saying it was never going to create terms for lasting peace around the world. They also drafted their own womens charter, which they then took the treaty back to paris and delivered it the hands of peacemakers, laying out womens demands that they felt need to be inserted into the peace treaty in order to make it lasting and enduring. Now, in addition to pacifist feminists, labor feminists, or labor suffragists were another group of american women who traveled to europe in 1919. These were women, some of them anyway, who came from desperately poor circumstances working in horrific conditions and working their way up through the Union Movement of the United States. So, one of these you can see in the picture at the bottom of your screen, she is surrounded by a sea of hats. Shes looking outwards towards the left leaning forward. That is ruth schneiderman. Schneiderman was born in the late 19th century in the part of the russian empire where jews were allowed to settle. She was from a desperately poor jewish family that fled russia to america, fleeing those who were attacking her community. Her family suffered misfortune once they got here, so at age 13, rose became the primary breadwinner for family, earning a living sewing linings into mens caps in sweatshops in the Lower East Side of new york. Unlike most women of her generation, rose got involved in the Union Movement, began rising up through union ranks, and promoting organization among particularly immigrant female laborers. During world war i, which is when this photograph was taken, schneiderman stepped back from her union work in order to advocate for womens suffrage, particularly among workingclass men. Now, when world war i was over, she, along with another workingclass woman by the name of mary anderson, were selected by the womens trade union league of america to travel to paris to collaborate with some of these international femme International Feminists in paris, pushing a womens light womens rights labor agenda in paris. They conferred with european feminists in paris, they met with wilson as well as other peacemakers, and then they returned home to the United States and in late october of 1919, these American Labor suffragists convened the first ever International Congress of working women, which met at the same time as the first meeting of the International Labor organization in order to advance womens labor interests in that body. And one of the remarkable achievements of these women at the First International congress of working women was they pushed through the adoption of an International Labor standard, an International Labor convention, calling for a minimum of 12 weeks paid Maternity Leave for all women, all working women. And that was adopted by the ilo in 1919. It has since been met or surpassed by every developed country in the world except for the United States of america. So, pacifist women and labor women were two of the groups of women who traveled abroad rather than staying at home to advocates wins rights in 1919. The third group were africanamerican women. These were women who were, again, avid suffragists, had actively campaigned to help women to try and help women win the right to vote for the United States, but for whom the votes had a completely different significance than white women. For africanamerican women, they believed black women needed the vote fundamentally to help fight the systemic discrimination and racism and violence that their communities suffered on a daily basis. And there were a surprisingly large number of africanamerican women either trying to work their way to paris, or in paris in 1919. The two women who are on the screen right now both applied for passports to go to paris in 1919, and they were both denied those passports by the state department. On the left of course you are seeing a portrait of the famous antilynching crusader and feminist. And on the right mavin walker, cj walker, who by some peoples estimates was the wealthiest selfmade woman in america at the end of world war i. Both of these women tried to go to paris but were prevented by doing so by the american state department. But there were other africanamerican women who were able to go or were already in paris or making a mark there, two of whom i feature in my book. On the left you are looking at the 1919 passport of feminist, suffragist, and civil rights activist mary church carol, who was invited to go to europe by jane addams and the pacifist women, and who shared many of the same goals as them, but who also, when she got to paris, realized that she was the only woman of color from anywhere in the world who had been invited to be a delegate at a conference in zurich. So she spent much of her time in europe trying to persuade white International Feminists to make Racial Justice an integral part of their demand for womens rights and for human rights, both at the moment of the peace settlement and moving forward. The other woman whom you see on the screen in that blurry photograph there, she is in the front with a white collar, that is ida gibbs hunts. She was actually a friend of mary church carol. The two of them had been roommates in college. They were the first women to get a full fouryear degree first africanamerican women to get a full fouryear degree after the civil war. She took a different route to paris. Her husband was one of the few diplomats of color. She had lived in colonial africa are with him in madagascar are and then in southern france. She went off to paris in 1919 in order to collaborate with a man seated in front of her in that picture. That is the famous intellectual and journalist, w. E. B. Dubois, who convened a Pan African Congress in paris in 1919 to bring together people of color from the u. S. , europe, the caribbean, and from africa, in order to advocate for Racial Justice in this peace settlement. I will just say upfront, dubois, obviously a remarkable figure, is given all the credit for this remarkable event in 1919. Hunt did most of the work, and as i argue in the book, was a pretty strong intellect behind the shaping of the Panafrican Movement that came out of this congress as well. So, africanamerican women, labor women, pacifist women, were no less committed to womens suffrage than kat or alice paul, the women who stayed behind in 1919. But their commitment to suffrage intersected with a commitment with other pressing causes. Pacifism, economic justice, Racial Justice, which they felt to be inextricably linked to womens Rights Campaign and dignity, and had a better chance of advancement, they thought, outside of americas borders than within. So i hope i have convinced you today that the American Battle for suffrage and for the 19th amendment has a farreaching history behind it. As we go forward and commemorate the anniversary of the 19th amendment almost one month from now, i hope we remember not just the leaders, but remember that they never acted alone or in a vacuum. And that this battle for womens rights has been an International One from the beginning. Bringing women across the boundaries of religion and nation and race, and uniting the interests of a full half of humanity. When women were demanding peace on our terms in 1919, they were arguing that womens rights were not some special interest, but instead spoke of the most pressing questions of the day, peace, stability, and democracy. And i think those issues are still just as pressing today as they were 100 years ago. So thank you all so very much for your patience as i work through all this. [laughter] ms. Vogt mona, thank you so much. What a great conversation to so deeply and exquisitely show what we talk about at the museum often is that the life and the world and the concerns of 100 years ago is still so very similar to the conversations that we have today. And it is not just about a pandemic. It is truly about so much more. Now, whether you are joining us via zoom or via facebook live, we would invite your questions, we would invite your conversations to continue a bit of this. Delving into the global battle for womens rights. I would also at this time, as some of you are typing and some more questions on both of these platforms, i would also invite you to take a look at to really dig into more of these conversations, and very specifically, if you are one of my World History teachers who has joined into this conversation, if you can go to bookshop. Org and take a look at peace on our terms the global battle for womens rights after the First World War, you are going to find some very specific names and new information, new individuals you can be highlighting that i can almost guarantee either are not included in your textbooks, or are included with a flattened person version of some of their story and some of their contributions to history and contributions to who we are both as a nation, and as a Global Community today. So do take a look at that book. Also consider joining us for the teacher workshop version of this a little bit later on. Check it out at theworldwar. Org august 4. Dr. Siegel, if im not mistaken. So, your first question is actually going to come from, lets see, ashley cunningham. Is the Temperance Movement a factor in the exodus of women fighting for suffrage in the United States . Prof. Siegel the Temperance Movement converged very much with the Suffrage Movement in the United States. The Womens Christian Temperance Union was the single largest Womens Organization in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century. It drew many women into the american Suffrage Movement. At the same token, it did push some of the more rational more radical movement the more radical women to the margins. It made it more mainstream. So there were some women who no longer felt as comfortable in the National American Women Suffrage Association by the early 20thcentury, which had largely embraced the cause of temperance along with a much more moderate stance. Ms. Vogt i am going to read this is bridging a little from the past to the present, so we will see how comfortable you are with this. What is the likelihood, in your opinion, as being an equal rights amendment to the constitution adapted anytime soon . I. E. , the next decade . Prof. Siegel i like your idea of anytime soon. That is excellent. That gives a 10 year time span. A short story first. My very First Political act was finding a petition for the e. R. A. I was less than 10 years old and a radical aunt of mine told me i needed to find this petition, which i did. And i got a thank you note signed by my colorado legislator at the time signed by a smiley face. Somehow she knew what my age was. The e. R. A. Has been around since the 1920s when the National Womens party took it up after having won the passage of the 19th amendment. It was extremely controversial among suffragists in america in the 1920s and 30s. Labor suffragists in particular were fundamentally opposed to the e. R. A. Because they were afraid that they would lose some of the special protections that they had gained and counted on in order to fight the rampant exploitation that they suffered in the workplace. By the 1970s though, that was no longer the case. Feminist were fairly united around an e. R. A. Agenda. So, the question is not about the past, it is about the future. Theres a lot of constitutional and legal hurdles to get beyond e. R. A. , not least of which is the fact most of the ratifications have expired. So as much as i might really want and would be willing to fight for a new e. R. A. In United States, i am not holding my breath, unfortunately, for even in the next 10 years. But maybe i will be proven wrong. Ms. Vogt this question comes from crawford. Where did the interwar suffragists land at the beginning of the Second World War . In other words, how did they reconcile the more diverse demands from more inclusive concerns of international woman, i. E. Egyptians, indians, workingclass, and women of color, i. E. Africanamericans . Prof. Siegel so, there were three major International Womens organizations by the 1920s and 1930s. The two most not necessarily the two largest but the two most active worthy old International Womens alliance, which just became the womens alliance, and the Womens International league for peace and freedom, which was founded by jane addams and all the radical pacifist suffragists in zurich. Of the two open as asians, the second, the Womens International league for peace and freedom, or the wilt as its known, was by far the more inclusive. Not just in terms of welcoming women of color or women from formally colonized countries, but also in making its issue of imperialism and Racial Justice. So the International Womens league for peace and freedom sponsored a delegation to go to haiti, which was under American Military occupation in the 1920s. And another africanamerican woman who had been in paris in 1919 who i did not talk about today was one of the women included in that delegation. And they sent another delegation to indochina, japan, and china in the late 1920s, and actually the woman who served as their interpreter in china was a woman who is by far the most interesting person in my book, even though i did not talk about her at all tonight. She was in fact the only woman who was officially appointed to serve on the delegation to the paris peace conference, on the chinese delegation. She was a former bomb smuggler, she was an avid nationalist, she became chinas first female lawyer and judge, and was involved in International Womens suffrage as well. Now i have completely lost track of the question, but i think looking at the Womens International league for peace and freedom, while it remains predominantly western and predominantly white, it was a space in which both africanamerican women and women from former colonized countries began to at least be able to begin to network and begin to fight the battles that were most important to them. 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Listen toere you podcasts. Next, james conroy discusses his book, jeffersons white house monticello on the potomac , which examines the physical state of the white house during his presidency. They White House Historical association provided a video. Good evening. Welcome to white house history. I am a Senior Vice President at the White House Historical association and the director of the David Rubenstein center for white house history. The White House Historical