about, you see a group that was called the america first committee. some of them were antisemitic, some of them were isolationist's. but they used washington's farewell address as a real avatar to work against the united states getting involved in the second world war. this hits an absurd extent when they german bund hold a rally at madison square garden. this functions as an american at nazi party rally. there is a giant poster, flag, billboard of george washington in the background. the keynote address is all someone misappropriating the text of the farewell address. this is paid for by a foreign government. so it shows how you need to be careful of the misappropriation of documents. washington is warning against foreign influence in our politics. that is one of the reasons to stay out of this. here you have a foreign government, the nazis, misappropriating the farewell address to argue against getting involved in a foreign war. so by the way, that backfires a badly on them. but the legacy of the farewell address really starts to fall away for a time as a result of that association with the america first movement, the incorrect belief that it's an isolationist document and it's not. he's talking about a foreign policy of independents, of not squandering our strength. and no, we shouldn't start trying to export democracy or get involved in foreign fights. we should focus on strengthening ourself. but once we are strong as a nation, an independent nation, then we can make decisions based on our own perception of national interest and justice. that's different from isolationism. >> joe, in a recent book of yours, you have a long section on washington and his foreign policy vision writ large. looking not just at the farewell address but his actions across all of time as commander-in-chief in particular, both times. what is your read on the foreign policy vision of a washington? >> that there is a portion of his legacy that is no longer relevant. i hear, john, it's not really isolationism. but i don't think washington ever envisioned us -- he did envision us as a world power, but i think his vision of us as a world power was close to what john quincy adams would say. we do not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. but i've lost my train of thought. what did you ask me again? >> just foreign policy vision. >> it seems to me another dimension to washington's legacy that is very much alive. though different people that claim loyalty to it don't always agree about what we should do. that is the realistic tradition in american foreign policy. it has its origins in the mimelion dialogues of greece. in washington's terms, the nations act solely on the basis of interest and you should not expect them to act on any other grounds whatsoever. in some sense, all treaties or temporary until that interest might particularly change. but if you want to carry it into a contemporary american world, we care a lot about human rights but we are not going to war on that. and i think that the person that most embodies it in the late 20th century's george cannon and his doctrine of containment. and it is clear that what realism does well, you have to distinguish between what you can and should do and what you cannot and should not do. you cannot be an open-ended foreign policy. which regions of the earth our national security interests and which aren't? at least in my humble opinion, washington, if you could somehow bring him out like my readers do. if there's one place on the planet that you don't want to get involved, it's the middle east. it's one place in the middle east that is a graveyard for all western values, it is afghanistan. and so to bring it up to date, i think it'll be biden's decision to get us out. what he needs to do is not look for scapegoats but let's try to figure out how we made this mistake. i think in some sense, our own understanding of why britain makes the biggest mistake in its stagecraft history by making war on the united states in 1775, 76, we can understand that now in a way that we couldn't before. how does a recently arrived world power, revving with confidence, certain of its military and economic supremacy step into a quagmire that is a war that is both unwinnable and unnecessary. we should know about that. >> there is a lot i agree with, joe, but let me push back for debates sake. >> i see the grimace on your face so i know you're going to push back. >> but on two points. first of all, i think the core of what you are saying is exactly right. it can be summed up in a number of different ways. one of which is america is not a colonizing power, right? we are a republic not an empire. that doesn't mean we don't have interest as an independent nation, but we are not a colonizing power. if you look at our involvement in world war i and world war ii, that's another definition of american exceptionalism. but we beat back people who were not simply disrupting the balance of power but attacking free and allied nations. and then withdrew. >> world war ii, but not world war i. world war i was a mistake. >> you and the night commission can debate that but i won't get into that just yet. the only ground we ask is cemeteries to bury our dead. yes, in east germany, we have an air force base. we don't need to get to that level of detail right now. the parallel that intrigues me, though, is the case of the barbarry pirates which doesn't occur under washington. if we are attacked, what do you do? how far do you extend that? how far does the treaty with morocco apply? these are imperfect parallels, but what we've got given the aperture's of the time, and where it begins is we're attacked on 9/11. it's an unprecedented situation that washington couldn't have imagined. he also couldn't have imagined americans attacking the capitol, but that's a separate important conversation. >> i believe he could very easily imagine that. >> yeah, with a rebellion in the past. let me handed on to you in a second, but just to finish the thought regarding foreign policy. if you are attacked, then we responded the problem was we responded with an open ended commitment, rather than a more realist or -- we have a limited objective and then we are going to achieve that and get out. i think that is where the balance occurs, dealing with the different geopolitical realities today versus 1796. >> richard clark, who was under clinton and early bush, said it was as if after pearl harbor we had invaded mexico. i am going to disagree with you on some of this because i think that all of the energy and the angsty and anguish that was created by that event on september 11th was diverted into an unnecessary war. >> are you talking about iraq or afghanistan? >> both. >> i think you've got to draw distinction between the two. >> iraq was not containing nuclear weapons. iraq had nothing to do with al-qaeda. >> i agree with you on that. >> those were the rationales for invading iraq. >> i am going to take us back to 1796. i will keep us there for a few moments longer. we've had a great conversation, i hope you will have the time to answer a few questions of come in. i don't mean to keep you long, we've already learned a ton from you. but july who was running things behind the scenes has a few audience questions that want to come to. kate alison asks about where was it written, when was it written, and who helped write it? i've heard names. john, i will go to you first, as people who have helped write it. the where and the when, the where is quite interesting. >> the where is the executive mansion that exists in philadelphia, pennsylvania. washington begins writing his farewell address at the end of his first term. he does not want to have a second term. at that time, james madison's his closest aide, has not yet fallen under jefferson's sway and all of that. and then basically he is persuaded that the one thing -- washington is no longer president, we could have a civil war. he literally puts it away and puts it on the shelf, in a drawer. as he is ending his second term, hamilton is no longer treasury secretary. he is up in new york city. but washington begins corresponding. because jefferson and hamilton have formed the democratic or republican party, as joe corrects us, he brings adams in and starts corresponding. that is the primary collaboration. they bring john j in at the very end. to some extent, you get the federalist papers band back together to perform an on site edit with hamilton in new york. it's a process of back and forth. the play hamilton does a very good job of describing it. i interviewed lin manuel miranda about it for my book, which began before the play came out. i was delighted to find out it had a song with a farewell address, which is some of the actual lines. what lin manuel said was that he designed it so that hamilton would be delivering it as pros, and washington will turn into poetry. so some of the words or hamilton's, but it music and the spirit and the soul is washington's, and the public delivery. that is the process. among a whole string of partisan papers in pennsylvania, the philadelphia daily advertiser was not a partisan paper. it's not a federalist paper, notably. in part because it has congressional printing contracts. he chose a non partisan paper to publish. >> lindsey, you're the best person to ask for further elaboration. i've always wondered, why hamilton? in the sense that washington had so many people that he trusted and people he could work closely with. and yet hamilton somehow was at the very top of that. could you tell us about that? anything you'd add to the story? >> yeah. by 1796, washington had an abivalent relationship with the department secretary. i often affectionately refer to him as -- he didn't want to have cabinet meetings with them. he certainly didn't trust their abilities to the same degree that he trusted hamilton's. and frequently, still sought out advice on the annual addresses, on major moments during the presidency, and asking hamilton to draft things for him. one important element, though, that is specific to this. this is something he told hamilton when they first talked about it in march of 1796. washington sent him the draft. washington kept madison's first draft. and he insisted that the final includes paragraphs in the beginning. and it was a shot across the bow. washington was anticipating that madison and jefferson would be critical of this address. somehow, they would paint the address as an attempt to garner more power for the executive. so by including those paragraphs, drafted by madison, he was basically saying you knew about the farewell address. you participated in the drafting of the farewell address. so keep your mouth shut. it was very intentional, very savvy. and sure enough, madison was not publicly critical of the addresses. >> very briefly, i think the reason he picked hamilton is because hamilton had the most experience throughout seven years of the war, when he was writing jefferson. when you read the general orders which are boring as heck throughout the 1770s, they are signed by washington, but he didn't write them. most of those are written by hamilton or one of his other aides. what he called, pen men. washington was insecure about his own lack of education. he once said jefferson went to william mary, madison went to harvard, washington went to war. that was his educational experience. he was conscious of his own lack of literacy. he wanted to surround himself with people who were well educated. that was hamilton, that was lawrence, lafayette. those were the people. >> let's go to another audience question. we have one from jim about some specifics here. let's get into the 18th century. how much of washington's foreign policy advice was driven by the fact that the spanish maintained the floridas, the louisiana territory, and the british held canada? we have talked about the oceans keeping america away from foreign powers. as jim reminds us, they were there. he wants to take a first down but this? the specifics of north american geopolitics. >> i will take a quick stab, i am pushing this hard so you guys can disagree. why is it called the continental army? why they called the continental congress? it's really only the coast. in some sense they are thinking continentally from the beginning. the border of the united states under washington ends at the mississippi. it was generally regarded, and james was outspoken about this but washington understood it too, the spanish were a declining european power. they were like a cow bird. a bird that sits in the nest until you can take over. spain is the perfect european nation to have a power over there because we know, as soon as the demographic wave hits them they will be gone. i don't think anybody could easily foresee the louisiana purchase, but there is this sense of manifest destiny before 1840s when it becomes a term. canada, now, remember at the time we are talking 1790. we sort of thought we were gonna get canada, and cuba. the war of 1812 we were supposed to win canada. of course, it didn't work out that way. it is a continental wide vision in certain people's heads. aaron burr, he goes all crazy off the record about it. i think the presumption was florida and most of the west would eventually come our way. >> lindsay, john, anything to add? >> with the demography doing it rather than war. >> i think that as joe said earlier, washington was a realist. he understood that in 1795, the united states signed this really important treaty with spain which gave the americans access to the mississippi river. it was a critical element to the western territory. they didn't have the ability to send their goods over the mountain regions like places like philadelphia or new york city. they desperately needed access to the water before there were trains and cars and that kind of thing. however, washington was very realistic about the fact that spain and france were playing off of each other. regularly, there were complaints about enslaved individuals heading towards florida. while there were goals about taking canada, that had not happened yet. so much of his foreign policy advice was not getting too close to one country because if you get too close to britain, and france is gonna get annoyed on the southern border. they may be more friendly to the self emancipated enslaved individuals. if we get too close to france, spain's gonna get too jealous and kind of access to the river. it is really this delicate dance of trying to hold all of the pieces together before the united states did have the entire continent and recognizing that as great as we thought we were in 1786, at this point we were still a relatively puny international power. very much subject to the whims of international superpowers. washington really understood that. >> john? >> look, i would just say that remember move to the european power thought that democracy would fail. they would get the chance to re-carve up the continent at that time. the whole jenet episode in washington second term, which was related to the ratification of the james treaty, jefferson and madison because they declare neutrality they say, if you declare neutrality it means you are really siding with the english. they play that game today to fact. the french revolutionary jacobeens disguises citizen after name. part of his deal is to either sway the u. s. back to their side or to build on the louisiana and destabilize the nation. there were a lot of adventuresome plots around that at the time. eventually even jefferson realized that jenet was a bad deal. janai got wind of the fact that he was about to get his head cut off and he retired to jamaica long island. >> and married to governor's daughter! >> correct. >> i knew neither of those things. [laughs] >> there is one topic that we barely touched on a few different times tonight. we have not explored it closely enough we do have an audience question coming in to help us explore that. brian hilton is asking, by george washington's last will and testament be a final farewell as a different kind. or an addendum to the final guest, particularly in respect to the issue of slavery. >> john, first thoughts? >> i explicitly say in my book that his last will and have meant should be considered as a coda to the farewell address. >> brian ought to read your book. [laughs] >> yeah, maybe. by all means if he hasn't he should. to washington's discredit, certainly by contemporary perspectives, the farewell address a silent on the issue slavery. washington, in his last will in testament which could be considered the ultimate farewell address, takes the decided and unusual among the founding fathers step of freeing his slaves. all be upon martha's death. there are 1 million different reasons why this is insufficient and emotionally unsatisfying by contemporary perspectives. all are so obvious we don't need to discuss it. it is a contradiction of the core promise and intention of america. that said, it is a revolutionary act that washington knows will be made public. there is a lot of math he doesn't do. for example, it sets of a dynamic where a lot of people are looking for martha die sooner rather than later but this is intended and written to be a public statement. there is a lot of drama around its drafting, which version he chooses, but notably the other founding fathers who follow him who are virginian, not named adams, who owned slaves they don't do this. they do not release their slaves upon their death. washington was making a very clear statement to the country. i 100% believe, and argue in my book, that in candidate should be considered the coda to the farewell address. where slavery finally issued -- >> i wish he could've had a paragraph in the farewell address that told his readers and americans that he intended to free his slaves. he sort of did. at that moment, trying to follow his thought process is not easy. he is committed to freeing his slaves once he can get money off the sale of his western land. he cannot get that sold. he keeps fudging it until 1799. he finally commits. he can only free the slaves which he owns. it's slightly less than half of the 317 slaves at mount vernon. i think pressure on him is martha. we can't prove this, but i think she is very reluctant to see the slaves freed. in part because they are all intermarried along the farms there. i think that washington is the greatest leader in american history. i think that slavery is america's original sin, and racism is its enduring toxic residue that we are still living with. must there a chance to end it? or put it on the road to extinction before the cotton gin came? before the numbers became impossible? was it a shakespearean tragedy and not a greek tragedy? yes. who could've most effectively moved in that direction? washington. he failed as a leader on this issue. that is a heck of a standard to apply, i agree with john in a sense that when we look back for the 21st century, our present perspective gives us an enormous advantage, but they knew, washington knew, that slavery was a contradiction to the values of the american revolution. he said! that he knew that! he knew, but he kept saying was, we got to wait. wait until 18 08 he said. that is when the slave trade will and. but it didn't. and some sense, i would've liked them to say, i would've liked the constitution to have said, we are not gonna attempt to end slavery in the states of the deep south now but let us all agree that the core principles of this republic cannot allow, permit, this to exist forever. a house divided cannot stand. by the way, a methodist minister uses that phrase in 1778. i think that's where lincoln got it from. >> lindsay, last word on this important subject? >> historian gordon reid said she thinks that george washington was deeply concerned that if he spoke out about slavery during his lifetime it would cause irreparable harm and divide the nation. whether or not that's true, i do not know, but that is certainly what he thought. that is why he didn't say anything during his lifetime. his will was certainly more than nothing. certainly more than what some people did. but it was less than others did. i think that in some ways it is a little bit, certainly not taking the easy road out because it wasn't but it also wasn't really taking a super principled stand. he enjoyed the labor and their time while they were still alive. i think the way i see it it was more than nothing but it certainly wasn't -- >> i think it is absolutely right. let's remember with we began with the union. his commitment to the union. if you raise the question of slavery at all in a frontal way, you would risk that. that is one he is most terrified of. keep it off the national agenda until, at some point in time, you can really face it squarely. until the republic is sufficiently established to survive. >> i will bring things to close by asking each of you -- it was gonna be my question but i see we actually have one. julian our time of the. we wanted you to close on this point. biggest takeaway for you. i will ask it this way to each of you. i will start with john? why would you want people to continue reading the farewell address now, 225 years later? what is the biggest takeaway for you? >> washington warned us about the forces that can destroy democratic republic's. the document contains all the hard-won wisdom of his life. it is a prophetic document. in particular, his warnings against hyperpartisanship, foreign wars, excessive, foreign interference in our domestic politics are ripped from the headlines of today. if i had to pick one of those that i would argue that washington was most concerned about, and we should be most concerned about, it is hyper partisanship. putting party over country. those are the forces we are playing with today. it is risking the success of our republic. >> lindsey, your biggest take away? why should people continue to turn this document now? >> i agree with everything john said. i would add just one element about the foreign policy piece that dovetails really nicely that we didn't quite touched down. washington warned against allowing emotions for other nations. foreign nations to color our ideas against our fellow americans. to color our ability to stand as a united nation. i think that hits it really the same point. stop allowing, whether it be partisan identity or foreign policy identity, to make us forget what we have in common. to make us forget our common ties. instead see the -- stop looking for the division and instead look for things that we have the bond of together. >> joe, last word? >> both of my colleagues have dom a great job. john, lindsay, i cannot -- i will echo their view. as a teacher, 44 years, many students these days don't think anything happened before they were born. the farewell address is a document that, because it will be so alien to some of them, i want them to understand it. it's like leaving the president, going to a foreign country, learning to think and speak in a different language. the language that washington speaks for both of the region john mentioned, desperately absent from the center of american politics. especially the congressional and presidential level. the public interest is something that nobody understands. and to even suggest that your highest priority is that you are not qualified to serve. washington would never say, they would never run for public office. they would regard it as prostitution. >> it's a way of comparing where we were to where we are and looking back and learning something about where we will be in the future. >> thank you so much. we've had a great conversation. i have learned a lot, it's an important document and thank you for helping so many people out there better understand it. why it remains relevant today. on behalf of mount vernon to all of the out there, thanks for joining us tonight. we hope to see you again soon. thank you and goodnight. the senior programs to c-span radio just got easier. tell your smart speaker play c-span radio and listen to washington journal daily at 7 am eastern. important congressional hearings and other public affairs events throughout the day and weekends at 5 pm and 9 pm eastern. catch washington today for a fast-paced report on the stories of the day. listen to c-span anytime, just tell your smart seeker play c-span radio. c-span powered by cable. author holly mayer described the role of the second canadian regiment known as congress's own in the american revolution. authorized in 1776, it was the first national enough in the american army. >> as it did, by the end of august, hazen had indeed cut the route up to what is now called hazen's notch. it is right there below the canadian border. he was very close. he was within sight of the canadian border when he got orders from washington to return. washington had gotten what he wanted out of this expedition. the faint had worked, sullivan's expedition was successful. it was time for him to bring the regimen back so it would be ready for engagement through the rest of 79 and moving into 80 at that point. so, with this, i know i'm coming to the end of this. they do continue on. if we go back to what you said after the coup's country campaign through there, they went back to morristown. the regiment suffered thugh the hardships ofmorristown in wier encampments there in 1780. the regiment did march to yorktown in 1781. hawks was very good about recording that one is well. th long trick down into yorktown. what he was seeing there. at yorktown, the regiment did distinguish itself. inparticular it's light in the company which had been attached to lafayette's infantry court sie the summer of 1781. and the light at the company of the regiment was part of the assault party under hamilton long read out number 10. where to beat the french who are trying to take read out number nine at the exact same time. after yorktown, the regiment was set up to lancaster pennsylvania. not too far from here if you will. they were on guard duty with the prisoners of war there where i'd like to point out of that haze again was pressing for an invasion of canada. threw into 1782, let's do it. of course, everybody is waiting for the diplomats to get everything done. to get the peace treaty. let's end this. there is hazing going, we have one last chance. let's go for canada again. i love it. interesting, send me your plants, washington writes. >> watch the full program online anytime on c-span.org slash history. just search holly mayer. >> let me tell you about our speaker tonight. winifred gallagher's books include how the post authors created america, how is thinking, just the way you are, a new york times notable book. working out loud, "the power of place", "rapt" and "new: understanding our need for novelty and change". she's written for the atlantic monthly, rolling stone, and the new york times. her newest book, "new women in the old west", from settlers to suffragists, an untold american story, is available for purchase from politics and prose. if you lose the link in the chat box, it's also available on our website. you'll be able to purchase the book with a 10% discount. just make sure to use the code when checking out. please join me in welcoming to the smithsonian, winifred gallagher. >> -- >> hi winifred. >> hi kathy. thanks so much, it's wonderful to be with you. >> before i begin, i'd like to say a few words, before we begin, about mina westbye. you can see her on screen with her cousin. after homestead in north dakota. she was a norwegian immigrant who spoke no english at all when she arrived in the u.s. but she filed her homestead claim, lived on it for five years, and then sold it for a nice profit, which she used to start out in a new career as a photographer, with her own studio. like the other women we will talk about tonight, she made the most of the unusual opportunities that the american west afforded to her. i'd like to explain also that we will pick up with slides later in my talk, partly because women in general, particularly the ones that i'm going to talk about, were not much photographed until the women's rights movement really picked up later in the 19th century. i began thinking about new women in the old west during my 12 years of living halftime in rural wyoming. i was impressed by the strong, versatile women, starting with the 80-year-old mayor, who pretty much ran local affairs from government to business. and that's not even counting the actual cowgirls. was there something in the water? i did some research and found that my friends were carrying on a long tradition of independence, competent and civic-mindedness. it began in the old west era of the 1840s into the early 20th century, when more than half of america was settled. but historians fail to notice, however, that women busy building homes and communities from scratch not only joined, but at crucial moments, lead the massive human rights revolution that enfranchised half the nation. indeed, by the time the 19th amendment was finally ratified in 1920, most western women had already voted for years, sometimes for decades, before their sisters in a single state back east. the colonization of the west and the suffrage movement were overlapping epochs and three generations of women were critical to both. yet their double barreled achievement has simply been neglected. according to the foundational myth, strong silent men won the west. in fact, women were equally essential to the process. moreover, they were not just stereotypical martyrish pioneer wives or hookers with hearts of gold, who supported men in various ways, but single homesteaders and doctors, entrepreneurs and suffragists. in their experimental, improvised settler society, these hardworking, determined women found unique opportunities. social, political, economic opportunities to become more equal to men by acting more as equals. all of these white, black and asian women were new to the west, but some of them -- and some of them native american and hispanic women they displaced -- also came to personify what was called the new woman. these new women rejected the 19th century's self sacrificing domesticity and anticipated the early 20th century's more liberated model of womanhood, based on the kind of independent, self-fulfilling way of life traditionally limited to men. appreciating women's experience in the west requires understanding something about their position in larger american society, which was terrible. by age-old law and custom, they were citizens in name only. they had no official place in civic life and very few legal rights. according to americas version of english common law, a married woman, a wife, became a femme couverts, who was covered by or officially absorbed into her husband's person. in exchange for his support and protection, she was legally obliged to serve and obey him. she could not inherit or control property including her own earnings. she could not sue in court, run a business, divorce or even claim custody of her own children. the connection between women's lack of economic status and lack of rights was highlighted in america just after the revolutionary war. while the men fought, many women, including abigail adams, the future first lady, capably ran their family farms and enterprises. in recognition of their service and patriotism, new york, new jersey, massachusetts and new hampshire allow them to vote. then the man returned from war. by the time of the constitution's ratification in 1788, most women had been disenfranchised. the new jersey women held on until 1807. by the mid 19th century, as the industrial revolution rapidly gathered steam in a rapidly urbanized america, women's status declined further, at least those of the middle and upper classes in towns and cities. in the old agrarian economy, home and work were intermeshed on farms, where the labor of both sexes sustained the family. especially in the booming urban areas, men's jobs in the new factories and offices now supported their wives and children. eager to codify this shift, victorian society consigned the sexes to what were routinely called separate spheres. men got the public world of the home -- excuse me, men got the public world of industry and commerce, law and politics. women got the private world of the home. they continued to do housework and childcare but they lost the status of economic co-providers for their families. the only acceptable career was marriage. indeed, they could compromise their respectable reputations simply by seeking a man's education, in quotes, much less a profession. just as westward migration began, however, social reformers started to renovate this cloistered victorian home, turning it into women's new power center. they built upon a theory, involving since the 18th century, that women were not so much inferior to man, as had always been thought, as different from them. they were weaker, generally, of course, but also more elevated, nurturing, virtuous. in a treatise on domestic economy, which quickly became a secular bible on how respectable people should live, catherine beecher, a champion of female education and a mother of home economics, put the home and the homemaker as the center of america's rapidly changing society. women were no mere domestic drudges, she insisted, but the arbiters of mores, manners, childbearing, religion, charity, important matters previously adjudicated by men. indeed, beecher went so far as to proclaim that women's moral authority, perhaps even superiority, created a balance of power. she said that it is in america alone that women are raised to inequality with the other sex. a pretty radical thing to say back in 1841. this glorification of their domestic role endowed women with a potent religious and social gravitas that elevated their social standing. it also provided activists with a platform for launching their campaign for further empowerment. there's a certain irony that women turned domesticity, which was keeping them down on a certain level -- they turned it into an advantage and used it to go from home to world. poor and enslaved women, who had to work, could not emulate this new gentle model of womanhood. others, whether agrarian wives, bohemians or the first female teachers and nurses, did so qualifedly, if at all. by the aspirational ideals of the domestic, righteous american madonna, the sentimental religious victorian society, and migrated to the west. most 19th century americans, including beecher, considered politics too base a pursuit for women. but not all. in july, 1848, as migration increased, elizabeth katie stanton, who we see here in all of her magnificence, and lucretia mott, both abolitionists, famously held a meeting in seneca falls, new york, to discuss what were first called woman rights. the event was later promoted as the birthplace of suffrage, the right to vote in national and local elections or run for office. but -- earlier, amid the ferocious battle called slavery. by the 1830's, black women, soon personified by sojourner truth, championed rights regardless of race, sex, or creed. they inspired -- abolitionists to know that their own second class status was based on gender instead of race. stanton and mott was also well aware that in their own upstate community, the native women of the iroquois confederation had long owned property, divorced and elected leaders. after two days, stanton wrote a declaration of rights and sentiments that elegantly rephrased thomas jefferson. all men and women are created equal. two little words. despite the lofty language, the activist's first goals were distinctly practical and domestic. they prioritized the rights to hold property, to work and maintain child custody. these were laws that would help protect their families from improvident or abusive husbands. even these zealots considered suffrage so far fetched that they included it in their declaration only after black abolitionist frederick douglass's last minute argument. in mainstream society, however, the woman rights proclaimed at seneca falls, including equal education and employment, were considered so ludicrous that newspapers lampooned the idea simply by printing a list of women's rights. in that same year of 1848, change roiled the west, that vast territory stretching past the mississippi river. gold was discovered in california, the u.s. annexed the vast oregon territory, and also claimed what is now our enormous southwest as spoils from the mexican american war. the rush to the new frontier began in earnest. the west differed from the rest of america in significant ways that affected women's positions, starting with demography. until the turn of the century, white men significantly outnumbered white women there, particularly in towns and cities. and women's scarcity increased their value. its the old law supply and demand. so, far less populous than in the east, the west was also home to the great majority of the country's native american, hispanics and asians, which positioned the white anglo-saxon protestant women, who dominated at least early migration, to be cast as maternal civilizers among savages in an alleged wilderness. indeed, the west quickly became a showcase for the virtuous homemaker in her snug cabin. she was not only the moral heroine of beecher's victorians society, but also of america's transcontinental expansion. women's status also benefited from conditions in the west's settler society, which by definition was simpler and more interested in progress than in tradition. it was all hands on deck, everyone was needed to do whatever needed doing. and people just didn't pay too much attention to these victorian ideas about what was women's work and men's work. in the west, as in most of america today, it took to industrious partners to support a family, which increased the value of women's work. no man wanted to make a homestead without a wife to do all the domestic work and give birth to the labor force. and also, importantly, earn money from her home production, whether selling eggs or bread or taking in sewing or borders. by that time, a lot of the pioneers got to the west, they were often very cash for -- even if they wanted to hire, there was really no help to be had. so this gave women a lot of opportunities. and the cash that they made, really, for the first couple of years often supported their families. not surprisingly, agrarian women had their pick of suitors. too many men, not enough women, and women were able to be very picky. in mining towns, women used their domestic skills to make small fortunes by marketing hot meals and clean laundry to the overwhelmingly male population. the pioneer woman of song and story maybe the proper, bonneted wife in her remote homestead. but women like luzena stanley wilson have an equally valid claim to the title. in 1849, after barely surviving and especially taxing migration, she and her family arrived in the goldrush town of sacramento tattered and penniless. she was one of three women among 6000 men. one morning, a miner offered her five dollars for a hot breakfast, about 168 dollars today. she noted that he would have paiher ten dollars if she had asked for it. she set up her first boarding house and prospered in the west's hospitality industry, at the time when few women ran businesses elsewhere. her final hotel, which she called wilson's hotel, the previous one had burned down -- she loaded her cook stove in the wagon, and they got some hay bales, they stopped at a nice spot, and she hung up a sign. her first guest slept on the other side of the hay bales. she was very good cook. the west's settler society was also free of an entrenched, highbrow establishment determined to keep women in their place. building new communities required every pair of hands. and the town mothers, who organize many of the first schools, churches and charities greatly enhanced women's position in public life. one of the things that really annoyed me when i was doing research on this book was that because women didn't have the legal right to start an institution, to found corporations, the women would do all the work at the school or the hospital, and then their husbands would appear in the newspaper that it was his school, or his hospital. and he got the credit for being the town father instead of the town mother. during sarah royce's first years in gold rush, california, she held church services in her family's tent. more than five years, i believe. in 1854, the teacher turned her modest, one story house into a school. her only resources were someooks she found in an abandoned wagon. a bible, a volume of milton, some fables. but her home schooled son became a famous harvard philosopher. and as her daughter-in-law later put it, quote, where were she was, she made civilization, even when it seemed that she had very little indeed from which toake it. kind of a quote that applies to a lot of these women that we are talking about tonight. when she arrived in central city, colorado, clara brown, a black freed woman, worked as a washer woman until she could start her own laundry. as her business expanded, she shrewdly invested in mines and real estate. she accumulated 10,000 dollars, than a huge sum, and became a philanthropist. she helped the needy of all races and other freed people to migrate to colorado. at the age of 82, after years of searching for the four children who had been sold away during slavery, she finally found her daughter eliza jane. the local paper described brown as still strong, vigorous, tall, her hair thickly streaked with gray, her face kind. women like wilson, brown and royce were not considered equal to men. but they had narrowed the gap. their record of hard work and their record of hard work and dedication one respect and made them a political force, albeit not electoral to be reckoned with. during the civil war, small but influential groups of western women began to capitalize on two unique opportunities to get ahead. each process made them be treated as equals by the federal government, a very important legal precedent. in 1862, as the civil war raged, president lincoln and his more gender egalitarian republicans passed two groundbreaking laws that recognized women's importance to the greater reconstruction. we have far too narrow an idea of reconstruction. it actually lasted from 1845 to 1877, and it was meant to create a coast to coast nation that actually never existed before. if you think about it, most of america on the east coast and the south -- and then gold was discovered in california, there is a whole lot of nothing in the middle there. the greater reconstruction, it created a new trans continental country, by not just for unifying the south after the war, but by colonizing the west. so it's actually kind of -- if you wanted to study an interesting period of american history, i think that the greater reconstruction from 1845 to 1877 is really worth a whole lot more attention. a lot is going on in more than half of what is america. people forget it's more than half of america. it doesn't get the same press. it's considered flyover country. but that history is phenomenally interesting. anyway, in 1862, congress passed the homestead act, which enabled female as well as male heads of households to claim 160 acres of free land in the west. at a time when most women had a few economic opportunities at all, the chance to own real estate that could support an independent life, and to sell it later for a sizeable profit, was a stunning advance. bear in mind that women of ample means, or wealthier women, the only career they were allowed to have was marriage. if no one would marry then, they had to more or less live as an unpaid servant for one of their male relatives, like, nannies for their brother's children or take care of grandpa in his old age. if you were a poor woman the only opportunity you'd have would really be domestic service. so this idea that a woman could own her own property and support herself on her own land was really a pretty phenomenal advance. women especially didn't have the opportunity to accumulate capital. the idea that you could own this land and then sell it and end up with something like $30,000 or $40,000 in today's money, was just amazing. importantly, women homesteaders also attained landowner status, which since the days of the agrarian founders, washington and jefferson, had been tied to citizenship and social standing. at first, in america, the only men who were allowed to vote were white men who owned property. the women homesteaders'names on tax rolls besides mens became an important argument for women's full citizenship. few single women could dream of owning a home of their own, much less enough land for farm. but in 1873, pauline armstrong, a single, 53 year old scandinavian immigrant -- a lot of these women were middle aged. filed for a homestead on the remote minnesota frontier. it was -- she was actually near where laura ingles wilder set her fourth book in the little house series, on the banks of plum creek, the books of -- pauline lived right near their. summers alternated with arctic chills and wild fires, and periodic plagues of grasshoppers wiped out crops and farms in moments. despite the challenges, five years later, when pauline finally proved up or finalized her homestead claim, she owned a 14 by 15 foot cabin, cattle, a pig and chickens. she produced 400 bushels of wheat, dozens of eggs, and 150 pounds of butter for sale. she lived off her land for 14 years and then sold it for 1280 dollars, more than 30,000 dollars today. to make additional income for her retirement in a snug house in town, she carried the mortgage. a lot of the women homesteaders, after they proved up their claims, they would hang on to their land and rent to a farmer and they would have income for the rest of their lives, in many cases, or until they wanted to do something else. this was a very unusual thing for a woman to be able to have her own money in that way. very few 19th century americans, especially women, having access to college and the professional life it enables. but in july, 1862, just a few months after the homestead act, congress passed the moral land grant act. the law created nearly 100 tuition-free coeducational public colleges and universities. two thirds of the schools were in the rapidly developing west, which desperately needed expertise. given access to careers that would enable them to support themselves, women graduates who chose to delay family life now had an alternative to marriage. i should point out -- these were some of the first coeducational schools in the world. in the world. and it was -- coeducation was frowned upon in the east, as you know. college girls back east at that time went to vassar, and smith and wellesley, girls'schools. but western girls went to college with men. given access to career is that enabled them to support themselves, they could delay family life. many became teachers. but almost 15% of these career oriented new women and who traditionally male fields like medicine, journalism and law. almost twice women's national rate of 8%. that's kind of an impressive statistic, i think. in these towns and this region where people are particularly just coming out of the mud, living in these ramshackle towns, and yet we have twice as many women that are going into the professions as those back east. a classic western new woman, independent and as adventurous and as good as any man, willa taver cut a dashing figure at the university of nebraska, land grant school. a journalism major, who sometimes styled herself william taver junior and sometimes favored conventional male haircuts and mannerisms, was a popular editor of the college newspaper. later, as the consummate poet of the western prairie and its women, she based her most beloved characters, earthy antoninia -- of my antonina, portraits of women immigrants she met on her grandfather's homestead. the west knew women helped america come to terms with women's new role in a rapidly modernizing society. now we can go back to the slide because it was a rapidly modernizing society. i think -- there we go. one favorite of the american public was mary halic foot. she was an eastern debutante, who migrated with her miner husband. he studied mining at yale. and then went west. she was talented -- she represented the west with a distinctly female perspective in art, journalism and novels. no heroic cowboys alone on the prairies for her. she was determined to show that women were just as important as men, to western development. and that -- you can kind of tell from the demeanor of the men and women in the pictures that the men were by no means all swashbuckling heroes. but few new women compare with caroline lock heart, an amazing wyoming woman. a wyomingite, she has a special place in my heart. she began her writing career as a girl reporter for the boston post. nelly blie start of this thing of, send the women to do something, and caroline would dive into the boston harbour, and jump off a building into the net the fireman were holding. anyway, she went west on an assignment and then fell a love with cody, wyoming. she published the local newspaper. she founded the still ongoing famous cody stampede. but she was most famous for her novels, which challenge the idea of good guys and bad guys, race and gender. but several of her westerns became major hollywood movies, including the fighting shepherdess, based on the so-called sheath queen of wyoming. readers loved lockhart's mastery of western speech. i don't like you no how, i don't like the way you act, i don't like the way you talk. i don't like the way you think, the way your face grows on you, and if i never see you again, it will be soon enough. the hard drinking, hard partying cowrote never married but enjoyed many unofficial liaisons. at the age of 54, she became a cattle queen in her own right on her 6000 acre ranch and live to the age of 91. just as the west gave ambitious women unique opportunities to own land and attend college, it gave them special advantages in their pursuit of more rights. indeed, in 1854, just a few years after the seneca falls conference, and one year after washington territory was founded, a suffrage bill failed to pass in the washington territories legislature by single vote. the national movement may have been based in the east but when the cause reemerged after a hiatus imposed by the civil war, suffrage first caught fire in the west. the suffrage movement was a messy, fragmented phenomenon that waxed and waned over a century of internal squabbling in public debate. many suffragists did not consider people of color, including fellow suffragists, as there equals. some leaders wanted to first focus on women's right to vote in school board elections. you would think, gee, it's just school board elections. but it was a very contentious issue. other suffragists stoutly claimed that women deserved full and fair enfranchisement. some insisted that women were mans equals. that many more argued that -- were moral superiors. and that women would vote to protect and care for the homeland just as they protected and cared for their homes. what's the movement lacked in ideological consistency, however, it made up for in sheer grit over three generations. in the west, suffragists maximized the special advantages that women enjoyed in the region. legislators in a sparsely populated territory were too eager to increase their electorates because that's how you got more power in washington d. c.. they also wanted to entice white women because they needed them to help balance the white gender ratio. they also wanted to counter the ballots of men of color. legislators tried to lure women with liberalized laws regarding property and divorce, not just suffrage. indeed, by the 1850s, unhappy wives may california the first of the west many divorce mills. controversial laws, such as suffrage, were also much more easy and loosely governed in territories and in states encumbered by century of laws and legal precedent. importantly, territories transitioning into states had to write constitutions, which required the legislators to debate on issues, including women's legal rights and political status. finally, compared to men in the south and the east, western men had witnessed women's service during ongoing settlement and were notably more receptive to their empowerment, particularly if it was two men's own political advantage. for all these reasons, in 1869, the women of the wyoming territory, who were outnumbered by men by a ratio of nine to one, became the first women to be fully enfranchised. sullivan insisted that women >> was appointed as the nation's first woman judge. despite her lack of formal legal training. she was so capable that none of the 27 cases she tried or appealed or reversed. she was treated by the crude press as a free kick celebrity. but one -- weekly called her, the terror of all rogues. and infinite delight all lovers of peace and burgeo. she acknowledged that her appointment was quote, a test of women's ability to hold public office. and added that quote, in performing all of these duties i do not know that i've neglected my family and the more than an ordinary shopping. >> i love esther. in 1870, neither women of a largely mormon utah territory warren franchise does well. i think we'll see emily wildes, there she is. suffragist such as the journalist emily wells. who was one of her third husband's second wives. insisted that sister wives, because sister wives shared domestic chores, polygamy gave women more freedom. and, fact the whole enfranchisement of women in utah backfired under the republican party of the twin evils of the area. they were slavery and polygamy. and this assume that they gave mormon women the vote that mormon women would vote to eliminate polygamy but in fact, mormon women were just as religious as the mormon man. and polygamy was part of their religion. in fact, -- importantly, both wyoming, both the wyoming and utah territories in franchised women half century before the passage of the 19th amendment. it's often said that was super woman, western men gave women the vote. but after those two gifts, other territorial and state governments responded only after women persistently lobby for bills. they saw them defeated and tried, tried, and try to get. in the 18 70s and 80s, activists such as abigail scott done away. . there she, as much later she really is the, she's the elisabeth -- of the west. there she is visiting what the great woman herself. , women such as abigail, they fought on in legislatures and courtrooms to improve women's rights to own property after divorce. as well as. vote in, fact abigail became a suffragist when her husband, trusted a friend of his and counter signed a loan of his friend, the friend defaulted on the loan and miss dunn always home, which she shares with her five or six children, the bank sees their home. she was so were mansequals. they insisted feminists, what she really wanted was women's property rights, because women have no money they have no power. well, so abigail is very busy in courtrooms trying to make her case, but other western women continued to accumulate political power by moving from community buildings to large-scale social reform which was also catching on in late 19th century, later 19th century america. many women enlisted in the powerful nation wide women's christian temperance union. it began the campaign against devices the jeopardize the family, particularly drunkenness and prostitution. before long however, wctu embrace suffrage and abroad do everything agenda that's what it was called that included sanitation, labor regulation, food and drug laws, the rehabilitation of prostitutes, starting of kindergarten. this pragmatic shift was especially popular in the very practical west. contrary to its image the wctu was still one of the largest and most important political organizations in american history, gave tens of thousands of women a path from the home, middle ardor world of personal growth of, special reform and politics. by strongly influencing public policy before women could even vote, the wctu strengthened their claim to the rights of full citizenship. there were many, many, many more women in the temperance movement than in the suffrage movement. it's really a neglected area of american history, probably because it was dominated by women. on the western suffragists had been stereotyped by eastern counterparts as white but, a surprising number where women of color. for native americans, hispanic, black and asian women, political activism first and foremost meant ensuring their families survival amidst the systemic racism that was just as bad in the west as was in the east. many of the west's first chinese women had been sold back in china other indigent indigent parents or kidnapped become sex slaves in california, -y [inaudible] came to break up her printing press and she prevented them, she bar the door and she told them repelled them. she prevented them from doing that. native american activists a teacher and author and sarah lucas inspired influential white women to join their fight for equality to the west's original peoples. one of the recruits, helen hunt jackson, a prominent journalist, went on to write a century of dishonor, a blistering history of treaty violations. unfortunately she died before she knew and captured the public's attention and it actually started some of the reforms that she wanted to -- sow because of the stereotypes of traditional wives and mothers traditional, lives and mothers but a striking number of these a striking number of these activists like the activists west's outstanding women in like the general were single news --, like the like halle outstanding women in general morris were single, a homesteader and force like a homesteader services first female fire look at. or -- divorced or like clara short divorced ridge. like folds, a mother of five who became the pacific coast first female lawyer. clara shortridge foltz, a mother of five who became the she was a real firebrand. her brother pacific coasts first female lawyer. she was a real became a senator of course she should've been firebrand. her sold back in china other indigent indigent parents or kidnapped become sex slaves in california, -y [inaudible] came to break up her printing press and she prevented them, she bar the door and she told them repelled them. she prevented them from doing that. native american activists a teacher and author and sarah lucas inspired influential white women to join their fight for equality to the west's original peoples. one of the recruits, helen hunt jackson, a prominent journalist, went on to write a century of dishonor, a blistering history of treaty violations. unfortunately she died before she knew and captured the public's attention and it actually started some of the reforms that she wanted to -- sow because of the stereotypes of traditional wives and mothers traditional, lives and mothers but a striking number of these a striking number of these activists like the activists west's outstanding women in like the general were single news --, like the like halle outstanding women in general morris were single, a homesteader and force like a homesteader services first female fire look at. or -- divorced or like clara short divorced ridge. like folds, a >> from the california's mission. suffragists have also been stereotyped as traditional wives and mothers. what a striking number of these activists like the west outstanding women in general were single. like hallie moore, the homesteader and services first feel male fire -- or driver before. it's like clara short ridge faults mother of five who became the pacific coast first female lawyer. clara shortridge foltz, a mother of five who became the she was a real firebrand. her brother pacific coasts first female lawyer. she was a real of p became a senator of course she should've been firebrand. her brother became a the senator senator. of course she should but she actually started is have been the senator but she the position is actually of public started the position of defender which was public defender, considered a very radical which was thing. she considered a very radical championed public thing. she championed defenders and now of course they are everywhere, but the public defenders and of course first one was in they are california. she was an everywhere, but amazing, amazing the first one was woman. she in california. she was married was an amazing woman. she was to a real married to real nerdy well. she left him, -- she left him, she had no no legal legal education or education or anything, anything, she had five little five little children. she children. she studied law, studied the passed the bar law, passed the bar and went on to become and just went on to become a crackerjack lawyer. a crackerjack lawyer. others others were gay were gay, like like montana's montana's jeannette jeannette rankin, the rankin, the first woman first woman elected to elected the u. s. to the u.s. congress. congress. or i bisexual, like or bisexual adelino like warren, a new mexican adelino educator and warren, a new politician mexican. educator and politician. by the 1890s, by the 1890s, huge huge numbers numbers of women such as luna kelly, and of nebraska farm wife women such as luna and mother of kelly, and 11, nebraska farm helped make wife and mother of 11, the west the helped make the west national the national capital of capital of the the new progressive new politics progressive. she was politics. also she a folk was also singer and a poet, a folksinger and she wrote and a poet and a very she wrote rousing ballad called stand up a very rousing for nebraska ballad called that brought stand up for everybody to their nebraska the brought feet. everybody to their big feet. progressives upheld women's progressives upheld rights and women's rights certainly and importantly economic justice for for average people, people. and opposed the corrupt political machines and corporate monopolies of the areas where patient 1% up until that time there have been rich people in america, but really until the gilded age is which started after the civil war, there were not these a norm is inequities like that separated the super rich from everybody else. so this was something than americans were just coming to terms with, and that's how the progressive movement the developed kansas homesteader. turned the kansas homesteader turned lawyer mary lawyer -- elizabeth louise cofounded the new cole founded the new people's people's party party before she could even before she could even vote anne--. the electrifying orator the electrifying held people in scrawled for hours, warning in her irish contralto voice that the the u.s. have become. u.s. had become pierre -- for wall street. e progressive women quietly helped to shape pierre [inaudible] [inaudible] de's. -- progressive states of colorado and idaho enfranchised women in 1893 and 1896, the west which was already the national hot spot of suffrage because of wyoming and utah, became a global epicenter of suffragist as well showing the spotlight with the other settlers societies of australia and new zealand. as immigration surged in the early 20th century, the public heatedly debated the question of who is a real american. women wanted to know how could barely literate immigrant men could vote, then educated women born on home soil could not? in the west, suffragist pointed to women's long record of service during ongoing settlements still going on and demanded full citizenship. devising a successful formula for winning the vote in the holdout states. the suffrage is built successful coalitions with other forward-looking non partisan government groups, progressive clubs, farm and labor unions, liberal republicans, certain churches we needed women's votes to promote their own agendas. suffrage had always been a kind of a bit of a snooty middle class, upper class thing, mostly associated with white women, even though there were lots and lots of women of color. khan and to win in the holdout states they had to break through these barriers of race and class under the banner of unity and diversity. they also recruited women from different ethnic groups, poor working women, waitresses. this was the time that women were starting to work in factories, in the west and canneries. they were seamstresses and they lived away from home. it was a whole new working class group that had to be integrated into the suffrage movement. so all women of different races and classes were enlisted to enjoin in an unofficial labor union of hardworking citizens, whether they were unpaid mothers at home or, clerks seamstresses and waitresses, who were entitled to move. in oregon, dr. esther paul lovejoy, there she is, she is so beautiful. her pictures are just dazzling. she made house calls by docks lead during the alaskan gold rush, then ran portland's board of health -- founded the multiracial -- everybody's equal suffrage league. her partner is included harriet redmond. job opportunities for black women were very limited. so she worked as a janitor at the city's u.s. district court, but she was also the president of portland's colored women's equal suffrage association. a sophisticated third generation western suffragists also mounted new kinds of splash-y creative campaigns that changed american politicking forever, with marches, publicity stunts and the first button big told by -- electric signs. in seattle, doctor coretta eaton coauthored the washington women's cookbook. votes for women, good things to eat. she was also an accomplished mountaineer who had been on washington's peaks. she led a party of men and women. the women had to wear knickerbockers which are sort of canvas shorts that kind of buckle under the knee. she let this party on a three-week camp ink trip to carry a suffrage and to the summit of mount or near. here she is in washington. the other washington. by 1914, suffragists had one in washington, california, oregon, arizona, kansas, nevada and montana. most western women could now vote before women in a single state back. east ironically, by the time of the suffragist triumph that, you're the west demography had synchronized with the rest of the country. women no longer benefited from the settlement era's unprecedented opportunities for. as world war i loomed, some societies conservative turn act aggravated by women's economic and political gains, created a predictable backlash. even the rugged radio cow girl recently competed with men were replaced by rodeo queens who waved from their palmetto. like the history of the old western general, the record of its women is not a seamless march of progress. their history charts jagged trajectory of advances on one front and retreats on another. progress for some and decline for others. there is no way to balance colonization benefits for white settlers and their descendants with the terrible costs to the region's original people. or to reconcile the racism injured by women of color including within the suffrage movement with the gains made by their sex. to move forward, however, americans must engage humbly with the tragedies of our shared past. and also taken its triumphs including women's ongoing empowerment. before the first eastern green horns arrived in their covered wagons, the west has changed countless times during the 14,000 years of its known history. indeed, it's landscape of red blue and purple continues to shift today. it's inspiring legacy of the overlooked westerners who helped define the independent capable, active american women later personified in western boots and blue jeans, is an important part of that long record. american women and their journey towards equality did not begin nor has it ended with suffrage. as the struggle continue, they can take part from their western for mothers who proved that despite formidable obstacles, change is possible, even for rules once seemingly written in stone. thank you. >>, thank you, one of red. that was great. we've been keeping track of our questions from audience and we have a couple to get us started. to our viewers, please know that we welcome your questions now. so please post them in the q&a box and we will ask them to win a fraud. first question. i understand that the homesteader landowner status was huge for women, but why did congress pass it with that particular language? who is the instigator for getting women into that bill and who was responsible for everyone going along with it? >> good question. a big part of it was that the west desperately needed women. it was overwhelmingly male, as we talked about earlier, and they really wanted to get women into the west to have families. the settlement of the west really was a matter of settlement. it wasn't so much like the cavalry big. there was terrible genocide of indians, but really the colonization occurred through settlement, like people starting farms and villages and towns, and just moving the native americans, hispanic people who had been there out of the way. settlement was really big, settlement really conquered the west. you could not do that without women to be wives and mothers and bare children and increase the numbers. it was also big that lincoln and the republicans, his branch of liberal minded republicans, were more generally gender egalitarian. both parties big worshiped and adored and respected women, but the republicans were much more inclined to give them legal empowerment. in fact, it was a big bone of contention in the suffrage movement that they wouldn't and franchise women walk they enfranchised formally enslaved men. the republicans were afraid that if you put the women in it as well, it would be too much and it wouldn't be able to get the black men and franchise. there were a lot of factors at work, but i think the fact that they really needed women for settlement is a big one. >> great. thank you. and here's another question that just came. and i don't recall the names of the women that went afraid identified as gay. i am curious if these women lived openly as lesbians during that time period? >> yeah, that's an interesting question. it's very hard to identify western women as gay, because unlike certain gay men, they would get arrested for doing something that was illegal in a particular town and they would appear in papers, but there was no -- and was considered perfectly fine. i i mean, it was considered perfectly fine, they would hug each other, they would kiss each other, slept in the same beds. they lived together, as maiden ladies, or in a boston marriage. so there was no program attached to women living and having partnerships with other women. but i think the number i want to say about 4% of women in the west in this era lived either alone or with another woman. and i was really struck by the number in the book who had come -- the closest relationships were with other women. >> gosh. >> francis willard, the president of the w. sea to you we talked about. she was known as, she's not described as the eleanor roosevelt of her day. she was a real fireball, very much like eleanor roosevelt, but unlike eleanor roosevelt she had a relationship with men and women. >> okay, thank you. what was the background and incentive for men? were there any who championed women's struggle for achievement and equality? >> you know, that's a really good session -- question. there were a number of good guys in the west. demonstrably more than in the east or the south, particularly the south, not so many suffragist men there. i think a lot of men knew -- one man said my wife is a smart as any man and smarter than most. like, there's just a sense especially in the settler society where everybody was pitching in. the women were working as hard as the man and doing a lot of the stuff the mended, and it was just in that kind of very practical like pragmatic culture. like, why would you say that she couldn't vote when she does everything that i do? so i think there was a real general fairness. like i mentioned in the speech, the washington territory in 1854, the territory was one year old, and suffrage lost by one vote. they were men. voting. i think we have to give men credit. without man none of those suffrage bills would have been passed. women had to talk minute to supporting them. that's a really good point. >> was the western woman inclination to be more inclusive or expensive in their efforts? women of several different backgrounds, part of their success? where it may have hurt the groups from the east? >> yes, i think so. although to be fair, women, i think, we're doing the suffragist back east were doing so poorly. they didn't get their first state until like wet, 1915 or 1916? they were just losing across the board, and you could tell from the pictures of elizabeth katie stanton and susan b anthony. these are very well educated upper class women. they considered themselves ladies. they dressed like ladies. but they were not getting far with that so you had to reach out i. would say both in the east and the west beyond just those clouds borders and the race borders, which certainly when in the west because the west actually was more multi racial and the east coast. there again it was just part of that this is a settler society, we don't have so many laws and rules and regulations here. >> that rachel question just came in from one of our viewers saying if the western states that encourage suffrage were primarily white, one about suffrage for native american women? >> some native american women and men didn't get the vote until the 19 twenties and even later ian. a number of native american women and men to get the vote when an act was passed. this was an act that the people who promoted thought it would be a wonderful thing for native americans but it turn it to be a disaster because in enabled the tribal reservation to be apportioned into plots that they gave to different people. if you claimed one of those plots, sort of like a homestead, you also got the right to vote. some did get the right to vote, but i mean a lot of native women as we talked about sarah win and suzanne, they campaigned for suffrage because they wanted to empower their people. they wanted to give their native peoples more of a voice. it was for them it was -- to be a native suffragist or black suffragists or her hispanic or asian suffragist was more complicated thing than to be a white suffragist. who is just interesting and getting the vote for her sex. this was a more complicated story. >> okay. speaking of complicated stories and going back to the earlier question about gay women in the west -- >> this was a lot of fun working. on >> someone wrote him to say, she said i am probably very naive, but how do we get the information about the sexual preferences of these women? i find this fascinating but i am genuinely curious about the source for this information? >> well, there have been academics who have researched it and have done some digging through records. there are occasional cases where a woman was either, that she was suffering from a mental illness or somebody else that she was suffering from mental illness so they got that got into the papers. there are some records like that. but a lot of them come from census figures. if you see a woman who always lived by herself with another woman for a certain period of time, in this whole era, like 95% of women married. it was kind of what was happening, so women who remained single and are reported in the census. the other ways you could tell was sometimes money, if they had women who had some property, some possessions. so there were those -- i think mostly as you get later in the century, certainly with francis willard, the president of the w. cte you, and a lot of the other women, they let correspondence with a person who was their soul mate and can you say are you sure? even will cambered, you see pictures of well with her kind of crew cut and necktie and she had a very passionate relationship with a female student when she was at the university of nebraska. do we know what they did in bed? no, we don't. even as academics we can't actually say she was gay even though all of her abiding relationships were with other women. >> that is all just so fascinating. okay, next question. when suffrage was passed, and you may have covered this already and i apologize if i missed it, but when suffrage was passed for women in the various states, did the right to vote include any minority women? on did my mind in minority women of the right to vote when suffrage was passed? >> yes. you mean in the states? >> yes. -- included minority women? >> included minority women, although it does get tricky. in certain cases, native american women were not enfranchised a. different states had different ideas about the legal rights of native people. some were relatively progressive. oregon was notably not progressive at all. he even after the 19th amendment passed in 1920, native american women's still, some native american women still were not enfranchised. so it's very difficult to say to, make a global statement. i would have to look at each state and see. >> okay. >> but generally, generally yeah, if you could prove that you were a citizen in, i would say yes, you could vote. >> great, thank you. next question. were there traditional, and this is a quote traditional women who worked against women's progressive politics as there were in our day? for instance, the women who helped defeat the e. r. a.? >> yes, there was a very vigorous anti-suffrage movement that was called the anti suffrage party. they were, in fact he george paton's mother, i think bts pattern led the troops. she grew up in california, and they said if women caught the vote they would grow mustaches, that men would have to stay home and change the diapers and the women would be cavorting around carrying boxes. for some idea the idea that women will be courting him an in jury boxes. there was a very vigorous anti-suffrage movement in both places, but i would say it was more vehement in the east. obviously it was. >> okay, interesting. i am impressed that these women accomplished so much with the equal requirements of marriage, childbirth and childbearing. how did they balance all of this? [laughs] >> it really is. especially when you look at women like abigail scott done away who i call the mother western suffrage. she was a homestead daughter, her parents went west in covered wagons. she grew up on a homestead, she married a homesteader when she was like 14 or 15. she had five or six children. they built one homestead, they sold. they developed another homestead and he lost it all in a stupid legal maneuver. nothing down to her, and then he got hurt in a wagon accident i could never work again, so abigail moved the whole family to portland, started up a women's newspaper and started campaigning for suffrage, and somehow supported everybody. so these women were made of stern or stuff for sure. >> stern of the knee, that's for sure. i have five children and i can't even fantasize what they must have been -- >> nina other. that's just amazing. okay this is a very specific question about the homestead act and acreage. could men and women equally qualify for the hundred 80 acres? >> it was 160. >> hundred and 60. >> for a couple was at doubled? >> depends on where you were. in oregon, in 1850, the nation's land claims act was actually seen as a way as a sign of women's empowerment because a single guy could only get 160 acres, but a married man and his woman could get 320. she couldn't get it on our own but as a couple they could get 320. mostly it was 160 acres. homestead laws did not allow, in a funny way they went against wives. a wife could not file her own claims separately from her husband. so in a way, it privileged single women, many of them were widows, abandoned, various states of single nunes. >> okay, thank you. this is a question to you. was there ever a point in your research that you felt gratitude for being born in this time period? or did you feel like you are born in the wrong century? >> no, i think however discouraged we get and it's easy to get discouraged these days in america between, the pandemic in our polarization, if ever there was a good time to be a woman it is now. if you look at what these women went through, they were really-y they were channeled. harry peter stone, the author of uncle tom's cabin, famously said that a married woman has the same rights as a slave. no more, no less. they were basically their husbands property. and the way they built their evolution from taking to domestic authority that they had in their home, taking it out to the community by starting community organizations, and broadening up to social reform, and then finally suffrage. it was amazing their efforts. and i think of my own mother did not have the opportunities that her brother had, and this is just one generation back. i can remember when i was in high school and college reading articles in young women's magazines saying, if you're going out with a boy and you are taller, you better wear flat shoes, and don't act too smart, you know. act a little dumb. this isn't all that long ago. so, yeah i think we have a great deal to be thankful for. >> i agree. so we are just about out of time and running out of questions. so i am going to leave you with this last question that circles back to your book. who was your favorite woman from the book? >> it's a really hard question but i do love dr. esther lovejoy. we did see her picture she was the one who washing clothes the tub or husband who was a surgeon. she was born in a logging camp, very poor family. huge big family, lots of children. she had almost no schooling but she was very impressed by the women doctor who delivered one of her baby sisters, and she said to herself, when i grow up i'm going to be a doctor. by the time she was a teenager her parents finally moved into portland and they worked in a hotel. and one of the gas and hotel was a professor he started to bring her. she was very bright. she by the time she got to the point where she could apply to medical school, she clocked in some of the to first department stores in the west. she was a sales clerk to make money for her tuition money to go to the university medical school. she was one of three women in her class, this was around 1890-ish. she married a surgeon in her class and they took off, they practiced for a little while in portland and they said no, this is not exciting enough. they took off to the alaska gold rush off to alaska did house calls on dog sled, started a hospital, prevented some terrible epidemic. she came back to portland, only visited him then four summers, had her baby, got her mother to wash watch the baby. she carried on her medical practice, started the suffrage campaign, broke all kinds of class and raise barriers, ended up running for congress in 1920. she didn't win but she spent the rest of her life working for women's medical associations. both here and internationally, and wrote to books. just an astounding woman. it's a pleasure, everybody should look up chelsea can see her pretty pictures. >> that's fantastic, thank you so much one of fred. what a fascinating evening a fascinating women. we wish you all the best with a book, and i thank you so much for joining us tonight. i do want to remind our audience that when ford's book, new women in the old west, from settlers to suffragists, an untold american story is available for sale from our partner booksellers politics and prose. we are putting up a link in the chat box right now, and if you follow that link you can get a 10% discount on the book. i would also like to extend a special thank you to everyone of our viewers join us tonight and for your great questions. >> middle and high school students it's time to get out your phones. and start reporting for yo chance to win $100,000 in total cash crisis with a grand prize of $5,000. by entering c-span student cam video documentary contest. for this year's competition where accident didn't depict yourself as a newly elected member of congress. and tell us what your top priority would be. and why. create a 5 to 6 minute video. showing the importance of your issue from opposing and supporting points of view. bold with your documentary. don't be afraid to take risks. there's still time to get started. the deadline for entries is january 20th, 2023. for competition rules and tips on how to get started. visit our website at student cam.org. >> on american history tv the presidency series. or when gellman talks about the 1960 presidential kaplan -- richard nixon and john kennedy. and the close outcome of the election. here's a look. >> all the people that right about the election, especially are the people that right about our how wonderful kennedy was, how brilliant his campaign laws. and how in the world, could nixon be so stupid as to run in all 50 states. none of them mentioned that kennedy campaigned in 45 states. i guess he was five states left steeper the nixon. was the nature of the way that both of that ran. and if you want to take a look at this in the most objective way. is that nixon had just as many votes, as kennedy had. so, i'm guessing since they both had similar just about the same amount of votes that kennedy must around a much better campaign than extended. the only problem again with that is, how in the world at both of these guys have the same amount of votes, but one ran a far superior campaign than the other. the logical inconsistencies is undeniable. and yet, folks don't want to go -- >> pull up a sows of american history tv's the presidency series are available to watch online anytime at c-span.org slash history. >> weekends c-span two are an intelctual feast, every saturday american history tv documents america story, and on sundays book tv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors, funding for c-span two comes from these television companies and more. including comcast -- >> you think this is a community center know it's way more than that. comcast is -- to cree wi-fi enabled lift's, so student from low income families can get the tools they need to be 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lee. could pick showdown between any case the best general. maybe any other campaign in the civil war. i think the reason reason is because of expectations. you know today in politics you would see say there's a presidential campaign. the primary campaign is going on and several candidates are seeking the nomination of one of the parties and they're coming up on one of the nominating the primers the state primary and you'll typically you'll hear some politicians say oh if i finish in the top three, that will be a win that if i to finish in the top