By there joined now director of this museum. Good morning to you. In this Centennial Anniversary year and the passage of the 19th amendment, explain the wagon behind you and how it figures into womens suffrage and democracy in america. Womens suffrage and democracy in america. Guest good morning, and welcome to the year of the woman, which you could argue every year should be. This year is incredibly special for all in america and at the smithsonian. We are banded together in celebrating the american womens History Initiative throughout the smithsonian museums, online, and through all of our activities. We are particularly grateful to have three exhibitions opening, spurring really from this one. This is democracy in america, the great leap of faith that opened a few years ago. I am in the gallery that takes us through the long and arduous and continuing effort to expand democracy to enfranchised more and more americans. As you might know, early on, only landed, white men with property were able to vote. In the 19th century, the long battle expanding that suffrage to slaves, previously enslaved, and women, culminating finally in 1920 with the ratification of the 19th amendment, not guaranteeing women the right to vote but barring the federal government and states from discriminating against voters because of their sex. Suffrage wagons like the one behind me were taken in the field during the ratification process to encourage states and state legislators, almost all men, the vast majority i think there was only one or two sitting women to vote for the 19th amendment. It was painted with slogans, brightly colored. Are black of suffrage and gold originally and changed into purple and gold and white. , creating will open icons, how we remember womens suffrage on march 6. We will be showing and taking you through the long effort to frameworkregulatory for how women can vote and the incredible activism of women who arked tirelessly throughout century and a half to get the vote to happen. As wein this segment focus on the 19th amendment, the phone lines are split up differently. If you want to call in and join the conversation, 202 7488000 if you are in the eastern or central time zone. Mountain or pacific time zone, 202 7488001. You can start calling in. As folks are calling in, i want to focus on the ratification process. After a 14 month process the 19th amendment was passed by congress. Was it a sure thing . How touch and go was it during those 14 months, and why did it take 14 months . Guest the ratification of the amendments is probably never a sure thing. It is easy for us to look back as historians and track that, but all the amendments, the expansion amendments, reconstruction amendments after the civil war ending slavery and trying to work toward the abolishment of slavery and equalization of rights for africanamericans, the Womens Movement that had worked actively since 1848, original sentiments, the declaration of sentiments penned by elizabeth caddy stanton, and we have heard table on which she wrote that, 1848 by 68 women and 32 men, including Frederick Douglass, the remarkable and powerful abolitionist who believed in equality and the declaration of independence. Modeled after the declaration that said we hold these truths to be selfevident that all men and women are equal. These are fabulous. In terms of the original declaration saying that the king had done this to men, elizabeth and others are saying men have done this to women. He has not ever permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise, and the powerful 16, he has endeavored in every way that he could to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her selfrespect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life. Those are pretty harsh words in 1848. By the time the amendment gets introduced in 1878 and voted on, sent out by an allmale congress to the states, there was really nothing insured about the passage of the 19th amendment. And remember that in order to get this past, the coalitions that might women white women built excluded women of color. Womenve extraordinary born into slavery, fighting against slavery, and forcibly joining, saying, these are our rights too. Can you imagine how powerful it was for africanamerican women to get the vote . The great thing for me and all of us at the museum, nothing is preordained. It is always the choices we make and it is those men who walked into their state houses and chose to vote for the 19th amendment. Host which states lead the way in that process . Process, way in that during the ratification process . Guest it varied. The big states were in favor of it. A lot of it became, if women got the vote and could vote in the 1920 election, became part of the chest game for that, that, there were already women and men who were used to having women vote. The big states who wanted to swing the election of 2020 two the republicans were among the most ardent supporters. Host you talked about the declaration of sentiments earlier and we showed viewers a picture of that table that you have. Guest wonderful. Host how you got that table to the smithsonian, and what happened to the original declaration . Guest great story. The way in which the smithsonian acquired this original core collection that we will be displaying as the women wanted it to be displayed in 1919 is fabulous. They knew they were making history, so they had been petitioning the Smithsonian Institution to accept this collection that they had very and they hadated, kind of modeled it off of what they thought to be an appropriate Museum Display of an important american man. So it looks kind of very genteel. There is the tea set in the table, but what is fantastic is mensmithsonian, led by all said, no, thank you. You do not turn people like the creation mott and lucretia stanton san b Susan B Anthony away. It will be grouped together wae behind me were taken in the field during the ratification est who has the declaration of sentiments . Host exactly. Guest i believe it is at the library of congress, but we should check on that before the show and we will get that to you. Host i appreciate the realtime fact checking. Phone numbers to join this segment, eastern or central time zone, 202 7488000, mountain or pacific time zones, 202 7488001. Our third stop in our washington journal American History tv tour visiting museums, the American History museum. The table was brought to the smithsonian that was led by only men. That is not the case anymore. You are the first woman to serve as the director of american director of the museum of American History. What does that mean . Guest it is a true honor to lead this museum. I joke that one of the great things about being the first woman is no other woman will have to say that. It is incredibly important as a wife and a mother and a sister and a daughter, my roles as a woman in society, i think enable me and reinforce the way in which i have seen the world as a historian, as a nonprofit leader, and certainly here is a public historian and public servant, there is no higher calling than to be at the smithsonian at this time in our history, and especially with the exemplary leadership of our new secretary, he himself a theorian, creating africanamerican museum of history and culture. It is a special time, and i am embraced by many when in men and women directors. Host do you remember when you first visited the National Museum of American History and how the 19th amendment, the Womens Suffrage Movement was represented then . Guest that is a great question. We came here shortly after the bicentennial and my mom took us all. We were dressed up, and came here. I will never forget that first time in washington. The museum, which my father had seen in the 1950s when he was here before this museum was told ait opened in 1964, pretty traditional story of American History, although it was the 1970s. Times, they were certainly influenced by the remarkable energies of the Civil Rights Movement, so i dont remember a lot about how womens stories were told. Ofo remember being in awe both this museum, air and space, which was very new at the time, and that feeling that i feel every day i get off the metro and walk across the national and respect and participation in this incredible experiment that we call the united states. Host joining us from inside the democracy exhibit at the American History museum. Linda out of mount laurel, new jersey. Caller good morning. I am so fortunate to live on the land where alice paul lived and grew up. Guest be still my beating heart. That is wonderful. At the National Constitution center in philadelphia on january 16. I just wanted to know if anybody has worked with you at this smithsonian . Guest i am so grateful for your call, and if you havent brought up alice paul, i would have. One of the things that we have, and maybe you can show it to our viewers, is a remarkable pin that alice paul and others who were imprisoned for their advocacy literally trying just to get the vote, sent to prison soyou know alices story is brought but attention to the incredible length to which women would go. Host you are seeing that on your screen now. Guest isnt that amazing . We have an amazing collection from alice pauls family, including her suffrage bracelet. So every a long life time a state would add the 19th amendment, she would add it to her charm bracelet. Hallowed ground for the Suffrage Movement. Host i want to talk about the ,uffragettes serving in prison showing a new story from san francisco, touring country in campaign for universal suffrage, suffragettes who served terms in prison and they are getting off the prison train. Explain the story behind that. Guest it was an amazing moment, and the tactics used by suffragists and in the u. S. They called them suffragists and in the u. K. They called them suffragettes but the tactics were remarkable and powerful, and the Lessons Learned from the Suffrage Movement, you can trace throughout the 20th and 21st century. Movementsnt like many broken two different factions. Some work in servant conservative and somewhere activist. Some like alice paul felt if not then then when would women finally achieve the right to vote . They saw this as a long trajectory lasting throughout the 19th century, and even into the 18th century. They took to the streets. They took to the white house, where they were first of all kind of seen as an oddity. Imagine the silent sentinels standing there day after day throughout 1913. President Woodrow Wilson decided enough was enough, they were getting way too much attention and distracting from the work of the presidency. As they were imprisoned, in a way they were against wilson and those who wanted to defeat the amendment and their spirit of advocacy, so they became even more famous. These were very educated, brilliant women, so as more and more were arrested, adding to their ranks, and finally when they were released they realized prison, whichved was heroic, and they had a special story to tell. So they went around the nation making sure everyone knew they had just and released from prison just been released from prison and giving it a sense of urgency, a huge sense of sacrifice that they were , toing to give literally let themselves after a while they knew they would be arrested so you can imagine what that took. Askingaking your calls, your stories and your questions. Eastern and Central United states, 202 7488000. Mountain and pacific regions, 202 7488001. This is anne out of cape canaveral, florida. You are on. Are you with us . Caller good morning. Host go ahead. Caller two things. Perhaps your engineers could put up a picture of someone in a hobble skirt. E. R. A. Er paraded to the i am 97 and she was wearing one of those hobble skirts. Guest fantastic, that is great. Caller question, the e. R. A. , please get it through. Guest thank you, maam. Life, iu for your long am sure well lived, and for your mothers advocacy as well. The equal rights movement, technically the last date virginia just ratified it and we are waiting for the legal rulings as to whether that ratification process will be complete, but the long fight continues for equal rights for women, both with the big in 1977, and as you will see in our exhibition, the womens march of 1917. The arc continues. Host take us back a little bit to the beginning of the equal rights amendment, why it was why the supporters of it felt like it was needed in the decades after the 19th amendment, and that history, when the momentum happened for it. Guest sure, absolutely. Thank you for that question. The reconstruction amendments that were passed in the 19th century and then the 19th amendment are not necessarily outling amendments that lay a series of rights that people are assured, so the promise of the e. R. A. For many women and men, many activists, was trying anreach any quality equality that would be present in the workplace, in the home, and that veered more into reproductive rights and the bundle of rights that its framers believed would ensure an equal place for women. The long battle ensued over the e. R. A. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s and even into the 1990s. You can see that stemming from the advocacy of so many people in the 1950s and 1960s through the Civil Rights Movement, and you can picture it within its context really of the American Indian campaign, civil rights advocates throughout the nation. That is its context. It was always kind of conflict did, like all of these were, because you are challenging the governing paradigm of how relationships between genders work, the power of women, women in the workplace, and so those are still conversations we have today. Up ashave not given evident by the state of virginia literally within the last four weeks ratifying the e. R. A. Host in terms of conversations we have today, you and i were having this, this is a common from twitter the history of hard toving to fight so obtain and keep the right to vote is so often ignored. Republicans love to focus only on abortion so they can keep women trapped. It is the only time you will hear comments about women from a public and men. I wonder how republican men. I wonder how you and your museum deal with the contentious issue of abortion. Is it talked about in the American History experience . Guest that is a great question, and you are right in that and i love uncle sam too, by the way theut the importance of ways in which history helps us contextualize the modern, battlesmatter modern over a womans right to choose is remarkable. We have a collection of the scienceof medicine and which will go on the floor in the next year and a half ago, which takes people through the long conversations about the ways in which womens bodies and mens bodies and bodies of color have been both treated, cured. Ted, demonized, so we see certainly as historians, we see that in a long history of medicine, the history of reproductive rights, history of family rights and of course womens rights. Our jobs in essence are to help people understand themselves, where they have come from, so they can be empowered to make the best decisions they can for themselves, their family, and the nation, using history as their guide. Host about a halfhour to go in our conversation with anthea h t rtig. Fromis on the phone galesburg, illinois. In my history class, it is so often forgotten that these women got arrested just for picketing for the right to vote. Liberty is not equality. Equality is not freedom, and we need to remember that. Proactive, wee would make more progress. Host thanks for those sentiments. Guest thank you for that. Thank you, cody. Your beliefs are very aligned with ours here, that the past can be put to utility and that you said it well that liberty and freedom are something we would like to believe our unalienable rights but we have learned we need to keep fighting for. Host i want to talk more about some of the exhibit, some of the items you feature and how you make this history come alive in this centennial year of the ratification of the 19th amendment, and how you do that from Something Like a votes for women umbrella. Guest yes, the votes for women umbrella, what could be more fabulously feminine than a parasol . We have a number of those, as you might guess. Later, they are pretty fragile, but we have conservators who have helped us conserve these beautiful parasols. Aboutimation of thinking popping open your umbrella, twirling it around and votes for women, it had a great element of surprise, but also when women were marching, if you were looking at the parades from a window up a couple of stories, it was a great way to show off your colors, if you will, and what you advocated for. Host all of these items we are talking about you can see in the democracy exhibit at the National Museum of American History, and you can call in and ask your questions. Steven from huntsville, texas, good morning. Caller good morning. Guest how are you . Caller i am great. I am excited to talk to you. Guest thanks so much for your call. Caller my grandmother was a suffragette. Guest nice. Caller i grew up with hardcore , 1940s, all the way 19 50s, 1960s. They were not violent unless you talk against women and then it was a gang. Grandma was a suffragette in large part because of the depression. Moneyther had taken the of the whole family, grandpa and everybody, and he speculated on stocks. When that went down, he was bankrupt. So he took a gun, bought some insurance, went to a train, and committed suicide, trying to make it look like a robbery so that the insurance money would make the family solvent. Day between the day he bought the insurance and shot himself so they did not pay off. They were very victorian, had money. She ran around in those little dresses and all of a sudden they are broke. Up in as out, ends sanitarium and two weeks later hangs herself, so within two weeks, my grandmother, a little girl goes from happy to destitute living with family. So part of her being a suffragette was in opposition to the excesses and abuse of capitalism. They went hand in hand with her, and she was always trying to protect yourself, or object to