Recess. It is a time when you drink tea and sit on your porch. Nashville became the center of the political universe in the United States for several weeks in the summer ratify the amendment. Tennessee legislature, then women across the country in every state, and every election, election, for the first time. All women would have the right to vote weird it was all coming down to tennessee, and it got really wild. How many women were in america at that point, voting age. 27 million women were voting age. Of course, not all would vote. As we know, for africanamerican women, and for asian women and native american women, they were not allowed to vote under the 19th amendment. They gave the vote to all women. Jim crow laws in the south and other state laws denied the vote. To quite a few women. A minority. 27 million women women were eligible to vote. No one knew how they were going to vote. The politicians were worried about it. It was a president ial election. The president ial candidates very worried about it. The governor very worried about it. Up for reelection. The political freeforall from the white house to congress to the legislature in nashville. Before we get into some of the characters involved, august in tennessee probably 60 degrees and sunny. It was, in fact, the characters that i write about, the participants in this political battle, women and men right in their memoirs and letters how hot it is. Especially for the northern women coming down to participate in this battle, this legislative paddle of lobbying and filibustering and all of those things. They were not used to the heat. In fact, when i started my research in the summer of 2013, i purposely went down in august so that i could feel the heat. I wanted to feel it bearing down on me. I did. I felt how it really can bear down and surround you. And then i try to imagine what it was like without any air conditioning and wearing 10 pounds of clothing. It helped me to understand how comfortable it could be. First of all, why did it come down to that . The federal amendment. The cause had been going on for seven decades. Seventytwo years at this point if we market from the first organized meeting at seneca falls in 1848. That is not the first time it was discussed. Not the first time. We market for various reasons. The first public call. From that time until 1920. Seventytwo years. For various reasons that i explained in explained in the book. Women were working both at the state level and the federal level. They finally got a federal amendment passed. It has been stuck in congress for 40 years. Since 1878. Finally in 1919 after world war i and women participating in a very different way than they had ever before, congress narrowly passes. Three quarters of the state have to ratify. That is ready six states. Fortyeight states and the union at that time. Thirtyfive have ratified by the summer of 1920. Just one more is needed for various reasons, it turns out that tennessee is the best hope. Any other Southern States ratified at that point . Yes. Just a few. Most most had rejected the amendment. Texas and arkansas had. There were two other Southern States in play at the beginning of the summer. North carolina and florida. North carolina rejected it. Tennessee was considering it. Florida refused to call a special session. For various reasons, it came down to tennessee. It was a dangerous place to be thinking the entire franchise mitt of half the population of the United States because tennessee was a southern state. There was a lot of ambivalence and opposition to suffrage there. There was also a very vibrant womens suffrage organization. What happens is, they say to the National Leaders, we can do it. Come down and help us. We can do it. The National Leaders come down and you see this fascinating valet between the different wings of the Suffrage Movement because it was not a unified movement and also working against the opposition that is very strong and has corporate and political and religious opposition and leadership of those movements. In that it also has women of different persuasions. It becomes a freeforall. It is fascinating for the kind of cultural and political and evil moral questions alive at the moment. How did she become the leader the leader of the Suffrage Movement. I got my movements mixed up. I am so sorry. She was the leader. What is so interesting. I was shocked. I had not been studying this for 40 years. So when i encountered the concept that there were women organized all over the country who opposed women suffrage and especially oppose the federal amendment, i was really shocked. I did not comprehend that women could oppose their sisters getting the vote. It does teach us that women do not speak monolithically. One of the characters that i follow is Josephine Pearson. She is very welleducated. She is a dean of a small college. She is a professor and she comes from a very traditional conservative background in southern tennessee. Her father was a baptist, part of me, methodist minister. She grows up in a household where the idea of women moving out of the domestic sphere, doing something in public, was just not accepted. She really fears what she calls the peril of feminism which would elevate women to an equal status of men. She sees that as unnatural. She also has some religious opposition and she has racial opposition. One of the things man counter, especially in the Southern States, especially in this last battle is the idea that there is opposition because black women would give the vote by constitutional law. In some of those states, that was not an accepted political concept. Josephine pearson is the antileader. The leader. A pretty savvy political operator from your book. She is a very interesting woman. Also aided by the National Leaders who come down from new york, washington, boston, boston, to help her. She is leading. She is the home team. She is being assisted by some very strong and wellfunded women who are opposing it and have been opposing it in other states. It is very interesting. She is also a little bit of friction with the National Leaders who think they know best how to run this campaign in tennessee. Describe how she kept her cool. Josephine was called into service. Mid july of 1920. Tennessee is going to deliberate on this. The legislature will be called. She gets the summons to come to nashville from her home in the southern part of the states. Traveling by train to nashville. They have arranged for her to stay in the Fanciest Hotel at the time. Still a beautiful, beautiful hotel. She is not used to this kind of luxury. Of course, it is not airconditioned. It is very hot. Even hotter than usual. This week in july. She spends the first night in the bathtub. Running cold water. Using the telephone to call her colleagues and send telegramss income to nashville. We need to to oppose this amendment. Come quickly. She is doing this from the bathroom. She writes about this in her memoir. I actually checked with the hotel. Did they have showers. Yes, she was in the bathtub. One of the leaders. Right. Again a fascinating figure. Daughter of iowa. Iowa farm girl. Becomes a teacher. His widowed. Widowed twice. Catches the eye of Susan B Anthony in the 1880s and 90s. Susan anthony was a very good mentor. She would spot talent. Young women who she thought could be future leaders of the movement. And she trained them. She had them accompany her on the campaign trail. She was going across the country constantly. Trying to get interest and enthusiasm for suffrage. She has the fire and the logistical mind to be able to lead the movement. She actually becomes Susan Anthony successor. She literally is anointed by Susan Anthony to take over as Susan Anthony is aging. She becomes president for a while. She leave that for a while because her husband is ill and comes back in 1916. The womans hour has struck. That is the title of my book. She takes over. The master strategist. At this time, the Suffrage Movement is split. You have the thirdgeneration. Theyve been fighting for so long. A Third Generation has emerged. Younger women. They are tired of waiting. We see this today. This sort of and patience with the way things have always been. A young woman with a phd from the university of pennsylvania had volunteered. Sue white. Actually, alice. Starting a splinter movement. A more radical stream of the Suffrage Movement had young inherence like sue white who was the head of the womens party. Splitting off from the mainstream. We see this happening all the time and labor, in the labor movement. The civil rights unit. A young more impatient taking off. Sue white, daughter of west tennessee, wants to be a lawyer. She joins the Suffrage Movement. Gradually gets impatient and joins alice pauls National Womens party. Those are my three characters that we follow. The head of the establishment. 2 million women who are affiliated with the National American suffrage association. She comes down from new york to run the strategy for getting the federal amendment through. Sue white who is running she is running the womens party. To womens organizations. Single, but working separately and working sometimes at odds with each other. Then you have Josephine Pearson who is leading the opposition. You have a whole constellation of men and politicians and corporate lobbyists. You dont think about that. Corporate lobbyists were a big part of this equation. All gathering in nashville and having fistfights. We will continue to talk to elaine white. Make sure you know you can call in and participate in the segment if you have questions for her. For those of you dash if you live in the mountains and pacific time zones go ahead and call in. We will get you those in just a minute. Josephine pearson. Sue white. Ever meet each other at the hotel all at once . They must have. I do not have documentation of that moment. But they were there for weeks and weeks. You have both wings of the Suffrage Movement headquarters at the hotel. The antihave their headquarters. All the lobbyists. Many of of the legislatures staying there. It was just a crazy place. Meeting in the lobby. Meeting in the dining room. Sometimes they pass and dont speak to each other. I do not have, and believe me i looked, a confrontation altogether. But they certainly were bouncing off of each other in the hallways. Kept in her sweet for most of the time. Such a lightning rod. She is an outsider. Considered a yankee. She is not allowed to sort of be in public. She does not go lobby in the legislature. She runs things from her hotel suite. Who owns it today and where they helpful in your research . Oh, yes. So helpful. A fivestar hotel. It has been beautifully restored many of the same elements are there. Mailbox that is original. Built in 1900. Only 10 years old. The most luxurious place. I was just actually there last week to help them kick off the centennial year. They put me in the room. That is truly, truly, a thrill. One of the things she talks about in her letters is that the state house is out her window. Only a block and a half away. There i could see it. It looms in the window. That sense of seeing her entire legacy being played out in that beautiful statehouse, so close but she cannot go down. She cannot touch it. She has to wait for messengers to run between the motel and the statehouse up on a hill. That was really exciting. It is now unveiled. I hope them do that last week. In the lobby, dedicated to that suffrage story of what happened in the hotel. They have a beautiful bus. Lets take some cause. Lets hear from diane in texas. You are on. About a month ago on cspan, i heard a theory i had never heard before. That is a lot of white men wanted their wives to counteract black negro men to vote. Is that true . Thank you, maam. Did you understand that question . A lot of white men wanted their white wife to vote to counteract the black vote of black men. That is very true. That is very true. There was a sense, especially in the south, but in other places, too, there too, there were more white women than black men that could vote. Or would be eligible to vote. They would be kept from intimidation, poll taxes, crazy literacy requirements. But, yes, there were white men and you encounter that in my book. You encounter that from congressmen and senators to legislatures in the Southern States. They do say, this will give my wife, my daughter, the vote so more white women will be voting. It is one of the racial, uncomfortable racial aspects of the movement that we need to understand and confront and explain. Our next three callers are all men. Hearing what they have to say. Jim. Thank you very much for taking my call. The interception of the Suffrage Movement and the Temperature Movement as i understand Susan B Anthony was with the head of the group. Passing at the same time. Yes, indeed. That was a very interesting intersection. From the very beginning in the 1870s and 80s when the Womens Christian Temperance Union begins to organize, many of the leaders were advocates. We have to understand that for some it was a moral question. For many others, it was a question about Domestic Violence. Because, women had very few legal ways to red dress and abusive husband or father. Police were not interested. They could not bring them to court. By stemming it like this, it becomes an answer to this Domestic Violence problem. To the suffragists looking at the vote, but also looking as a means to gain other kinds of rights for women, not all, but many with the movement. What you will see, even though in the summer of 1920, prohibition is already in effect you say, well, it is it is all over. Why would the liquor law be interested . The liquor lobbyists trying to oppose suffrage in all the states and at the federal level for decades because they dont want women to get the vote because they fear they will want for a vision. Prohibition is already in effect. Why are they interested still. They were hoping that if they could keep women from the ballot box, perhaps prohibition would not be enforced quite so stringently. They were looking to a congress and legislature not going to enforce prohibition. Thats why even in 1920, even in nashville, they are fighting to stop the federal amendment. Wonderful scenes that i described of something called the jack daniel suite which was the liquor lobbies attempt to persuade legislatures that they should not ratify. It was a speakeasy on the eighth floor of the hotel dispensing liquor 247. You are drunk legislatures just bouncing off the wall singing keep the home fires burning and this is all to keep the federal amendment from being ratified and helping the liquor industry not be affect did as strongly by prohibition. Lets go back place and time. August 1920. A few months away from the president ial election. What happened in nashville nashville. They know this. Some of the supporters, actually, the republicans to the state level and nashville level to the decade. Why was that . It was interesting. We have to kind of move things around in our mind. Republicans supported the movement more strongly. They were, for the the most part, supportive of reform and finding the trust. Also clean milk and Maternal Health. They were actually the heroes in many states of the Suffrage Movement. You have the Political Parties very nervous about suffrage because it is a president ial election and then you have the candidate themselves to play a part in my story because both the suffrage is in the antisuffrage is want the president ial candidate to support them. They go up, he is running with a Young Franklin roosevelt as his Vice President ial partner. And then we have Warren G Harding who was running also from ohio. They are being pressed by the suffragists and the antisuffrage is. You do see that the president ial election for all the things happening in nashville. Robert calling in from california. Good morning, robert. Good morning, serve. I just wanted to pass on, from my late grandmother, who was part of that whole Suffrage Movement out of minnesota back in the day. And then she was an educator as well. And then, she started this private organization. At that time, a lot of the women, they could not own property or cash a check or anything weird they had this private party which nobody else knew. The guys did not know this. That was called pots seeping out they would collect money to send girls to school. I just wanted to pass that on. That is fascinating. Thank you for sharing that. One of the great things around the country, talking about my book, talking about about the Suffrage Movement. I have been through minnesota. They are very vibrant. There was a scandinavian womens suffrage association. Who actually go to suffrage parade the native costumes. One of the things to understand is, we think of the Suffrage Movement as may be Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton and we really dont have a sense of how large this movement was in every city in every state and every town there were suffragists organizing. Africanamerican women organizing. Latino women organizing. One of the great tings about the centennial, which we are now entering the centennial year, august 2020 will be the 100 anniversary and every state is beginning their commemoration. One of the great things is more research. At a local level. We are going into archi