The White House Historical association hosted this discussion. Im the president of the White House Historical association, and its my privilege to well you, many of you back to historic Decatur House and the White House Historical association for another one of our wonderful lectures. Tonight is one of the annual National Heritage lectures that we do in partnership with the u. S. Capital Historical Society and the u. S. Supreme court Historical Society. We have our wonderful colleagues here tonight and my great friend jane campbells the new president of the capital historic society, and id like to welcome you here today. On june 4, 1919, the 19th amendment was passed and sent to the states for ratification. The suffragists used the white house as a backdrop to challenge inequity and bring attention to their cause. And tonight we look forward to hearing more about their successful efforts to secure womens right to vote. But before i introduce our speaker i have a couple of other introductions and things id like to share. First of all, we have guests from Smith College here tonight, the Washington Club of Smith College. Stand up. Theyre our special guests tonight and were honored to have them. Those of you who have been with us before know i love to talk about our wonderful mission begun in 1961 by jacqueline kennedy. Remember she was only 31 years old when her husband was inaugurated president of the United States at that young age she had the vision and foresight to know what she and president kennedy needed then others would needed over the course of time and that would be to have a private partner. We also provide resources directly to the white house to maintain the Museum Standard of the state floor and the ground floor and the nonpublic historic rooms that mrs. Kennedy envisioned maintaining, and we have done that with every president and first lady since the kennedys, and were honored to do so. Tonight our format will be i will introduce our wonderful speaker and then following her harks, anne compton, who you all know is a wonderful friend of ours and a wonderful friend of yours will come up and have an interview session. And dont worry this podium is going to be removed and set aside so all of you can have an instructive view of their conversation. An, shed been very supportive of us as an organization as she is of many things here in washington. You know her best as a former reporter and white house correspondent. She was the first woman assigned to cover the white house for network television. She worked for abc news for 41 years retiring in 2014, which you really havent retired completely because i know with us, the Miller Center and many other endeavors, her career spanned 7 president s, 10 president ial campaigns. She travel today all 50 states, 6 continents. And of the many interesting stories is the compelling story of her being with president bush, george w. Bush, on september 11, 2001 as the only broadcaster reporter who traveled around the country with mim him on that day and well want to do something talk to about the white house on 9 11. So we thank anne for her friendship and for being with us to take this series of lectures forward. Well have another one in september on the role of pat nixon in the white house. This is the 50th anniversary of the nixons coming into the president and mrs. Nixon become first lady. And i think shes a really unheralded first lady in terms of her legacy with the white house and what she contributed in terms of artifacts, really american artifacts to the white house collection and well be celebrating that in september. And then in october very exciting news our dear friend has a brand new book thats going to be out in u. K. , and for the First Time Ever hes finally unlocking his recipe box and actually going to be sharing his res paws from his service and his wonderful confections he created as executive white house pastry chef for those many years. Jennifer pickens who is the altogetherer of white house christm christmas are going to have a conversation so stay tuned for both of those occasions. And now for our prime event to talk about this very important happening in our nations history and on the centennial of this important historic occasion. We have Rebecca Roberts here tonight as our speaker. And rebecca has been i understand many things in her life and career and not limited to just these. Shes been a journalist, a producer, shes been a tour guide. Shes been a forensic anthropologist. Shes been an event planner. Shes been a political consultant. She has been a jazz singer. Shes been a radio talk show host, and currently she is curator of programming for planet word, a museum set to open in 2020. Shes also found time to be the mom to two twin boys and the wife and a great keeper of the family in line. And on top of that, all of that shes an author and wren about a suggest on this part of American History and white house history. With that i will have rebecca come up and then well remove the podium, and rebecca and anne can have a conversation at the end. Youll be invited to pose your questions as well. Thank you all for having me. And just to set the record straight i actually have three sons, not to brag. The twins have a little brother. The suffrage dates from 1948 to the ratification in 1920. In the interest of both brevity and focus im not going to cover all 72 years. In fact im going to more or less ignore the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century as well and focus on the time push for the amendment. But if you have any questions about other parts of the movement, other players ill be happy to answer them when we go to q a. So id like to start with this image from the program of the 1913 suffrage march down pennsylvania avenue and i like to use because its really the only image in color. But also these colors are really deliberate. In fact, almost everything the Suffrage Movement did was really deliberate. Not only do these colors represent things but purple is very rich saturated color, gold less so, white of course is the absence of color. These things show up really well in black and white photographs. Thats all on purpose. And also if you want to see the artifacts of the movement in all their beautiful colorful glory the selma hall house on capitol hill has all of the original banners, but also because were in the centennial year there are a bunch of terrific exhibits going on. There will be one opening soon at the smith sesonian history museum. So this march, the 1913 march was the first civil rights march. There had been parades down pennsylvania avenue, but this idea of taking a cause to the core of federal washington was alice pauls idea, and it started at the capitol and marched all the way down to pennsylvania avenue and to the white house and executive branch. And that was absolutely symbolic. And it was the day before Woodrow Wilsons inauguration. If that sounds familiar a womens march down the middle of washington on the same weekend as the inauguration of the a president they hadnt voted for in order to remind him that he ignored womens voices at his peril from the very beginning of his administration. Those parallels are obviously very, very strong. So the march this is obviously the capital end of pennsylvania avenue. Pennsylvania avenue was a really, really broad street, was then, is now so they were able to plan this really grand procession, all these floats, marching bands, working women march by procession in matching outfits. This was the herald of the parade, and the idea is she would get up on her horse at the beginning way down on the capitol end of pennsylvania avenue and a bugler would sound and a few moments later that bugle would be picked up by another bugler down to the Treasury Department and a tableau vivant would begin on the treasury steps. You can see how the horses are all spaced perfectly and they all have federal hats on. Just behind was holland opher horse. You all have probably seen this image especially at the state of the union this year when the women chose to wear white. I also love this image because it shows you what a great publicist alice paul was. She was a labor lawyer, a really accomplished professional, but all of the breathlessly sexist press of the day never failed to talk about how pretty she was. They called her the most beautiful suffragists and alice pauls reaction was you know what youre going to talk about how pretty she is im going to put her in a white dress on a white horse and youll take her picture and maybe well get coverage out of it. The working women as i said march by profession. These are the nurses. The teachers marched together, the writers marched together. They purposely stained their costumes with ink. College women marched by alma mater. I am certain there were smith women there. And the whole idea was that this grand procession would end at 15th street at the Treasury Department where this tableau would go on. Tableau vivant was a fascinating art form where people would come out and pose and this allegory is columbia summoning the virtues. And the virtues were peace and prosperity and it was a whole thing. And it had very little to do with suffrage, but boy did it look great in pictures. This is still the cover of my book a hundred years later, and again absolutely strategly planned to be that way. There was a grandstand in front of treasury setup for the inaugural parade set for the next day. And alice paul did get permission for her vips to sit there. So there was a Live Audience the this tableau but that was not the main audience. The idea is this would be published in papers the next day. Its a little chilly in early march in washington. These children were barefoot on the marble steps of the treasury, but the parade begins, the bugle sounds, they start and they perform their beautiful tableau, and then they stand there in dignified silence and the plan was that the parade would process by in front of them and they would fold back into the parade and all end up at the hall where the tableau would perform again in triumph to a rousing applause from the audience and it would be a great day. And the their poses, no parade. They have no way of knowing where the parade is, why its held up. Its getting alternates cold up there on theiring toas. They wait as long as they can, finally have to go inside the Treasury Department. Where is the parade . Why hasnt the parade come down pennsylvania avenue . Thats why. So for orientation, this picket fur is taken at about 12th street, where Freedom Plaza is, the tower that dominates, now looking back towards the capitol. Its a sixlane road. It was absolutely shoulder to shoulder crowded. I dont know how much detail, theres a lot of bowler hats. They were there for the inauguration the next day. The suffrage parade, and the men were poorly behaved. They yelled names, they spit on them. In some cases the police joined in. You cant get a parade through that crowd. Ali paul realized her perfectly and she was going to march, and she drove a calf up and down the parade route trying to zig soog through the crowd to back up. It didnt work at all. The crowd just poured back in behind her. Finally they literally called in cavalry. They had some mounted officers standing by at ft. Myers. They rode their horses into the crowd enough that the parade could fight that i way down. Instead of the tableau performing, they all show up filthy, furious, cold, angry, horrified that this massive crowd of these jerky men have completely ruined what should have been this meticulously planned triumphant day. Alice paul realized from the very beginning that its the best thing that could happen. A near riot would keep the movement in news for the week. There is a whole things. There was a hearing. The police chief almost lost his job. And so not entirely sure what i should be pointing this at in order to make it change . Over here . This is the Washington Post the next day. I love these. The language is so spectacular. So this headline should be wood row wilson inaugurated. He gets happen, and the other column says womans beauty, grace and art bewilder the capital. Miles of fluttering femininity present entrancing suffrage appeal. Theres the tableau. This was not a particularly well planted story from the Womens National party. This is how the men covered the parade without any guidance from the women. Its talking about how pretty it was, and by the way, there was some bad behavior. This is a much better example of the Chicago Daily tribune. Again wood row wilson not the headline. This column here. The biggest crowd, the widest street. The most beautiful girls, it is terrific press. And there is Little Pencil neck wood row wilson, but tada thats a suffragist. The 1913 march was sort of the turning point for the final push to actually get the amendment through congress. In addition to being a great publicity ploy, it was a reintroduction of the federal amendment as a strategy. So im going to race through a bit of political history here. Again, fee free to ask questions about it later. Im going to go fast. The original suffragists, and you know their names, they were abolitionists. Some of them came to suffrage, because what they really wanted was abolition, and they couldnt get it without the votes. There were people like stanton who were major womens advocates. After the civil war, when the reconstruction amendments were passed and they enfranchise black men and no women that caused a major rift. There were people who said were abolitionists, well take this, its important that black men get the vote, well for a i got for women next. There were people like susan b. Anthony said please stop telling us to wait our turn. We cant support the 15th amendment if it doesnt include women. It was a huge split. They also continued on two definite avenues for getting suffrage passed with the Stanton Anthony faction pushing the amendment, and the other pushing a state by state strategy. In part because the amendments had been hailed by federal overreached by the former confederacy. Its not crazy to go state by state. Eventually if you have enough, youll have enough men representing women that the federal amendment becomes inevitable. The federal amendment lang wished just after the civil war. This 1913 march, there was a big old banner that set we demand a constitutional amendment enfranchising the women of this country. That is called the great demand banner, you can see it at belmont hall. This march, in addition to being a great publicity ploy, was an announcement the federal amendment was back. So really alice paul was pushing the switch to the amendment and also these much more public tactics. She had she was very young, only in her early 20s. She had gone to grad school in england, had become a follower of analine packhurst. And the mother in and daughters were totally radical and very, very militant, eventually alice pauls faction became called militant. They had nothing on the british women. They escalated to trying to burn the prime ministers house, i understand they turned bowen the botanical gardens. They smacked police men in the face on purpose. They were not playing around. I love this. This is a british paper. The headline says trouble expected in london tonight. Everyone absolutely accepted it. The other thing is an ad saying in suffrage ttes. By the way, suffragist, suffrage dette, the word is suffragist. The british called them that. It was meant to be derisive. So most properly everyone is a suffragist. Suffrageette specifically refers to the british moment. Theres your lesson for the day. Alice paul was arrested, she was forcefed in british jail. She absolutely participated in the guerrilla tactics. When she moved back to the u. S. , she wanted to use some of the tactics to breathe new life into the american movement. Stanton and anthony and those founding mothers were dead by then, the split had really lost everybody time and energy. So she alice paul worked with the National American womens Suffrage Association. The two factions after the civil war had finally come back together and formed this overriding major group. And they let alice paul set up a washington office, you know, just like lots of nonprofits and ngos and trade associations have a washington office. It was right here on lafayette square. Thats Cameron House. Its across the square are from where we are now, a light yellow facade. It was preserved by Jackie Kennedy and now the Court Structure sort of rises up behind it. Originally it was the congressional office, the lobbying arm of the National AmericanWomen Suffrage Association and that was their headquarters, but almost from the very beginning alice paul went rogue. She started publishing a competing it newspaper, and finally the association kicked her out and told her they were already pretty nerve out about her tactics, and said if youre going to pursue this aggressive stance you cant do it under the umbrella of the national. They split. They tayed at Cameron House and eventual called themselves the National Womens party. Throughout 1914, 1915, they continued to push for a federal amendment. They continued to have pretty public events, parades. They had a big booth at the world fair in San Francisco in 1915. They had a crosscountry road trip. It was still sort of shocking to see women drive, where they gathered petition signatures across the country. They had some success with some publicity, but not a whole lot of success getting support. Meanwhile, the national was continuing to push the statebystate strategy with little success there. By the 1916 election th