Transcripts For CSPAN3 Suffragists The 19th Amendment 20240

House. Tonight is one of the annual National Heritage lectures that we do in partnership with the u. S. Capitol Historical Society and the u. S. Supreme court Historical Society. We have our wonderful colleagues from both here tonight and Jane Campbell is the new president of the capitol Historical Society. On june 4, 1919, the 19th amend was passed and sent to the states for ratification. The suffragists used the white house to bring attention to their cause. Tonight we look forward to hearing more about their successful efforts to secure womens right to vote. Before i introduce our speaker, i have a couple other introductions and things to share. First of all we have guests from Smith College here tonight, the Washington Club of Smith College. Stand up. Stand up for the Smith College. [ applause ] theyre our special guests tonight. Were honored to have them. I would also like to tell you a little bit about the White House Historical association and for those of you who have been with us before know i love to talk about our mission begun in 1961 by jacqueline kennedy. She was only 31 years old when her husband was inaugurated as president. She had the vision and forthright to know what she and president kennedy needed then others would never over the course of time. That would be a private partner. All the resources we raise go to Education Programs to teach and tell the stories of white house history going back to 1792 and tonight is a part of that education out reach program. We also provide resources directly to the white house to maintain the museums standard of the state floor and the ground floor and the nonpublic historic rooms that mrs. Kennedy envisioned maintaining. Weve done that with every president and first lady since the kennedys. Were honored to do so. Tonight our format will be i will introduce our wonderful speaker. Following her remarks ann compton who you know as a wonderful friend of ours will come up and have an interview session. Dont worry this podium will be removed and set aside so you can have an unob strustructed view their conversation. Ann has been very supportive of us as an organization. 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. You really havent retired completely. Youre very involved and active in things. I know with us and the Miller Center and many other endeavors. Her career spanned seven president s, ten president ial campaigns. She travelled to all 50 states, 6 continents. Of the many interesting stories of anns years covering the president s is the compelling story of her being with president bush, george w. Bush on september 11, 2001 as the only broadcast reporter that travelled around the country with him on that day. Well soon be coming up on 20 years anniversary of that occasion. So we thank ann 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 presidency. I think shes really an unher0 n unheralded first lady. Well be celebrating that in september. In october our dear friend has a brand new book thats going to be out in october. For the First Time Ever hes finally unlocking his recipe box and going to be sharing the recipes from his service to five american president s from jimmy carter to george w. Bush and his wonderful confections he created as executive white house pastry chef for those many years. Jennifer pickens is an author of White House Christmas will have a new book out on ceremonies at the white house. Weve have a conversation with the chef and Jennifer Pickens in october. Stay tuned for news on that. Now for our prime event. Im very fortunate and youre in for a treat tonight to talk about this important and timely happening in our nations history and on the centennial of this occasion. We have Rebecca Boggs reports as our speaker. She has been many things in your life and career, not limited to just these. Shes been a journalist, producer, tour guide. Shes been a forensic anthropologist. Thats been an echbvent planner political consultant, jazz singer, radio talk show host. Currently shes curator of programming for planet word a museum set to open in 2020. Shes found time to be the mom to twin boys and a wife and a great keeper of the family in line. On top of all that shes an author. Shes written a wonderful book on this part of American History and white house history. With that ill have rebecca come up and well remove the podium and rebecca and ann can have a conversation at the end. Youll be invited to pose questions as well. [ applause ] thank you all so much for having me. Thank you, stewart. Just to set the record straight i have three sons. Not to brag. The twins have a little brother. So the movement dates from 1848 through 1920. In the interest of brevity and focus im not going to covera al 72 years. If you have questions, ill answer them in q a. I like to start with this image of the program from the 1913 suffrage march down pennsylvania aven avenue. Its the only image in color. All the great photographs from the 20th century are in black and white. These colors are really deliberate. Almost everything the Suffrage Movement did was deliberate. Not only do these colors represent things, purple is a rich color, gold less so, white of course the absence of color. These things show up really well in black and white photographs. Thats all on purpose. If you want to see the artifacts of the movement in all their beautiful colorful glory, the Belmont House has all the original banners. Because were in the centennial year there are terrific exhibits going on. Theres one at the portrait gallery, at the library of congress. Go out and see all the artifacts. Were lucky enough to be in the town theyre curated. This march, the 1913 march, was the first civil rights march. There had been parades down pennsylvania aftvenueavenue. This idea of taking a cause to washington was alice pauls idea. It started at the capitol and marched to the white house to the executive branch. That was absolutely symbolic. It was the day before woodrow wils wilsons inauguration. If that sounds familiar a womens march on the same weekend of the nainauguration f a president that we didnt vote for, those parallels are very strong. So the march i dont have my glasses on. If its not on there we go. This is obviously the capitol end of pennsylvania avenue. Pennsylvania avenue is a really broad street. They were able to plan this grand procession. All these floats, marching band, working women marched by profession, this is january burrelson. The idea was she would get up on her horse and a bugler would sound the parade had begun. A few blocks down that would happen again by the Treasury Department and a tableau would begin on the treasury steps. You can see how this is all the horses are spaced perfectly and have fabulous hats on. Its all very thoroughly planned. Were just behind jane with Inez Millholland on her horse. This image has shown up a lot as an example of the suffragists. Inez was a labor lawyer. She was an accomplished professional. All the sexist press of the day never failed to talk about how pretty she was. They called her the most beautiful suffragist. Alice paul said if youre going to talk about how pretty she is instead of how smart she is, im going to put her on a white horse in a white dress and maybe well get some coverage of her. The working women marched by profession. These are the nurses. The teachers marched together. The writer marched together. They stained their costumes with ink. College women marched by alma mater. Im certain there were smith women there. We have pictures from some of the other seven sister schools. I looked for smith and couldnt find them. The whole idea was this grand procession would end at 15th street where this tableau would go on. The tableau was a fascinating art form that involved some sort of tortured allegory where people would pose. This is columbia summoning the virtues. The virtues were peace and prosperity. It was a whole thing. It had very little to do with suffra suffrage. This is planned to be that way. There was a grand stand set up in front of treasury. Alice paul got permission for vips to sit there. There was a Live Audience for the tableau. The idea was this would be published in newspapers all around the country the next day. There are the children in togas. It was march 3rd. Its a little chilly in early march. They were barefoot on the marble steps of the treasury, but the parade begins, the bugle sounds. The tableau, and then the plan is that the parade would proceed right in front of them and they would all end up at d. A. R. Hall, and they would perform again to a rousing applause. It would be a great day. The tableau goes ahead and theres no parade. The tableau finishes and theyre maintaining their poses. No parade. They have no way of knowing where the parade is, why its held up. Its getting a little cold up there on the treasury steps in their togas. 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 picture is taken at 12th street where Freedom Plaza is now. The tower that dominates, now looking back towards the capitol. Its a sixlane road. It has really broad sidewalks. It was absolutely shoulder to shoulder crowded. I dont know how much detail, you can see, theres a lot of bowler hats in that picture. Its all men. They werent there for the suffrage parade. They were there for the inauguration the next day. The men poorly behaved. They yelled names, they spit on the women. The police did nothing to stop them. In some cases the police joined in. You cant get a parade through that crowd. Alice paul realized her parade she was there. She was going to march, and she drove a calf up and down the parade route trying to zig zag 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 their way down. Instead of the tableau performing in triumph, all the women show up at d. A. R. Hall 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 ever could have happened. A lovely parade would be in the news for a day. A near riot would keep the movement in news for the weeks. Thats what happened. There was a congressional hearing. The police chief almost lost his job. To notice how good these women were in manipulating the press 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 Woodrow 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 a photo of 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 Woodrow Wilson not the headline. This column here. Mob at the capitol defy police, block suffrage parade. The most beautiful girls, it is terrific press. It is terrific press, but also look at the editorial cartoon. There is Little Pencil neck Woodrow Wilson thinking he gets the spotlight on the day of his inauguration but tada theres the suffragists stealing the spotlight from him. 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, feel 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 done without the boat. There were people like stanton who were major womens rights activists across the board. 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 fight for women next. There were people like susan b. Anthony who said please stop telling us to wait our turn. If dont get this now, its going to be another generation. We cant support the 15th amendment if it doesnt include women. It was a huge split. They formed competing organizations. They poached each others donors and tore each other down in the press. They also continued on two different 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 as federal overreached by the former confederacy. A state by state strategy was considered a little safer. 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 amend languished since 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. This was really going to be a major strategy going forward. 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. The british Suffrage Movement had its slow and steady color within the lines movement and then they had the packhurst. The packhursts were really radical. And the mother 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 tried to set fire to the botanical gardens. They smacked policemen 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. Suffragists determined to force their way to parliament. Ms. Packhurst said it. Everyone absolutely accepted it. The other thing there was an ad saying it. The word is suffragist. The british called them that. It was meant to be derisive. Like nasty women and deplorables several generations later the british women coopted the title and wore it with proud. So most properly everyone is a suffragist. Suffragette specifically refers to the british moment. Theres your lesson for the day. With these lessons from the British Movement alice paul was arrested. She was put in jail. She was force fed 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 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 American Women 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 sought some of her own money. Finally the association kicked her out and told her they were already pretty nervous 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 stayed 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