Transcripts For CSPAN3 American Artifacts Votes For Women Ex

And it is, indeed, freedom to print things and publish things and it is not a freedom for what we refer to now as the press. On cspan 3, every saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, lectures in history is also available as a podcast. Find it where you listen to podcasts. Next, a visit to the smi Smithsonians National portrait gallery. In the second of a two part program, American History tv is given a guided tour marking the centennial of the 19th amendment. Miss lemay explores the National Womens Party Tactics under the leadership of alice paul. Hi, im kate lemay, the curator of votes for women, a portrait of persistence, which is an exhibition on view at the National Portrait gallery at the smithsonian institution. Im standing in front of what we call our title treatment. Its a large blow up of a german born actress. She was acting as columbia, a figure which represents the United States during the finish or the conclusion of the 1913 parade in washington, d. C. , and thats just one event of the long Suffrage Movement that this exhibition highlights. We have 124 objects that goes into the long history beginning in 1832 and bringing it right up to 1920, but then also declaring the 19th amendment and what it didnt do, which was to enfranchise all women, including women of color, so i then took the exhibition right up to the Voting Rights act of 1965. If youll come with me, were going to go and explore the 1913 parade more in depth. So, we are standing in front of photo postcards of the 1913 parade organized by alice paul, and this was a completely different tactic than what had been done before by other suffragists. What alice paul was trying the to do was to create headlines and so she, after spending some time in britain, she basically got radicalized by the british suffragists and learned how to create attention grabbing kind of spectacles and events. When she came back to the United States in 1911 and 12 she then organized with the Congressional Union this parade. 8,000 suffragists marched down from the capitol here in the beginning down pennsylvania avenue and then they stopped at the Treasury Building which is basically the end of pennsylvania avenue. At the Treasury Building they had this pageant as you can see lady liberty in her attendance. In between the suffragists had to make their way through 500,000 spectators. Thats a huge number. One of the problems of this parade was that it did not have Police Protection because the chief of police in washington, d. C. Was not a friend to suffragists. So he denied them Police Protection, even though alice paul had applied for a permit. Instead, the secretary of war, who is part of the president ial cabinet, henry l. Simpson put the national what we would think of the National Guard on stand by in nearby fort myers in virginia. So when the crowd got really unruly and started, basically, man handling and being very aggressive towards the suffragists thats when they literally called in the calvary from virginia and had that group serve as the protectors of the suffragists. So it was quite dramatic in that sense because the suffragists were not expecting these huge, huge crowds. But they did upstage president wilson because the next day was his inaugural speech for his first term as president and almost nobody showed up to his speech and he asked where is everybody and he was told all of the spectators had come out the day before to see the suffragists. On my left, your right is the official program for womens suffrage. You can see, this is one of four existing programs that remain from the parade. You can see how theres the joan of arc figure and shes in this purple robe which is the color of royalty and shes walking down in front of the capitol, presumably pennsylvania avenue, with her trumpet from which a banner that says votes for women hangs. Shes heralding in this new cause for freedom. I mentioned alice paul who had trained or been radicalized by the British Suffragette Movement and she brought back those compelling tactics to the United States, and shes really the sort of next generation of suffragists. Shes broken off from the National American womens Suffrage Association which was led by anna howard shaw, and shes employing these more attention grabbing tactics like the parade as well as creating visual culture like this poster that im standing next to, and in this case it was dickinson who made this great poster. He was employed by the Container Corporation of america which was a Major Company in the mid century but he was married to a suffragist. I think thats the connection, the husbands of these women were out there advocating and being active for the cause of having a political voice, they were doing their best to try to support women. You can see, hes incorporated the doubleheaded ax and a winged hat, which is worn by this ancient god of hermes. Its illustrating shes basically the divine messenger of quality. The double headed axe was significant or symbolizing the mother goddess. Theres all these ways that suffragists were trying to communicate these ideas of quality by reaching back to ancient civilization and saying women have had these rights for all this time, why not women in American Society as well. Nina was an illustrator and artist who worked and made over 200 illustrations like this one called his district from 1916. She worked to help the suffrage cause by creating depictions of women at work advocating for the cause. They were then published in the suffragist which was a magazine newspaper that the National Womens party produced for years and years. And so here we see this young woman who is very much educating herself by reading a book called campaign textbook and shes beautifully dressed. She has a nice sort of embroidered shirt on with her hair up with a cloth and well done and shes wearing nice shoes and shes sitting in front of her desk thats crowded with books. The books are list of voters and its all specific to the map of his district, and so all of this is to exemplify how suffragists were lobbying and they were the first group to really understand what lobbying was and entailed and what it meant and how that would gain them basically political power through convincing their representatives and the legislators of whatever his district was. This could apply to any state. So this is part of that state by state kind of effort that the suffragists were doing. But under the lead of alice paul they were really interested in the federal amendment. So they were not asking the state by state representatives to change their referendum, instead, would you support an amendment if it were to be passed, would you pass it in the house, would you pass it in the senate and convince your fellow legislators in the state to ratify it when it goes out for twothirds of the ratification thats necessary. So nina alder is a great figure in the Suffrage Movement because she helped to popularize it, she helped people understand it. She herself was educated at the Cochran School of art and the Philadelphia Academy of fine arts. She was a great artist in and of her own right. So were really excited to get some of these objects on the wall in the exhibition to make sure we understand today how the Suffrage Movement was being taught in its own ranks during the era of the 19 teens. In 1917, alice paul decided to do something even more drastic than marching down pennsylvania avenue and that was to pickett the white house. This is one of the first groups of picketers that were nonviolent, that stood outside of the white house and basically declared their protests of the president in a personal terms. They would carry banners that said, mr. President , what will you do for womens suffrage . The president , of course, being Woodrow Wilson who had been elected in 1913 and carry out two terms as president and he did not endorse the suffrage cause until 1919. So we have about, at this point were in 1915, and then in 1917 they start to pickett the white house and theres two long years of picketting. Every day these women would stand outside of the white house and hold their silent sentinel as they referred to by the press. They would leave their headquarters which was across Lafayette Square which was situated in front of the white house. On the other side of Lafayette Square was the headquarters of National Womens party. They would leave their headquarters with banners in hand, carrying the colors of purple, white and gold which they had adopted purple into suffrage colors with alice pauls new group, the national wom womens party, around 1913, and basically that is what they did for two years and stood their ground. They also included you can see at the top theres College Women, so they are wearing their banners of which colleges they went to, so they had days in which College Women would protest or different state delegations would protest or even working women would protest too. So they would take working women only had one day off a week from work, and so that was on a sunday. Basically they couldnt protest unless it was a sunday. So we can talk about the working women here. You see the title cover of the maryland suffrage news depicts a woman who was white, who was a seamstress who has been working more than eight hours today, which are normal working hours that are regulated by federal law. There were no laws that regulated working. So working women felt that they were being abused by and there were no laws that could protect them, so this woman has basically passed out at her sewing desk and the illustration made by mary taylor, it was done for one of the many suffrage chapters across the United States, the maryland suffrage chapter, and its from the collections of the Maryland Historical society. So suffragists were eventually arrested, and they were arrested for obstructing traffic, which wasnt exactly their fault. It was, in fact, all of the male spectators that had come out to jeer at them that were creating the blocks of sort of the masses of human bodies that were obstructing traffic. But they were arrested, and you can see in this picture, this portrait of these two women the policeman is holding their banner, so theyre confiscating the banners. And the women are most likely not going to pay their fine and then they would be sen ttenced jail in the d. C. Jail or in the work house. And what i find interesting is theyre very welldressed. So the women that were picketing were from an elite wealthy background, the majority of them. As i mentioned before there were working women that would help picket on some days. And working women were very much a part of the suffrage cause later on. But there were no africanamericans that were a part of this movement or this effort at this point because, a, alice paul did not include them. But, b, i also wonder because theyre a vulnerable population to be arrested meant that they were putting themselves at a higher risk even than the privileged white women were at. So there was a kind of balance i think they were striking at this point in time. And the top photo you can see that theres lucy branner whos college educated, shes pursuing her phd at Columbia University and shes protesting that alice paul who at this point had been in prison late 1917, that the government give paul and the other suffrage prisoners the privileges of the american political prisoner. So the American Government did not treat the suffragists as political prisoners. They treated the suffragists as criminals. This meant that there was poor food, there was no reading, there was no privileges given to the suffragists when they were in prison. So the suffragists immediately picked up on that and created banners to that spoke to that to point out the russian government gave a political activist those privileges so why wouldnt the American Government do the same for other political activists in the United States is the question. And so if we move this way you can see another really beautiful drawing and shes likening the suffrage effort where the women are getting grabbed and assaulted even by angry men. Shes likening that moment to training for the draft. And so in april of 1917 the United States entered world war i. And this is a major, major moment for suffrage because then the suffragists were able to say that, you know, they were doing all this effort on the home front or, you know, they were serving as nurses and doctors with the red cross and with their own suffrage support units units supported by the suffragists. And getting involved in the war directly. So why couldnt they have a political voice if they were basically giving up their lives for the United States . So nina allanders drawing really gets to that where these suffragists are carrying banners that say democracy begins at home and, mr. President , what will you do for suffrage. And meanwhile these angry men are attacking the women carrying the banners. This is the piece of cotton the imprisoned suffragists arrested they then in prison decided to create their own embroidered signatures, and its on a piece of burlap. And its kind of a record or witness to the testimony the fact they were there and this happened to them. And finally on this wall you have two photographs. One is of lucy barns in jail. She was also with alice paul, one of the leaders of this militant suffrage moment in the history of the Suffrage Movement. And here you see the arrests of these suffragists. So theyre being put in Police Wagons and being carted off to basically be sentenced to jail. From 1917 through the end of 1919 the suffragists led by alice paul continued to picket outside of the white house. And i was really interested to see images of these suffragists almost up close and personal, almost environmental because i wanted to emphasize these were individuals with their own lives, you know, spending their time which we all know is precious on this important cause. And so the video behind me is playing through some of images of them picketing. And they kept up the pressure. And so by creating the headlines and by creating the spectacle i think the suffragists finally achieved the kind of momentum that they were really searching for throughout the entire movement. Because the pressure that they placed on president Woodrow Wilson was so much he finally endorsed the cause. And when he did on may 21st of 1919 the amendment that was proposed actually passed the house of representatives and then it passed in the senate on june 4, 1919. At which point the amendment was sent out to the states to get twothirds of them to seen off on ratifying this amendment which would then become law. So this part of the exhibition really kind of covers the militant suffragists, explains why they were doing what they were doing. And then in the last room were going to look at the 19th amendment, see what it actually says and see how womens political voices changed after being granted the right to vote but also to look at which women didnt have the right to vote and what they did about that. When women finally got the right to vote then they had a political voice. And then they were voters, so different parties recruited them in different ways. Youve got Calvin Coolidge running for Vice President and explaining to women for your own good vote for the republican party, vote the republican ticket. And so theyre producing all this kind of recruitment basically. And it says under the 19th amendment i cast my first vote. So clearly it was engaging the new female voter. And so it was for harding and coolidge in the straight republican ticket. On the piece of paper on which the ribbon was sold it says souvenir of this greatest event of my life. So they really dramatized the act of voting. But honestly for some women it really was the greatest event of their life. It meant they had achieved the First Step Towards equality and gaining a more democratic experience as a citizen of the United States through the Voting Rights that they had achieved. In the concluding gallery of this exhibition i wanted to make sure to point out the texts of the 19th amendment and what it says and what it doesnt say. So it reads the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. So letting that sink in when you think about the wording of the 19th amendment as it applies to giving the right to vote to women nowhere does it say guarantees the right to vote. And that is a big difference in its achieving the right to vote for everybody, the sort of what we think the 19th amendment did and the reality of what it did. So in this moment states still can find ways through which to disenfranchise voters. And up to this moment, up to our contemporary moment in 2019 there are states and laws out there that are seeking to disenfranchise voters. So were still contending basically with the wording of this 19t