Senate in 1919 and ratified in 1920. Here we are 100 years later. The 116th congress has the highest the percentage of women making up roughly a quarter of each chamber. And we have a female speaker for the second time. And we have four women so far running for president. Todays panel will look at women, the role of women and the key turning points for women in american politics. I want to introduce our panelists and then well come back through and have each of them talk about the books or the period of time they are writing about for about five minutes. And then well open up the conversation to all of you. So when we get to that point for questions, id like each of you to go to the microphone, line up behind the microphone to ask your questions. So let me introduce you to david perry, working at the university of minnesota. Hes a descendant of elizabeth. She was a historian and wrote a boom about book about feminism politics. David helped publish his mothers final book after the vote. Susan ware, author of beyond suffrage. Also the book why they marched. Felicia is a history professor and agengender studies professod coauthor of the book ensuring poverty, welfare reform and feminist perspective. Mary ellen is a history professor and director of american studies at American University and the author of the book from virtue to power. Glen da, who helped organize this mornings panel, is the author of the rise of public women. And finally, susan carroll, who is a Political Science professor at rutgers university. Senior scholar at the center for american women in politics. David, lets begin with you. Thank you so much. This book right here available at the book exhibit, it begins with the line, the this book is about the women who went to my grandmothers funeral. Thats the first line here. My mothers last work, which came out two days ago, two decades for her to get to that first line. In the 1980s, my mother turned her attention to the biography of one of the most important and powerful women and National Political history in the first few decades of the 20th century. People knew about bell, but her papers, she broadly destroyed her papers. So it took my mother a long time to dig through hay stacks and find a lot of needles looking for copies of letters that she sent, looking for references to put together the story in her own time and her own context and her own name. She went from the famous mrs. M. But my mother found a the lot of other needles scattered about all these other women who at the same time moved into political life in the same era. She found in the early late 80s it was not a story she had the wherewithal to tell. The networks of women who moved into political life. It was really only the rise and the conversation that we had a lots in her final years of laptops and newspapers online that enabled her to put it together and to put together this book about all of these amazing women who came out of the Suffrage Movement and into political life. I got a little taste of that on her last day of consciousness where i got to read with her 1918, i think, brooklyn daily eagle. This local newspaper. It was amazing. I could just search through this database and find the exact date, the exact article so we could track down a single footnote for this book. This book jacket shows a photo of the women of the administration on at a banquet. My mother found a skit that these women put on for themselves and also for the mayor who was in attendance called 50 women and 1 man. And it says everything we want to say. These women are coming together and celebrating their achievements and the mayor who has brought them into political officers and recognizing theyre vice commissioners and not commissioners. And the whole play is, if we give the men a break, new york is going to end better and it ends with the mayor saying, youre right. Ill fire all the men and swear you in as commissioners tomorrow. Its a fantasy, but it carries us down the road in 100 years of belle to nancy pelosi. Thank you so much. [ applause ] Elizabeth Perry and i shared deep interests in history and im proud to be on this panel with my distinguished colleagues to honor her legacy. But i want to start with a shoutout to the upcoming centennial of the 19th amendment. If women hadnt gotten the vote in 1920, we wouldnt be having this panel. Having said that, i think its important to remember that getting women elected to office was not a terribly high priority for the women suffrages movement. Their focus was on the franchise, on womens new identities as voters and citizens and on getting a foot inside the door of politics which was seen as a male preserve. There was some dramatic early examples of women winning political office, such as Jeannette Rankin of montana, the first woman elected to congress in 1916. But for years the far more common path for women to Elective Office was the widows route, being select today fill the term of a late husband and sometimes, but not very often, being able to parlay that into political power of her own. But the big story was women being appointed to office to predominant government positions. And instead of wielding political power behind the scenes, which was generally Belle Moskowitz of preferred way to operate, they did it in full view. The dramatic expansion of social programs to combat the Great Depression provided jobs and opportunities for women reformers led by Eleanor Roosevelt, secretary of labor, francis perkins, the first woman to serve on the cabinet and head of the Womens Division of the Democratic National committee. Women also took on larger roles in the revitalized Democratic Party. Even though the results were far from achieving gender parity, wom womens interests might have been overlooked without the effective mobilization of the Womens Network. The new deal i think truly was a breakthrough for women in public life. Many of these women were firsts in whose appointments were widely reported in the press but it proved difficult to institutionalize their progress. Reminding those in positions of power that women could serve with distinction at the highest levels of politics and government, remained an uphill battle. Indeed it still remains one today. And without an Eleanor Roosevelt or a molly to press womens case too often the jobs defaulted back to white men. But a major reason i think to remember the contributions that the women made to the new deal is to situate the story of women wielding power as part of a much longer continuum that stretches from the womens Suffrage Movement, actually, from before the womens Suffrage Movement, through the new deal, all the way to the 2018 elections and beyond. Women have always wielded political power but where and how and which women have changed over time. And as we assess where women are today and where they might be heading, we should always remember that they are standing on the shoulders of the political women who came before. Thank you. [ applause ] i also am happy to be here. David, i didnt know your mother personally. Of course i knew her work and the biography of Belle Moskowitz was an important book for me. Im going to speak about the representative of hawaii who was the mother of my collaborator on the book i just published. And i draw here on material that appears in our book ensuring poverty, welfare reform. Patsy mink entered politics on the wings of the japanese American Civil Rights and the womens right movements. Trained as a lawyer, she won election to the house of representatives in hawaii in 1956 before hawaii was a state. In 1964, she won a seat on the u. S. House of representatives without the backing of her local Democratic Party. She became the first asianamerican work and first woman of color from any background to serve in the house of representatives. During Lyndon Johnsons presidency, mink supported the antipoverty programs but she was a fierce critic of the war in vietnam and battled with her president and party continuously over that. Mink advocated for womens causes in congress among many other achievements, shes known as the primary author of title 9 of 1972 which barred sexbased discrimination in institutions of institutions that received federal funds. Mink left the house in 1977. She served as an under secretary of state in the Carter Administration and as a member and chair of the honolulu city council. She returned to the house of representatives in 1989 and during her second career in the house she, again, debated with members of her own party and stood up for women, especially those with the least political and economic power. We see these two tendencies most clearly on the roles she played in welfare reform while bill clinton was president of the u. S. Clinton called himself a new democrat and what that meant in part was he was willing to shed some of the Traditional Democratic commitments to the alleviation of poverty, especially the poverty of womenheaded families. Mink decented from her president and organized other members of congress to do the same. And she played this role at three different moments in the career of welfare reform. First, when president clinton first introduced his own welfare reform legislation shortly after he was elected on a pledge to, quote, end welfare as we know it. Then when the republicans came into the majority in both houses of congress after the november 1994 elections and then they introduced a more conservative welfare reform policy, at that point what mink did was organize democrats to keep pliresident clinton from signing the bill that the republicans were on the verge of sending him. That effort failed. But then she came back at the very end of the 1990s into the early 21st century and organized progressive democrats again to replace welfare reform with a more progressive alternative. Patsy mink formulated her own bill. She didnt just critique what others were doing. She produced a bill that became the feminist progressive and antiracist proposal for welfare reauthorization at the turn of the 21st century. And this was a proposal that placed women and mothers, especially lowincome mothers, at the center and honored the care giving working that they did as mothers. From minks perspective, it was inadequate to have a policy that matched people up with jobs or that pushed them into the labor market without also honoring and respecting and supporting the work that they did as mothers in their homes. The democratic leadership in the house of representatives honored minks efforts and ultimately 40 of the Democratic Caucus in the house supported her bill but finally the leadership decided that they were going to back a much more consecutive bill than minks and they encouraged other democrats to follow their lead. She ultimately reported to a colleague that, quote, maxine waters, major owens, and patsy mink herself went to Richard Gephardt and he told them especially that its more important to hold on to the new, that is more consecutive antiwelfare democrats, than to accommodate progressives and people of color, unquote. There was no equivalent to the mink bill in the u. S. Senate even though democrats had a slight majority in the senate and congress stalemated on the issue, unable to come to an agreement between the parties and often unacknowledged with debates still roiling even among democrats. Just days before an agreement that deferred legislative action on welfare until after the 2002 elections, representative patsy mink passed away in honolulu of viral pneumonia. The New York Times remembered her as, quote, articulate and strong willed and willing to fight for causes large and small. Thank you. [ applause ] good morning. Good morning. Is that right . What an honor it is to be here today celebrating the life and work of Elizabeth Israel perry and to reflect on the past and present state of women in american politics. Professor perrys biography of Belle Moskowitz inspires because of its candor. She organized that moskowitz, the great progressive reformer of the early 20th century who served as a close adviser to governor al smith succeeded. Her aim like mine was to make the state an instrument for the welfare of the people, said governor smith. And though she cooperated with men, she was a mother. Belle moskowitz accepted that women should serve men, not lead them. Such beliefs and practices contrasted sharply with those held by politicians such as Barbara Jordan and then became the first black woman from the south elected to congress until retiring in 1978. Perrys study of moskowitz illuminates why she ushered in a new era for black women and i would like to list a few of the differences that distinguished jordan from previous women in politics. First, Barbara Jordan was not a social worker but a lawyer and a political activist in the early 60s who worked with liberals to integrate schools, overturn the white primary, open up the political system to black voters and black candidates. Her involvement in activism led her to political office. She sought leadership. She competed with men for political office. When another politician also sought to enter the primary, jordan stated, if theres a collision course between mr. Graves and me, i shall not defer. I shall not defer to him or anyone else if i think i can win. Third, Barbara Jordan was ambitious. Though she was defeated twice for political office, she persisted. She showed tremendous personal strength and did not give up and she always wanted to go higher. Many said her ambition was to be the house leader. Fourth, jordan did not work behind the scenes but was a public figure who inspired black houstonens and served as a model for those who saw her on television. Jordan worked for the public good, but as a politician, that meant gaining the respect of colleagues on committees employing the art of pressure and energizing voters. Jordan held the role of wife and mother. Financial independence were extremely important to her. Although a loyal democrat, she bypassed the Party Political machine creating her own Political Organization of block workers who went door to door, many who were black women and all of whom were extremely loyal to her. Two final points. One of the great achievements of the midterms was the election of many young women of color to congress. And its exciting, but it has happened before. Barbara jordan was not a loner. When he came to congress, she joined three other black women, Shirley Chisholm of new york and it was these four black women who comprised the first cohort of africanamerican women in congress. But the watergate crisis forced her to divert all of her attention to the Judiciary Committee, these four women appeared on public panels and worked on legislation together. Although we all recognize the long history of womens involvement in american politics, our work here today should be dedicated to writing a new narrative of american women that recognizes that the 19th amendment did not guarantee suffrage for all women and that it was the advent of the civil rights movement, the feminist movement and the Voting Rights act that expanded american democracy and enabled women to change the face the political face of the nation. Thank you. [ applause ] this is wonderful. Im the organizer of this panel and i gave the instructions to people to hold it to five minutes and people are holding it to five minutes. Thank you. Besides wanting to honor Elizabeth Israel perry, the election of 2018 inspired me to organize this session. In 1990 i began work on a book running as a woman. My coauthors and i felt in 1990 that maybe there were certain changes in the air, we werent we didnt have our fingers on exactly what it was that was changing. We just felt change. And as we began to work, we had more definition. And bear in mind we started before anita hill, that whole episode, mobilized women in a remarkable way. We began work in 1990 and in january of 1991 we traveled we were all in the bay area in california. We traveled to washington, d. C. , where we were going to interview some congressional women. We had a dinner party and at that dinner party was Emily Malcolm pioneering a Fundraising Group for liberal democratic prochoice women. Ellen had just come from ann richards inauguration and it was a huge celebration and she was full of enthusiasm and she told us this story. She said that in the election in the campaign in 1990 in texas and youll recall that ann richards had this wonderful updo, ann richards poised for a picture with her hairdresser and it said, we defy gravity. And that picture was sent to 45,000 beauty shops in texas. And when we heard that story, it was like, yes, this is what our book is about. That now we have a woman candidate who is comfortable doing Something Like that. Whereas the wonderful margaret j. Smith had told one of my coauthors, i was never a woman candidate. And in her memoir, Geraldine Ferraro was embarrassed about telling her aides that she needed a haircut. Now in 1990, we defy gravity. So we started thinking about the different aspects of running as a woman. One, you look at pictures of the early women and i dont want to denigrate them because they made some wonderful contributions. But they all looked like honorary men. Theyre wearing dark suits and thats what struck me so much about 2018. These are not honorary men who got elected. Alexandra ocasiocortez is the most well publicized but there are many with a range of selfpresentations. Do