[ Applause ]
>> Amy Argetsinger:
Good afternoon.
I'm Amy Argetsinger an
editor for the style section
of The Washington Post.
Welcome to The Library
of Congresses 19th Annual
National Book Festival
and the history biography
stage sponsored by Wells Fargo.
I'm very please today
to introduce Elaine
Weiss whose new work
of history The Woman's
Hour: The Great Fight
to Win the Vote is a vivid
reconstruction of the forces
that converged on
Nashville in 1920 in an
up against the wire fight to
get women the right to vote.
By June of that year 35
state legislatures had voted
to ratify the 19th
Amendment to the Constitution.
A 36th state was needed to
make it the law of the land.
If advocates of the
measure prevailed,
then some 27 million women
would be able to vote
in the presidential
election that fall.
If not, the amendment could
have languished indefinitely.
It all came down to Tennessee.
Suffragists led by Carrie
Chapman Catt representing the
culmination of a
three-generation effort swarmed
to the state capital
to lobby lawmakers.
But Wiess, in her
book reminds us
that their victory
was never preordained.
Most other southern
states had voted
against the 19th Amendment.
And the suffragists
faced powerful political
and corporate opposition as
well as the vocal influence
of female activists
known as the antis.
Women like Josephine Pierson who
earnestly believed that a vote
for women would lead
to societal collapse.
When these forces met
there was as Weiss writes
"A vicious faceoff
brimming with dirty tricks
and cutting betrayals, sexist
rancor, racial bigotry,
booze and the bible, with
ghosts of the Civil War hovering
over the proceedings and jitters
from the Great War
amplifying the tension."
Sounds juicy?
Well, Ms. Magazine said, "It
reads like a reality show."
The New York Times said "It's
the kind of history from which
if you were a novelist several
novels could be extracted."
And Steve Spielberg
is now adapting it
into a television series
in collaboration
with Hillary Clinton.
[ Applause ]
>> Amy Argetsinger: The Woman's
Hour also won the American Bar
Association's silver gavel award
for furthering the American
public's understanding
of the law.
Elaine Weiss is an award-winning
journalist who has published
in the Atlantic, Harper's,
The New York Times,
and The Christian
Science Monitor.
Her first book was
Fruits of Victory:
The Woman's Land Army
in the Great War.
She lives in Baltimore.
She has two grown children.
And an astrophysicist husband.
She kayaks on the
Chesapeake Bay and she votes.
She'll be taking your questions
after her presentation.
She'll also be signing her books
down in the book signing area
in line number nine from 4:30 to
5:30, but I hope you all are -
people are the responsible ones
for her book having
sold out downstairs.
So.
>> Woo hoo.
>> Amy Argetsinger:
Just be warned.
Elaine Weiss.
[ Applause ]
>> Elaine Weiss:
I'll send you one.
[ Applause ]
>> Elaine Weiss: Good afternoon.
It's a real pleasure to
be with you here today.
This is a special event because
it's a wonderful celebration
of not just books and authors.
But it's a celebration
of readers.
And that is extremely important.
You know reading is a
very private experience.
You sit with the world that
the author has created for you.
You interact with it
in your own way either
in the page or in your earbuds.
And writing is also a
solitary experience.
And we sit alone.
It's a lonely endeavor
very often.
And we wrestle with
our material.
And we wonder who
our readers will be.
And when we can combine
those that the private the -
the private reader the solitary
writer into a community event
like this a national book
festival that's really
quite special.
I'm - its also special for me
because our sponsor our
host today is The Library
of Congress.
And the Library of Congress
is the essential source
for anyone writing about
history of our nation.
But also, especially about
the women's suffrage movement
which I write about
in The Woman's Hour.
It's the most comprehensive
and the most compelling
collection in the nation.
And both the historical
arc of the movement
and the nitty gritty
details are preserved
and made accessible
at the library.
And you can see many of
these treasures right now
at a wonderful exhibit that is
open their called Shall Not Be
Denied which is the language
of the 19th Amendment.
And it'll be up for
the next year.
It's really quite wonderful.
And you'll get a
whole new appreciation
for what these women did.
I think we'll be hearing
a lot about the centennial
of the 19th Amendment as we
enter into the centennial year.
2020 will be that year.
And I want to give
you some sense
of why we should be excited
about the centennial.
Why it's important.
What we can learn from it.
And why it speaks
powerfully to events today.
Now I write The Woman's Hour -
let's se I'm going to try that.
I wrote The Woman's Hour
because I am a voter.
My parents raised me to vote.
I've raised my children
to vote in every election.
And I realized at one point
that I did not know how I
as an American woman had
obtained the right to vote.
I knew that at one point in our
history women could not vote
under The Constitution.
And then they could.
And I didn't know when that
happened, or how that happened.
And I asked some of my friends
who are quite well-educated
women and men.
And I said, "Do you know how
American women won the vote"
And they looked kind
of blankly at me.
And said, "Seneca Falls."
Well I knew that there
was work to be done.
And I was really confounded
about how this extremely
important social
and political movement
representing the largest
expansion of democracy
in our nation's history.
And actually, in world history.
How can it be lost to memory?
How could we not know
how this happened?
And so, I decided
to fill that void.
So, I tell the story of
the suffrage movement
by taking the reader
to Nashville Tennessee
in the summer of 1920
of the final battle
to secure the 19th
Amendment to The Constitution.
And I was initially drawn to
the story about what happened
in Nashville because it was
such a great front story.
It was dramatic.
It was so filled with
vivid complex characters.
And twisty plot turns.
It was a political thriller
with strong and complex women
in the starring roles.
Not just women as
historical footnotes
or one-dimensional
help mates to the men.
Here were women activists.
Women savvy politicians.
Women philosophers.
So, I found that it
was a tale of suspense
with double crosses
and dubious motives.
And many betrayals.
And if I've done my
job, you'll forget
that you know how it turns out.
But I quickly realized
in looking at the story
that contained within
what happened
in Nashville was
the whole panorama
of the women's suffrage
movement.
Its personalities, its ideas,
its conflicts its
contradictions.
And I could pull back the lens
and tell the broader story
of suffrage through what
was happening in Tennessee.
So, what I found was a great
rollicking bare knuckled
political tale.
It's a book about political
power and political will.
Very appropriate for the city
I'm speaking in right now.
About racial and
gender politics.
About states rights.
About women's right.
And about democracy and
our nations' ambivalence
about true democracy.
So, it's a story about how
American women's demand
for the vote once considered
radical, crazy, subversive,
impossible was slowly
and methodically
and at great cost transformed
into constitutional law.
So, The Woman's Hour is the
story of the 19th Amendment.
Giving the vote to half of the
citizens of the United States
who were not included when the
founding fathers constructed
their government
supposedly by the people.
The 19th Amendment wasn't
just a legal change.
It wasn't just a
constitutional change.
It wasn't even just an
electoral law change.
It didn't just double
the national electorate.
It didn't just make
women full citizens
for the very first time.
It marked a societal change.
A cultural shift
about the rights
and the role of women
in society.
And of course, we know that
change is still ongoing.
The fight for women's
suffrage is one
of the defining civil
rights struggles
in our nation's history.
And it's one that cuts to the
heart of what democracy means.
Who gets to have a
voice in our government?
Who gets to participate?
And when we say we the people,
do we really mean everyone?
And of course, we're asking
that question again right now.
Now, if you're like me,
you've probably had
only a rather fuzzy idea
of how American women
won the vote.
And that active verb
is really important.
We were not given the vote.
We were not granted the vote.
It had to be fought
for bitterly and over
and extended amount of time.
And again, that fuzzy
idea that I held,
and you may too was a bunch
of women gathered together
in upstate New York in a
placed called Seneca Falls.
And it's in the horse
and buggy days.
And they're wearing
picturesque bonnets.
And they call for the vote.
And then fast forward and
there's some picket signs.
And then poof American men see
the light and grant the vote
to their wives, mothers,
sisters and daughters.
It's portrayed as just
the march of progress.
And this is actually
how it's portrayed
in host history books,
history text.
Seneca Falls 1920
nothing in between.
So, its portrayed as just
happen - happening naturally.
It's the march of progress.
It's evolution.
No, that's not how it happened.
It required three generations
of fearless activists working
over seven decades to
finally secure the vote
for American women.
They had to change the mind of
the nation both men and women.
And they could be persuasive.
Here is a picture
of the Brooklyn Women's
Suffrage Association.
They didn't all take up arms.
And the culmination of
that whole crusade came
down to one fierce
six-week battle staged
in Nashville Tennessee.
In the summer of 1920
one last state was needed
to ratify the 19th Amendment
giving the vote to all women
in every state in every
election for the first time.
35 states as Amy had
said had ratified.
36 or 3/4 of the 48
states in the union
at that time were needed
for full ratification.
Tennessee could be
that 36th state.
If the Tennessee legislature
approved the amendment it would
become the law of
the land just in time
for the 1920 presidential
election.
If the amendment
failed in Tennessee,
the suffragists really feared
that it might not be
enacted in their lifetime.
And they had reason
to think that way.
And I think they were correct
because the 1920s were actually
very conservative politically.
We think of the flappers
but politically it was
very conservative time.
They saw the pendulum swinging.
They saw the nation was
becoming more isolationist,
less progressive.
They worried if they
didn't get it,
they might not get it at all.
And those of us who have
lived through the lassitude's
of the Equal Rights
Amendment know
that a constitutional amendment
can get very close right
up to the threshold
and not get ratified.
So, I think the suffragists
were right to be very worried.
So, the enfranchisement
of half of the citizens
of the nation is at stake.
And it all comes to Tennessee.
By 1920 the suffragists
had already been fighting
for the vote for 72 years
since that iconic meeting
at Seneca Falls and
the outrageous demand
by Elizabeth Cattie
Stanton calling for women
to be given the franchise.
Many of those attending the
Seneca Falls meeting actually
thought it was a terrible
idea for her to ask for this.
They thought it was too radical.
It was considered
beyond the pale
and they would be
blamed for this.
In fact, several of them
withdrew their, their approval
of it after being
condemned in the press.
But they actually asked her
to withdraw the resolution
at the meeting.
But there was a young
man in the audience.
He had driven his buggy 50
miles from his home in Rochester
to attend the meeting.
And he stood up.
And he said, "No you
must demand the vote."
And it was a young Fredrick
Douglas just 30-years-old.
Just 10 years out of slavery.
And he stood up and he said,
"You must demand the vote.
It will never be
given to you just
as it is-it will never be
given to me without a demand."
And he persuaded the very
reluctant other participants
at the Seneca Falls meeting
to approve Stanton's resolution
asking for enfranchisement.
Since that meeting in Seneca
Falls women tens of thousands
of women had been fighting for
the vote in over 900 state,
local, and national campaigns.
They traveled hundreds
of thousands of miles
to do what Susan Anthony
described it "Organize, educate
and agitate" in tiny towns and
big cities across the country.
And we see they begin
in horse and buggy.
And by the end of the
movement they're in cars.
They had to change hearts
and minds in the hinterland
about women's role in society
before they could even think
of trying to change the law.
And it was a stupendous feat
of organization when
you think of it.
It's grassroots.
This is popping up in cities
and towns across the country.
And when the movement begins
passenger rail travel is really
in its infancy.
The telegraph has
just been invented.
There's no typewrite.
There's no telephone.
And even in 1920 when my
book takes place radio is not
in use yet.
And one young women read --
in my publishers office read
an early draft of the book.
And she went to my editor
and she said, "Wow I don't -
I can't believe these
women were able to organize
like this without Facebook."
But they did.
They held meetings
and they held rallies.
And they marched which
was not considered proper
for women to do.
And here's some great
marching pictures.
They didn't wear
pink pussy hats.
But they did wear their
marching uniforms white dresses
with yellow sashes.
And when you see members
of congress nominees
for high electoral position
wearing white it is in honor
of the suffragists who wore
white in their demonstrations.
You know the first national
suffrage parade was held here
in Washington.
In March of 1913 on the eve of
Woodrow Wilson's inauguration.
And there's a wonderful book
about that by Rebecca Roberts
that I recommend to you.
And it was a grand procession
of 8,000 women, 26 floats,
bands and women on horseback.
And here's again the
program from that which is
in the Library of
Congress by the way.
Ida B. Wells attended
this march.
And she represented
Illinois suffragists
and her alpha suffrage club.
And she famously
refused - here's pictures
of the march here in Washington.
She refused to march at the
back of the processional
where it was suggested
that black women march.
And she famously
cut in and marched
with her suffrage
sisters from Illinois.
And they did welcome her
into the line with them.
And the Library of Congress
exhibit has some fascinating
documents detailing the
suffragists discomfort
with the prevailing
segregational policies in D.C.
and how they were trying
to wrestle with this -
the idea of segregation and
marching in a southern city.
Men watching the
march were incensed.
How dare women behave
like this in public.
They closed in on the marchers.
They grabbed their banners.
They tore them.
They threw women to the ground.
They stomped on them.
The police stood
by and did not -
just watched the
assaults and didn't help.
There was a congressional
investigation,
but no one was punished.
Today it's hard to believe how
difficult, how brave a woman had
to be to publicly march for and
advocate for women suffrage.
They had to endure contempt and
ridicule in their communities,
in their churches
and in the press.
We're going to look at some
rather strong images of -
put into the public eye by
the anti-suffrage forces.
Here's one.
Again, what I would do
with the suffragists.
It's all about keeping
women quiet.
Here's another Peace at Last.
They were pelted with rotten
eggs and spoiled vegetables.
In fact, Suzanne
Anthony used to say,
"She could measure the
progress of the movement
by the projectiles that
were being thrown at her."
So, when it was just
regular eggs
and no longer rotten
eggs, that was progress.
They were attacked
by mobs of angry men.
They were denounced as radicals,
perverts, traitors, anarchists,
bad wives and mothers of course.
Even Bolsheviks.
And here you see a very typical
anti-suffrage - this would,
this should have been
for a state referendum.
The states have the power to
enfranchise their citizens.
States are in control
of elections.
And so, here you see this was a
referendum Which Do you Prefer,
the Home or the Street
Corner for Women?
So, you can be a loving mother,
or you can be a crazed
protester for the vote.
They were derided
as unattractive.
Here you go Down with Men,
Husbands for Old Maids.
Unsexed she-men.
Why would an attractive
woman want the vote?
She should have a man
who will vote for her.
The men who supported
them were belittled
as Mable's and Nancy's.
Guess which on is supposed
to be the suffragist?
Again, what would
happen when women vote?
Mom would be reading
the sporting news
and smoking cigars while
dad was going to have
to sew his own clothes from
his wife's discarded skirts
and hold the screaming baby.
This is a continuing motif
holding the screaming baby.
Here we have another one.
This is election day.
Again, it was portrayed
that women
if they had the vote were going
to abandon their families.
And they might even
want to go to work.
And that was dangerous.
Clearly suffragists
were frightening.
The idea of women having equal
political rights, having a voice
and perhaps wanting
more was dangerous.
Here's another one.
This is called Washing Day.
This is from the Library
of Congress collection.
Many of these images
by the way are
from The Library of Congress.
And here's mom in her spats kind
of overseeing her
husband doing the wash.
This is considered
really outrageous.
Again, they weren't subtle
about what they feared.
What will men wear when
women wear the pants?
Do we see a theme emerging here?
And finally, my favorite
Bed of Trouble
which I think is
self-explanatory.
[ Laughter ]
In their quest for equal
citizenship the women
of the suffrage movement
employed a wide variety
of stratagems and methods.
And many of these marches,
demonstrations, picketing,
which we'll soon see, acts
of civil disobedience,
sophisticated lobbying and
public relations operations,
legal test cases
would be adopted
by the civil rights campaigns of
the 20th and the 21st Centuries.
The suffragists were ingenious.
And fearless.
They had to be.
To test the prohibitions against
women voting Susan B. Anthony,
Sojourner Truth and about 150
other women actually voted
in the 1872 presidential
election.
And here's a magazine cover
portraying Susan Antony.
It's captioned The
Woman Who Dared.
And she's usurping
Uncle Sam's hat.
And she was very proud of voting
in her Rochester precinct.
She wrote to her
co-worker Elizabeth Stanton
"I have gone and done it."
She was very pleased.
She was soon arrested, tried,
and convicted of voting --
illegal voting in
a federal election.
She went around New York State
where she'd been
arrested giving scores
of lectures entitled Is it a
Crime for a US Citizens to Vote?
And of course, we're asking
that question again today too.
The failure of this voting
experiment in 1872 led Stanton
and Anthony to draft a
constitutional amendment
which would supersede all the
state laws prohibiting women
from voting.
It was introduced
into congress in 1878.
And it was stalled
there for 40 years.
Every year the suffragists
would go up and testify.
And every year it would be put
back into the file cabinet.
It was voted down in
the senate or the house
or in committee 28 times.
The suffragists also pursued a
long line of presidents trying
to get their support that
may this would help them
in congress.
And here we see some
rather humorous portrayals
of Susan Anthony
chasing presidents.
Here's she's chasing
Grover Cleveland.
She's often portrayed with
her threatening umbrella.
And here she is attacking
the senate
with her threatening umbrella.
This is on the cover of
Life Magazine by the way.
And then the finally -
most presidents didn't want
anything to do with them.
Finally, in 1912 Theodore
Roosevelt progressive party ran
on a plank of supporting
women's suffrage
and a federal amendment.
But he was made fun of in the
press and here's a sample.
I'm Ready for Teddy and
this was portraying him
as supporting women's suffrage.
The slow pace of progress both
in congress and in the states
where there were
numerous referenda
where of course only
men could vote
to decide whether women
had the right to vote.
Only a handful of states
allowed actually succeeded
in these referenda.
And the - so it was delayed.
It's now 1916, 1917
and it's still delayed.
And it stirred frustration
and anger among suffragists.
And we see this happen
in many social
and political reform movements.
We see it happen in
the labor movement.
There's a, there's a wing
that wants to move faster
and be more confrontational.
And this happens in
the suffrage movement.
A new generation
the third emerges.
And they're no longer willing to
wait or ask or plead politely.
They're will to be
aggressive, to be rude,
to be confrontational,
to be disruptive.
Does this sound familiar?
And they're even
willing to break the law.
A young woman from New
Jersey who has a PhD
from the University
of Pennsylvania trains
with the more radical strain
of the suffrage movement
in Great Britain.
Comes back to America.
And brings some of their
direct-action techniques.
Alice Paul's woman's
party did things
that had never been done
before by men or women.
They picketed the White House.
Never done before.
They picked Woodrow Wilson at
his reelection campaign in 1960.
Again, picketing it was
considered not only outrageous
but unpatriotic.
This is during World War One.
They even called him Keiser
Wilson for promoting democracy
around the world but no
allowing democracy at home.
Hundreds of women
were arrested and held
in decrepit vermin infested
cells in the D.C. city jail
and a few miles away
in Virginia.
They were physically assaulted,
clubbed, tied to the wall,
not allowed to read, write
or even speak to one another.
They communicated by singing.
And when they were
released - and when they.
Pardon me.
When they refused to
eat, they were force fed
with tubes rammed
down their noses.
When they were released, they
toured the country in their -
in facsimiles of
their prison uniforms.
And this was the prison special.
They were in Pullman cars and
they went across the country
and back again holding
rallies and meetings.
And saying we are your
mother's we are your sisters;
we have been imprisoned for
asking for the right to vote.
Finally, in 1919, after
World War One was over
and American women had
served their country in ways
that were very unusual and never
been attempted by women before.
Congress finally, finally
sent the federal amendment
to the states for ratification.
So, six months later in the
summer of 1920 the amendment was
on the cusp of victory
or possibly defeat.
Because Tennessee was
a very dangerous place
to be staking everything.
To be staging this definitive
battle for women's suffrage.
Because nearly all the other
southern states had already
rejected the 19th Amendment.
They refused to ratify.
And all on the same -
with the same rationale.
They did not want
black women to vote.
So, the suffragists knew
they faced an uphill battle
in Tennessee, but
they had no choice.
Tennessee was their
last best chance.
So, the campaign generals
arrive in Tennessee.
Here we go.
This is Carrie Chapman Catt
comes down from New York.
She's the president
of the National American
Women's Association.
The largest mainstream
suffrage group.
Almost two million women
and men affiliated with it.
She's Susan Anthony's protégé.
She's known as the chief.
She's a master strategist.
She comes down from New York
to run the associations
strategy in Nashville.
Also joining her
arriving on the same night
in fact Sue White a young
Tennessee ambitious young woman
who is sent by Alice Paul
to run the woman's party
campaign for ratification.
So, now we have two
different women's groups
with the same goal but
not working together.
In fact, their headquarters
are in the same hotel,
but they're not working
together.
Also arriving Josephine
Pearson leader
of the Tennessee anti-suffragist
who comes to defend her state
from what she calls
"The feminist peril."
There were powerful forces
working against ratification
in Tennessee political
corporate and ideological foes.
Each with their own reason
for opposing the amendment.
Politicians who feared this
untested new voting bloc.
27 million women would
be eligible to vote,
and no one knew how
they would vote.
Clergymen who tended to be
against women's suffrage.
Some support it but
many did not.
Thinking that this went
against the plan of God.
Because he had made, or she
had made Adam to be dominant
over Eve and this - they used
biblical language to fight
against the amendment.
Corporations are in
Nashville fighting
because they think
women voting will be bad
for their bottom line.
But the most passionate foes
of the 19th Amendment
turned out to be women.
That women might oppose their
own enfranchisement was actually
quite shocking to me at first.
But these antisuffragists
some of whom were social
and religious conservatives
really feared
that suffrage would
bring about a profound
and unhealthy shift
in gender roles.
It would endanger
the American home.
We saw some of those.
And it would bring
about what they called,
"The moral collapse
of the nation."
Her is a anti-suffrage broadside
American when feminized.
So, it would alter private
life as well as public life.
And this is really important
to realize the passion
of the opposition.
It really was what we have
to understand it wasn't -
the debate over women's suffrage
was not just a political debate.
It was also a social
and a cultural
and for some a moral debate
about the role of
women in society.
And it really is a precursor to
what we call the culture wars.
So, all sides confront
one another
in Nashville, and
it's gets wild.
There's bribes and booze and
propaganda and blackmail,
conspiracies and kidnapping,
fist fights, betrayal, courage.
The newspapers call it
"Suffrage Armageddon."
The outcome remains in doubt
until the very last moment.
And I don't want to spoil
it for you, but it does come
down to a single
vote of conscious
from the youngest member of
the Tennessee legislature
who receives a letter
from his mother.
Now all this took place
just about a century ago.
99 years now.
But I'll think you'll find
that The Women's Hour's a book
of history with surprising
and perhaps even
unnerving modern themes.
It helps explain where
we've been but also
where we are right now.
It deals with topics that
dominate our headlines today.
Voting rights and voter
suppression, women's rights,
inequality, dark
money and politics.
The role of religion
in public policy.
And racism.
Because the history of suffrage
in America is inevitably
a story about race.
In Nashville there are cries
of white supremacy
and states rights.
The Ku Klux Klan is
invoked as a dog whistle.
And the confederate flag
is flown in defiance.
Here's the opening ceremonies
for the anti-suffrage
headquarters
in the Hermitage hotel with
the confederate battle flag.
Now, I wrote this book before
the 2016 presidential election.
But this story of suffragist
long fight for democrat
and the final battle n Nashville
has taken on layers of meaning
that I could not
have anticipated.
This history of citizens
fighting
for their rights enters a new
dimension as rights assume
to be secure, voting
rights, citizenship rights,
press freedom, women's
rights appear
to be endangered once again.
And this history of
women political activists
and leaders resonates
as a historic number
of women run for public office.
And a historic number are
now serving in congress 131.
And each of them have
received a copy of the book.
[ Applause ]
>> Elaine Weiss: There are
important lessons to be learned
from the fight for
women's suffrage
that social change is slow.
And political change is hard.
That the struggle to expand
our democracy is ongoing.
It was not accomplished in 1920
and it's not complete today.
The vote is a prayer as
Carrie Catt described it.
The vote is power.
And today we must protect
the vote for all citizens.
And I'm trying to use
the book to do that.
I'm speaking to many
voter rights associations
and on college campuses to
explain and to give them a sense
of a historical grounding
of winning the vote
for at least one
class of citizens.
And the best way we can
celebrate the centennial is
to protect and expand
voting rights for all.
Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]
>> Elaine Weiss: Questions.
[ Applause ]
>> Elaine Weiss:
Their any questions?
>> Yes. Could I ask what was -
how would you describe
how the intersections
with the women's rights
movement at the time
and also the labor movement,
also the civil rights movement,
how women who were
involved in all three?
Because of either their skin
color or their economic class.
How were they - because they
were extra - marginalized.
And often times women
working was used as an insult.
>> Elaine Weiss: Well,
I mean the suffrage movement
involved millions of women
from upper class
women to working women
to impoverished women, married
women, single women, black,
white Chicano, native American.
Union women were involved.
Factory women were involved.
So, you're going to get an
intersection of all kinds
of political movements,
social movements in -
you know represented
among those women.
So, I think that's the only
way I can really answer it.
It's a really a great
and broad question
but it probably is a thesis
to answer the whole thing.
But they were involved in many
you know again individual women
involved in many things.
The suffrage movement tried to
focus on just gaining the vote.
>> Ms. Weiss thank you so much
for your very important book.
And it brings such an important
issue like winning the vote
for women to such - all of the
people in the United States.
It was very interesting
to read about the split.
>> Elaine Weiss: Uh-huh.
>> Between the suffragists
and going
into two different parties.
>> Elaine Weiss: Yes.
>> So, I have to ask you if
you could get in a time machine
and go back to 1919,
1920 would you have fall
in line with Alice Paul?
>> Elaine Weiss: No.
>> Women's party or
would you have lined
up with Carrie Chapman
Catt and why?
>> Elaine Weiss:
Well I ask that a one
of the book discussion
questions in the back
of the paperback edition.
That's a great question.
I don't know.
I sympathize with both of them.
And I see - I think most
historians think there was a
synergy even though
it split the movement.
And there was bitter
personal relations
between the two groups.
They did not get along.
But that synergy of
having - and again we see
that happening right now.
Having the very painstaking
one victory at a time approach
to the damn it we're going to
ask for everything approach.
We see that happening and I
guess having had the perspective
of watch - of seeing
it from above
and 100 years I can see
the value of both of them.
But I don't think either one
would have necessarily won it
on their own.
So, there's sometimes
a value in that split.
Thank you.
>> Hello.
>> Elaine Weiss: Hello.
>> You know there's a quote
attributed to Dr. King that,
"The moral arc of
the universe is long,
but it bends towards justice."
>> Elaine Weiss: Uh-huh.
>> So, my question
to you is the themes
in your book almost 100
years ago are resonating
in the front pages
of or paper today.
>> Elaine Weiss: Yes, they are.
>> What gives you confidence,
that we as a people can
still bend the moral arc
of history towards justice?
>> Elaine Weiss: Well I,
I, I truly, truly hope so.
I think we've been tested in the
last few years that confidence,
that sense of forward
movement which I think I grew
up with has been challenged.
And all I can think
of is the theme
that comes most strongly
from, from watching
at close range how
these women persisted.
It really is a leaf
- keeping your eye
on the prize and persistence.
Now there are moral
compromises made
in this movement
that make us wince.
And we - and I try to
explore them in the book.
And I hope that we
can learn from them
and not make some
of those mistakes.
But I think the whole idea
of who we are as a democracy
who gets included who gets
excluded how citizens are
treated how women are treated
are all very much being
discussed and decided today.
So, I just hope that, that
sense of persistence of idealism
because it really was
an idealist movement.
Had a political movement too
so there's a you know there's
some dirt under the rug.
But I think that you
relay have to just believe
that working towards justice
will eventually make it happen.
And that's what that arc is.
>> Thank you.
>> Elaine Weiss: Thank you.
But that's a great question.
I think we only have time
for one more question
I'm being told.
I'm sorry.
>> Thank you.
My question is be - this is
a question that I'm concerned
like about this suffrage
and the temperance movement.
Apparently within my own
knowledge the temperance
movement was also
one of the issues.
>> Elaine Weiss: Yes.
>> [inaudible] because like
all in terms of that cartoon
about affecting the
effect alcohol [inaudible].
>> Elaine Weiss: There's a,
there's a strong association
of the temperance movement
and the suffrage movement.
Not all suffragists
supported temperance.
>> Yeah well.
>> Elaine Weiss: But you have
to understand the temperance
in the 19th Century and early
20th Century was not just a
moral issue.
For some it was amoral
issue of drinking.
But for many women it was
a domestic violence issue.
>> Yeah [inaudible].
>> Elaine Weiss: That they had
no recourse, legal recourse,
criminal justice resources
to protect themselves
against abusive men
in their lives.
And so, prohibition and
temperance becomes one
of the tools they use.
The suffragist by 1920 are
actually have stepped back
from being so closely
aligned with temperance
because it's been hurting
them in states that rely
on liquor manufacturing.
Now, prohibitions in effect
in the summer of 1920.
It is in effect.
And so, it's really interesting
to see the liquor lobby still
pushing to convince legislators
in Tennessee there's something
the Jack Daniel's suite
on the 8th floor of the hotel.
It's a speakeasy that
dispenses liquor 24/7.
To convince you know free booze
if you'll vote against suffrage.
Why are they even doing it?
It's 1920.
You've - prohibition
is in effect.
Well its to try to - if they
think they can keep women away
from the ballot longer
prohibition won't be enforced
as stringently.
So, it's a very interesting
symbiotic and then a split
with the temperance movement.
But yeah there was certainly
a historic association.
Thank you so, so very much.
[ Applause ]