>> Jane Sanchez: Good evening
everyone my name is Jane Fontes,
and I have the honor of serving
as the 25th Law Librarian
of Congress.
Welcome to the Library of
Congress, and thank you
for joining us tonight in
celebration of the heritage
of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights,
a milestone document
which underpins all
international human rights law
and inspires us to
continue to work to ensure
that all people can gain
freedom, equality, and dignity.
Each year, the law Library
of Congress celebrates
Human Rights Day
by recognizing a
critical social, economic,
or cultural human rights issue.
In previous years, the law
library hosted a number
of Human Rights Day events that
highlighted various aspects
of this topic, such as
repatriating Native American
cultural property and remains,
human rights in Eastern Europe,
Islamic law reform,
and rights of refugees
and internally displaced
persons.
Today, I am pleased to
announce our topic this year.
The year 2020 marks the 100th
anniversary of the passage
of the 19th Amendment,
guaranteeing
and protecting women's and
constitutional right to vote.
The passage marked the
largest expansion of democracy
in the history of our country.
This historic centennial offers
an unparalleled opportunity
to commemorate a
milestone of democracy
and to explore its relevance to
the issue of equal rights today.
The Library of Congress has
joined many institutions
in Washington DC and
across the nation,
marking the commemoration
of the 100th anniversary
of women's suffrage.
We are proud to host
Shall Not Be Denied.
Women's Fight for
the Vote Exhibition.
If you have not visited
the exhibition yet here
in the Jefferson
building, you still can.
The exhibit is open
through September 2020.
Today, more than 68 million
women vote in elections thanks
to the courageous suffragists
who never gave up the fight
for equality, but
as we celebrate,
we must also continue examining
the challenges of democracy
and equal rights
that face us today.
Tonight we are going
to hear and learn more
about women's suffrage movement
and how it impacts
women's rights today.
Please allow me to introduce
our panel participants.
Corrine McConnaughy,
she says she's
like the other McConnaughy,
Associate Professor
of Political Science at George
Washington University and author
of The Women's Suffrage Movement
in America, A Reassessment,
and Elaine Weiss, journalist
and author of The Women's Hour,
the Great Fight to Win the Vote.
And moderating today's
panel is Colleen Shogan,
Assistant Deputy Librarian
of Library Collections
and Services, and the
library's representative.
She also the Vice-Chair
of the Congressional Suffrage
Centennial Commission.
And now, let's get started.
[ Applause ]
>> Colleen Shogan: Okay,
terrific, I think we're going
to have a great conversation --
>> Woman: I think so.
>> Colleen Shogan:
-- this evening.
I've really been looking
forward to it, and we'll try
to save a little bit of time
at the end for questions,
so you'll get to quiz
Elaine and Corrine, as well.
As Jane said, you know, women
fought for the right to vote,
for over 70 years, and the 19th
Amendment was finally enacted
and added to the
Constitution in 1920.
Why did it take so long, and
why did it happen when it did?
>> Corrine McConnaughy:
Democracy's hard, right?
So, why did it take so long.
I think the basic answer
to that question is
that changing the rules by which
politicians have to operate.
It's fundamentally
difficult, right?
And so, we've got to
think about how hard it is
to pass a standard
policy reform, right?
How hard it may be to
change rights in the sense
of marriage rights
for property rights.
Those sorts of policy
changes don't change the basic
calculations of how
politicians do business, right?
But expansions of voting rights
do, and for women's suffrage
in particular, there's
the challenge of so,
exactly what is the
incentive, right?
Exactly what's the incentive for
politicians to expand the vote
to double the electorate when
it's just not at all clear
who would benefit
from that, right?
And while we got some rhetoric
around, well, women would purify
and elevate politics,
it's quite difficult
to find one politician --
many politicians who
were sure is that.
Or if they were, who
liked that idea, right?
Right? But what they were
dubious of was the idea
that there would be
any women's vote,
and so, who was going to win?
And so, creating the
incentive to get politicians
to change the fundamental
rules of the game.
It was a monumental
political puzzle.
>> Elaine Weiss: I think
to understand why it took
so long also besides all
the very valid reasons
that you bring up, I think you
have to understand the push
for women's suffrage as not
just a political movement.
It's not asking just
for a political change.
It's not about just an
electoral law change
or a constitutional amendment.
It is signaling, pushing,
advocating for a
cultural change,
a change in the perception
and in the rights
and the role of women
in society.
So, even if politicians thought
this was a super-duper idea
and they were all going to
benefit from it, it, again,
with such a large change in
how the nation and how society
at large was going
to view women.
So, it's much more complicated
than just the political change,
which meant that the suffragists
had to change hearts and minds,
not just in the legislatures,
not just in the Congress,
but in the heartland.
They had to change
people's, men and women's,
perception of what women and
could and should do in society.
So, when the movement
begins, women are not supposed
to address a mixed
crowd of people.
They're not supposed to speak in
public at all, but if they are,
if they do, even in a church
setting, they're not supposed
to speak if men are present.
That was considered promiscuous.
So, the whole idea of what
women should or shouldn't do had
to be completely rethought, and
that is a very slow process,
and that's what the
suffragists were chipping away
at those monumental walls that
separated what a woman wanted
to do and what a woman
was supposed to do.
She was supposed to stay home.
And one of the biggest
anti-suffrage arguments was
that this was going to
upset the American home.
It was going to upset
morality and society,
and women were going to
abandon their children.
So, I think if we look
at it in that dual sense
of this is a very large
political change, and you know,
if you look at it honestly,
men are giving up half
of their electoral power.
What is -- why would
they do that?
But then, you couple
that with a much larger,
even more difficult
bill of goods to sell,
which is women should be equal,
politically and socially,
and that took even longer.
>> Colleen Shogan:
Tell us a little bit
of the two sides of this fight.
So, you have the suffragists,
and you have the opposition,
the anti-suffragists.
I think some people
are surprised to learn
that there are prominent,
well-educated women
on both sides of this fight.
So, talk a little
bit about that.
>> Corrine McConnaughy:
Go ahead, Elaine.
>> Elaine Weiss: Well,
when I discovered the
anti-suffragists, the women.
I mean, there are many
anti-suffragists of all stripes,
but when we think of opposition
to the idea of women voting,
I guess we think, and I fully
admit, I thought this, too.
Men opposed it because
you could kind
of understand men thought
this was presumptuous.
It was cutting their own power.
It was not their idea of
what a woman should be.
You know, a woman
shouldn't have opinions.
She shouldn't speak her
mind, all these ideas.
What we don't think of is that
women opposed women's suffrage,
and organized to oppose it,
and had their own
publications opposing it
and campaigned opposing it,
and I think that was one
of the most surprising things
I found in my research,
and in some ways, fascinating.
Who were these women?
Why did they do this?
And as you said,
Colleen, there were --
some of them were
very well educated.
You know, these were
not, you know,
women who'd never
thought about this before.
Some of them are wealthy.
You know, there's wealthy
women on both sides.
Wealthy women funded
the suffrage movement,
but they also, some
did, oppose it.
And you say, well, why would
you oppose your sisters having
the vote?
And the answer, for that strata
of women, was everything's fine.
The status quo's
just great for me.
I don't need the vote,
because my uncle, or my father,
or my husband, or my brother
is the bank president,
is the congressman, you
know, is the president.
So, why would I need the vote?
I get my opinion across
at the dinner table.
So, there's that part,
that group of women.
Then there's women who honestly
believe that this is going --
the idea of women's suffrage is
so frightening, it will, again,
disrupt the American home.
It will undercut morality.
Women will be wanton in the
streets, if they're allowed
to vote, and there are these
wonderful anti-suffrage
broadsides that show, you know,
women abandoning their families,
first of all, to be able
to campaign for the vote.
So, it shows them,
you know marching off,
and daddy's holding
the screaming babies.
And then, it shows, another
one shows election day,
and a very well-dressed woman,
again, putting on her gloves,
and daddy is holding
the screaming babies.
So, it's this idea that your
entire personal world will be
disrupted if you
allow women to vote.
Then there's others who
have particular interest
in stopping women's
suffrage, and some of them,
especially in the southern
states but not only
in the southern states, did
not want black women to vote.
So, you have an assortment of
very intelligent, well-funded,
politically savvy women who
are working actively to oppose,
first suffrage in the states,
and then, the 19th amendment.
>> Corrine McConnaughy: I
think [inaudible] other sort
of nuances to that.
And Elaine did a really good
job at I think, you know,
that there are sets of
women who have an interest
in the status quo, right?
I think one of the
things about the sort
of more well-heeled opposition
to women's suffrage was not
simply, though certainly,
that they had power by proxy,
but that they also had power
by claim to being
above politics, right?
So, that they, in fact, were
often quite public themselves,
had very public careers and were
not only operating in the home,
but were operating in public
space with, they thought,
a very special claim
to above politics.
You now, that they
were a moral voice,
and that by not having
an electoral stake,
that they got a particular
claim, right,
on the goodness/trueness
of their causes.
And so, there was certainly
a set of women who were
against suffrage for,
literally, their own,
you know political
reasons, for the own sense
of where their power
in politics came from,
their own direct power, as well
as their sort of power by proxy
through powerful men
in kinship circles.
Yeah, and then there certainly
was resistance that was tied
to religious conviction, right?
There certainly was resistance
that was tied to notions
of what God had ordained
and the upset to the order
that God had ordained, and so,
that's also very interesting
that there are religious
women who, and how they come
to the suffrage movement, right?
That's how they come
to abolition, and then,
that's how they come to notions
of God ordaining every human
with equal human dignity
and taken that off
in an equal rights direction,
but there's also a theme
of a more conservative
interpretation
of a natural order ordained by
God, and so, you see that sort
of resistance, as well.
>> Elaine Weiss: There's also a
business aspect, which you kind
of touched on, which is
that many of the leaders
of the women's anti-suffrage
movement, and it was centered
in Boston and New
York for a long time.
Then they open up a lobbying
office in Washington,
but a lot of them are the
wives or daughters or sisters
of bankers or corporate
executives,
and another whole string of
male and take suffrage power was
from corporate interests,
and these were often, again,
very wealthy men who, you know,
had power in their legislature,
helped decide who is
going to be running,
who the political players were
going to be, and putting women
in the mix was going to
upset their power base.
So, they didn't want it.
Then some of them were involved
in industries that feared women
at the ballot box, and again,
we don't think about this.
We don't think about women's
suffrage being affected
by economic forces,
political forces, wars.
I mean, we think of it of
like this little bubble
that just bounces along above
everything, but it's not.
It's buffeted by
all of these things.
And so, what I discovered
were the industries
that worked very hard to
defeat both suffrage, you know,
any time it came up for
a referendum, but also,
in the ratification process
and in the passage in Congress,
and these were the railroads
who pretty much owned a lot
of state legislatures and did
not want the status quo messed
up, and it was going to be
expensive for them to have
to bribe to legislators.
The manufacturers, because they
feared that if women could vote,
they might want to
abolish child labor,
and that industry
depended on child labor.
It was cheap, and depended
on cheap women's labor.
So, they didn't want women
having any say in government.
And then, of course,
the liquor industry.
>> Corrine McConnaughy:
Yeah, I think, too, it's --
there's certainly some of
these forces that were afraid
of the risk of what
women might do,
but I think it's also
important to point
out that the risk came before we
sort of even got to that piece
of the equation, which was
that by the time we're talking
about votes taking
place in legislatures,
the suffrage movement's
become aligned
with other movements, right?
And the suffrage movement
has become aligned,
one of its strongest partners
is the farmers organizations,
but then, a close
second is labor, right?
Organized labor is one of --
women's suffrage is
strongest advocates --
when they can keep that
coalition together,
and it's a soft coalition,
because the women running the
movement are not in class women,
right, in the labor movement.
These are difficult-to-maintain
coalitions.
But when they are
brought together
under the progressive umbrella,
it's really a political force,
and this is really a point
at which we see the sort
of really strong
corporate backlash,
right, against the right.
So, women's suffrage is now a
progressive cause, and in states
and localities, it has moments
way before the progressives
where it similarly becomes -- it
becomes associated with a bunch
of reform movements, right?
And it's, in some ways,
smart politics, right,
to have a coalition like
I was saying earlier.
So, women aren't
attractive as of like well,
let's enfranchise them because
the women's vote will certainly
favor this party
versus another, right?
There are politicians thinking
that, right, this puts a lock
on a particular partisan
advantage, right?
So, you need coalition partners,
but with partners come
new enemies, too, right?
And this notion of well, maybe
there's something to fear
from women's votes, but even if
we can sort of allay that fear,
they're working against
us, as is, right?
>> Colleen Shogan: Let's
talk a little bit about --
we've talking about the
movement as a national movement,
but both of your books actually
make the point different ways,
but you both make the point that
this is actually state driven.
This is locality driven,
and there might be
different politics,
different power dynamics,
depending on the particular
state, and what's going
on at the local level.
So, talk a little bit
about how this works
at the national level, but
then you have these movements
to gain state voting
rights, state by state,
as well as the movement
towards the 19th Amendment.
>> Corrine McConnaughy: So, this
is a really important point.
We like to say that the 19th
Amendment guaranteed women the
right to vote, and I wish
that that were true, right?
But of course, none of us has
an affirmative constitutionally
protected right to vote.
We have constitutional
protections
against particular
discriminations, right,
and beyond that, the U.S.
Constitution reserves the right
to determine the qualifications
of electors to the
states, right?
So, this is why this
is fundamentally a
state-driven process.
Because at the end
of the day, right,
the Constitution
defines the power
to define the qualifications
of electors as a state power.
So, states can, always have,
will continue for forever,
to have different qualifications
for voters, right?
So, and even now that we have
the 19 Amendment, it protects me
from being denied the
right to vote literally
because I'm a woman, right, but
it doesn't prevent the state
in which I live from
adopting some other provision
that could take away
my right to vote.
>> Colleen Shogan: So, what
were those literacy tests,
poll taxes?
What other provisions
were utilized in that way?
>> Corrine McConnaughy:
Property qualifications, right,
taxpayer status, literacy.
We think now of citizenship
as being a prerequisite.
It hasn't always been, and so,
over the course of the time
that women are pushing for
voting rights, noncitizens,
in some states, have, then
again lose, the right to vote.
It was common in a number
of states, for a time,
for there to be alien declarant,
which is just saying
you were an immigrant.
You declared an intention
to become a citizen,
and you could have the
right to vote, right?
So, the idea that over this time
period, in fact, there were lots
of ebbs and flows in
how states are defining
who exactly is a voter,
and who exactly is not.
>> Elaine Weiss: Now the
suffrage movement had
to confront the dilemmas
of federalism.
I mean, that's how it --
states are in control
of voting requirements.
So, the way the movement starts
is, okay, we're going to move
into every state, or states that
look possible, and we're going
to try to change the state
constitution, because most
of the state constitutions in
the mid-19th century, and then,
even after the Civil War,
many states define voters,
eligible voters as white men.
And to change this to
constitutional conventions
in the states, state
level, and changes, and so,
the right to vote can be
afforded, either by your state,
because its' in charge of its
citizens and their ability
to vote, or that
could be superseded
by a federal amendment,
which would, you know,
override all state requirements.
So, the movement starts out
as a state-by-state, you know,
we're going to -- versus Kansas.
And then, it's, you
know, Colorado,
and they go from state to state.
Sometimes, what will happen
is the state legislature won't
change the Constitution
but will say, well, okay.
Let's put it to a vote.
Let's put it to a vote
whether women should be able
to vote here.
So, who can vote
in these referenda?
Men only. And the
separatist wage dozens,
dozens of these referendum
campaigns, and they lose most
of them, because it's
really difficult.
You had to convince men
to give up their power.
Then you would have the
corporate interests,
and money would flow
into the campaign
through the liquor
industry or from wherever.
And suddenly, and there
was a lot of shenanigans
and vote stealing and things.
So, they lost most of these.
And so, it becomes apparent
that this is not going to work,
or it's going to take forever.
And so, there's always a tension
within the movement whether
they should just keep going
and get every state to
adopt women's suffrage.
There are a few successes.
Today, we're celebrating
Wyoming, which in 1869 on,
I think it was yesterday,
actually, as a territory,
adopts women's suffrage, women's
ability to serve on juries,
which was kind of tied
to that right to vote.
I don't know why, but it is, and
allowing them to run for office.
So, it opens up everything
to women.
Wyoming's still a territory.
There's like six women there.
>> Corrine McConnaughy: That's
only a slight exaggeration.
There are about 20,000
people in the state,
about 20% of whom are women.
>> Elaine Weiss: Right,
okay, I stand corrected.
>> Corrine McConnaughy:
It slightly more than six,
but it's not a whole lot more.
>> Elaine Weiss: It's not
a whole lot more, and then,
so they're not a state
yet, but when they do apply
for statehood some years
later, they want to allow women
to vote, because they've
been voting in territory,
and Congress writes
back and says, oh, no,
we don't do that in
the United States.
Women don't vote.
And the territorial
governor, at least, you know,
I have seen this, says no.
We would stay out of
the union 100 years
if we can't bring
our women with us.
And so, Congress backs down, and
Wyoming becomes the first state
to allow women to vote.
And then, it is the Western
states who adopt suffrage
at the state level first.
And it's Idaho and Nevada
and Utah and Colorado.
>> Corrine McConnaughy: Yeah,
so, Colorado is the first state
that adopts women's
suffrage by referendum.
It's also the first
populated state.
It's the first state to
add women's suffrage,
rather than come into the union
with women's suffrage already
in its Constitution,
which is, in other words,
that's more politically
difficult.
So, Wyoming comes in in 1890.
The Colorado campaign
is in 1893.
At this point, I bring this up
because this is a good point
about this national versus the
state sort of understanding.
At the point at which Colorado
looks like it might be promising
to the women in Colorado,
the national organization
was very committed to Kansas
and has decided that Kansas
is the only state that looks
like it would be possible.
And so, the women on the
ground, the Colorado women
on the ground, are
writing desperately
to the national organization
that has the resources, right?
You know, it's promising here.
Please come in and
support a campaign.
You know, we swear it's
more promising than Kansas.
And the response written
back to them is ha-ha.
You know, what do you know?
It's a fascinating
exchange, in part,
because the exchange
is carried --
the person representing
the national organization,
at that point, is
Carrie Chapman Catt,
who will become the president.
But here she is figuring
out this politics very
early on in the movement.
I'm pretty convinced that
that campaign was a really,
a game changer for
her as a politician
and as a political strategist.
And so, she wrote --
she's having an exchange
with a local Colorado leader.
She's actually Alice Meredith.
She's actually the
daughter of the editor
of the Rocky Mountain News.
Right? So, the main paper,
and, you know Meredith is
like come, please come.
This is promising,
and it's promising
because of our politics, and
there are these populists.
We don't know anything about
populism these days, right?
There are these populists,
and there's this push
for free silver, and there's
lots of political unrest,
and we have an in here.
And the national is like, no.
Kansas is where it's at.
And so, Meredith
writes back this missive
with like numbered points about
how politics actually worked,
and why the national
is so wrong about this.
And Catt had written that
the national's position was,
you know we haven't talked
with anyone who has, you know,
who thinks that there's
any real chance here.
The support is going to Kansas,
and Meredith writes back.
You say you talked with
no one who knows --
you think's there's any support.
Have you talked with anyone
who actually knows
anything about the state?
So, they have this exchange,
it is finally convincing.
And there's the whole Catt going
back to the national leadership,
and there's a renegotiation, and
yeah, we should maybe send --
and Catt actually becomes
the national's representative
that gets sent out to Colorado.
She travels the state.
She gets up on stage and
personally endorses free silver,
because it's what the
Colorado women tell her.
Now this isn't something
that they're going
to do any other part
of the country, right?
But for the Colorado
campaign, it's the thing to do.
Why? Because it's the
Populist Party that's going
to help them get over
this referendum hurdle.
So, the Populist Party that
is going to actually deliver,
not just the legislative
votes, right, but is going
to work the polls in a way
that only men can do
at this point, right?
And so, I think Colorado is
a fascinating story for all
of these pieces about this
national versus state sort
of what's at stake, how varied
the conditions politically
and otherwise can be and how
much this national leadership is
actually fairly East
Coast, right, leadership.
I mean, Catt is from Iowa, but
she's transplanted, you know,
in terms of working with the
national organization that's --
>> Elaine Weiss: And it works.
>> Corrine McConnaughy:
Right, and it works, right?
And that's what they learned.
>> Colleen Shogan: And
another national versus local
and state issue, of course,
is race, is interacting
at the national level,
but definitely
at the state and local level.
You really can't have a
substantive conversation
about the women's suffrage
movement without talking
about the role of race.
So, can you talk about why race
is so important in the fight
for women's right to vote,
and how it becomes
increasingly important
as they march towards
the ratification
of the 19th Amendment?
>> Elaine Weiss: So,
race is important
at the very outset
of the movement.
When you think of it, the
women's suffrage movement grows
out of the abolition movement.
It grows out of those ideas
of divine rights of people,
of the divine spark,
and the women we think
of as the foremothers of
the suffrage movement,
and even the men who were
involved in the early part
of the women's suffrage
movement,
are beginners abolitionists.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Susan Anthony,
Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone.
They're all out there as
campaigners for abolition,
and they risked their
lives at that.
I mean, there's incredible
descriptions of Lucretia Mott,
you know, leading a group
out of a burning building,
which has been set afire
because they were having an
abolition meeting.
So, these women are
abolitionists,
in the movements are moved in
tandem through the Civil War.
The women are working
for emancipation.
They're pushing President
Lincoln
to sign the Emancipation
Proclamation.
They organized something
called the Loyal League,
the Union Loyal League,
and it's the first national
women's organization.
So, they're really kind
of cutting their teeth
on political organizing,
and you know,
one of the most moving
moments that I discovered
in researching my book
is at Seneca Falls,
it's Frederick Douglass
who stands up,
who's there because he's been
working with all these women
in the abolition movement.
It's no coincidence
that he's there.
He's been invited.
He stands up and he supports --
Susan Anthony's not even there.
She's not part of
the movement yet,
but he supports Elizabeth
Santon's call
for enfranchisement.
It was one of her resolutions,
and it was considered
outrageous,
and most of the other,
her other friends
and colleagues said
withdraw that.
That's going too far.
We can't ask for the vote.
And it's actually Frederick
Douglass who stands up
and says, oh yes, you must.
You must fight for this
vote, for the vote,
because it's not going
to be given to you.
It's not going to
be given to me.
And we both have
to fight for it.
So, the idea that after
the Civil War there's going
to be universal suffrage,
that both black men,
the emancipated black men,
black women, and white women,
all the people who have
been disenfranchised,
most of the people who
have been disenfranchised,
would be able to vote.
And so, it's after, in the
reconstruction amendments
in the 14th and 15th Amendments,
when women are left out,
and again, it's the
powers, those in power,
pitted the two disenfranchised
classes against each other
and said, no, only
one of you can --
the nation can't handle
two big reforms at once.
So, it's either going to be, you
know, black men or, you know,
we can't attach having all
women get the vote, too.
And this splits the
coalition apart, and the most
of the women are very angry.
Some of the suffragists actually
accept the idea of that the 14th
and 15th Amendments will not
allow women to be part of it.
So, the whole, it
becomes fraught.
It becomes fraught politically,
as it will be socially, too,
because they are working in a
completely segregated society.
And so, suffrage clubs are
segregated, for the most part,
in the North and the South.
And that tension of who
is going to be represented
by the movement, who's
going to be included,
whose voices are going to
be heard, will continue
to haunt the movement,
you know, to the end.
But I think one of the racial
aspects that I discovered
and I think is really
important to bring out is, yes,
there's racism within
the suffrage movement,
and there are certainly
racist suffragists,
but it's the anti-suffragists
who really weaponize the concept
of race and use that as
a political cudgel to try
to defeat women's suffrage
and the 19th Amendment.
So, it's the anti-suffragists
who are accusing the suffragists
of being too friendly to
black women and saying,
is this what you want?
So, the suffragists were
caught like in between.
They're being, you know,
honestly criticized
by black women saying
you're not --
you know, are you going
to leave us behind?
And then, you have the white
anti-suffragists saying
if you allow these
women, all women to vote,
the black women are
going to vote,
and these suffragists
are advocating that.
So, they're in this
real bind, and it's --
race becomes a huge issue, as it
comes down to the ratification.
>> Corrine McConnaughy: Yeah,
so, I think it's important
to realize that -- so women's
suffrage, as a real proposal,
emerges in northern states in
the 1840s, it doesn't emerge
as a real issue southern,
any of the southern states
until after the Civil War.
And the Era of Reconstruction
and Redemption is what's sort
of going to define what the
southern movement is going
to look like, and the turns on
which southern women are going
to advocate for the
right to vote.
And that, I think, is
important to point out,
is also more fraught
than is often presented.
The idea that white
supremacy is a on-the-surface,
political agenda is inescapable.
Nobody's hiding it.
Nobody's talking in coded
language about it, right?
This is very much
overt politics.
So, of maintaining,
reasserting, and then,
maintaining a white
supremacist system,
explicitly white
supremacist system,
in the south after redemption.
So, there are southern
suffragists who, southern women
who become suffragists, who
embrace, essentially, that idea
and begin to argue for white
women's voting rights very
explicitly as white women's
voting rights and attempt
to push southern states to adopt
their own white women's suffrage
positions to, you
know, negate the call
for the national amendment,
which might, right,
engender a different
kind of voting oversight.
So, there were definitely
those but there are also,
in the South, women who are
committed to women's suffrage
by any means, and the State of
Louisiana is a great example.
The Gordon sisters are there.
They are on.
They are well-resourced women.
They are on the side
of the maintain the
white supremacist order
of things, with women included.
But there is also a more
progressive minded movement
coming out of New Orleans, also
white women, but white women
who are willing to
say, actually we stand
for women's rights no matter
what, and we will advocate
for national amendment or
we'll do this the state way.
Either way, but we're
less like less worried
about the racial order, per se.
So, I think you have a
burden to point out, right,
that there are the sort of
general tendencies, and then,
there were people, you know,
making the general more
complicated in lots of ways.
The Louisiana movement, in
fact, will spend the tail end
of the movement years with two
separate state organizations
fighting each other
and fighting for claim
on which one should actually be
the state's official recognized
national affiliated
organization.
>> Elaine Weiss: Yeah, I just
want to elaborate on that, too.
That when it comes down
to ratification, you know,
which is what my book is about.
So, it's finally
passed Congress.
Basically, the suffragists
realized that there are going
to be some states, including
Maryland, including Virginia,
who never give women the vote,
because of the racial aspects.
And so, this, okay, it's got
to be a 19th -- not a 19th.
There's got to be a
constitutional amendment,
and it gets defeated in
almost every, not quite every,
state of the old Confederacy.
And the reasons, I mean,
there's complicated reasons.
Each state's a little
different, but basically,
it's a states rights issue.
So, it's very much what we're
talking about that the idea
that if states can make their
own rules about who is eligible,
then the states that want to can
just say white women will vote,
and in the southern states,
that's what they want.
They want just white
women shall vote.
And a federal amendment is
going to bring oversight
from Washington and is
going to say, oh, no.
All women are entitled
to the vote.
Now it will get subverted by Jim
Crow laws, again, state laws,
that will undermine
the 19th Amendment.
But that's the tension.
The southern states
are saying no.
We don't want Washington
to be able to tell us
who are eligible voters, who
we allow in our ballot boxes.
We'll hear that same argument
in the mid-20th century
in the Civil Rights Movement
when the southern states will
make the exact same argument,
and it's only the voting rights
act that will give some teeth
to protecting it,
and we're back there.
We're back in that situation,
because we have states
that are making discriminatory
voting restrictions
on minority communities.
So, that tension's still there.
>> Corrine McConnaughy:
And it's not just an idea.
I mean, so, the Gordon
sisters invent the proposal
to push the southern states
to adopt primary
suffrage for women.
At this point, the
southern states have managed
to exert the right to have
primaries the whites only.
So, this is the actual --
and envision Texas and
Oklahoma both adopt this.
This is what the southern --
the Gordon sisters' branch of
the southern movement is --
this is their invention, their
policy proposal invention.
They've actually got it adopted
in a few of the southern states.
So, they actually do think
that there's a realistic path
to a state-level approach to
enfranchising only white women,
and I think that they haven't --
>> Elaine Weiss: And so, what
happens is at the very end,
the Gordon sisters
and their colleague,
Laura Clay from Kentucky,
who have spent their
entire lives working
for women's suffrage, come
to Tennessee, the last day
who will put it over the
top, but the last state,
the last great battle,
and they're working
against ratification
of the 19th Amendment,
because they still want
it only state based.
>> Colleen Shogan: So,
last question before we go
to the audience, and I know you
probably have some questions,
today's Human Rights Day.
So, we want to make this
relevant, also to today.
A lot of women want to be
involved in politics today
in all kinds of different
facets.
What do you think
women can learn
from the women's
suffrage movement?
What can they learn as the
continuing for the fight
for human rights and women's
rights goes on globally
and in the United States?
>> Elaine Weiss: Persistence.
I think that's one of the themes
that really was so
impressive to me.
These women were defeated
time and time again
at the state level,
at the national level.
There were many more
defeats than successes.
They were humiliated.
They were attacked.
They were imprisoned.
They were force-fed.
They were belittled, and they
would brush themselves off
and come back, and they
had political strategies
that sometimes didn't work,
and sometimes brought
them to a dead end.
But they always came up with a
strategy to go to the next level
and to figure out
what went wrong.
What went wrong in
that state referendum?
What went wrong in
that lobbying campaign
in Congress in that session?
And so, they used the political
tools that they had gained,
and they became master
politicians.
They weren't just activists.
I mean, they are activists
and, you know, I'm wearing --
and Colleen are wearing,
our jailhouse pin,
which is the symbol of the
women who went to prison
for picketing the White House.
But even more importantly,
they were lobbyists.
They were campaigners.
They were political women, and
they knew what they were doing,
and they learned
to use those tools.
And I think that's something
that today's activists are
learning, or need to learn,
and also, that it's not,
you know one demonstration
and, okay, I've done it.
Went to that women's march.
It takes a lot of political
strategy and political action,
and it takes going
back after failing.
And I think that was something
that I think must be
brought into the present.
>> Corrine McConnaughy:
Like I, too,
because I'm a political
scientist, and so,
I'll own that this is very
much what a political scientist
would say.
One is that, you know,
federalism, it's real.
And so, so is the real
importance of local organizing.
But we don't get the 19th
Amendment without the women
on the ground in states
and cities who figured
out what the national
didn't know.
Who did the real,
grinding, day to day work
without ever thinking that,
you know, there was glory
at the end of this, right?
They weren't the
ones being written
up in the New York
Times, infamously or not.
And they're not the ones we're
building statues to, right?
They were doing this
for the sake
of making their communities
better
and they were leveraging
their own local expertise
and local organization mattered.
My other one as a
political scientist is
that the other thing that really
mattered more women coming
to suffrage from other
organized capacities.
So, you know, all
of our organization can
ultimately become a tool
for politics, right?
Women in the Grange, women
in the farmers alliance,
pushed those organizations,
the men of those organizations,
to use their great
lobbying power
to push for women's suffrage.
Women in labor organizations,
labor unions,
trade union leagues
pushed those organizations.
So, they came not just
from formal suffrage
associations, right?
Much of the political clout that
ultimately made this happen came
from outside of and then
was hooked into, right?
And so, you know,
be involved, right?
I think, you know, not
underestimating the power
of the involvement that you
already have, and the good work
that you already do in your
community, and the ability
to translate that always into
something more by being willing
and to look for opportunities
to work with others.
>> Colleen Shogan: Yeah, civic
skills are transferrable.
>> Corrine McConnaughy:
They are.
[Laughing]
>> Colleen Shogan: Okay,
so there must be some
really great questions
from our audience for our
two experts here today.
Sure. [Speaking off mic].
Oh, we have a microphone,
I think, that's coming
so that we can capture
your question.
[Speaking off mic].
Yeah, thank you.
>> Audience Member:
I just was interested
in the farmer's alliance group
and their position
in the right to vote.
>> Corrine McConnaughy: Yes.
[ Speaking off Mic ]
Yeah, so, again, this is
something I documented
in my book.
This, in my opinion,
is suffragists' greatest
coalition partner.
The farmers organizations
throughout both the Midwest
and further west, and even
elements in the South.
So, we get glimpses of
possibilities in the so, right,
and they are from small farmers,
right, figuring out movements
with ability to organize.
So, many of these
organizations started
as fraternal organizations,
right?
Sort of just ways to keep people
living in rural areas connected.
And so, they were co-ed
from the get go, and so,
these farming organizations,
the Grange, Farmers Alliance,
were quite quick,
actually, to integrate women
into their organizational
structures.
Women, eventually, even
become Grange Masters
in some of these states.
And their own women's membership
pushes for those organizations
who are -- the farmers lobby is
politically incredibly powerful
at that moment in
American history, right?
And inside its women
inside those organizations
that can convince the
organizations to commit, right?
Convince. There's a story I
tell in my book about the case
of Michigan and the
state Grange comes in.
So, Michigan Legislature, the
suffrage working with partners,
including farmers
organizations, had been working,
and they've gotten really close,
and they have lots of friends
in the legislature and all,
like the [inaudible]
is against them, right?
So, they have friends, but
they also have powerful foes,
and they lose a really
devastating,
really devastating
legislative loss.
They actually had a friend of
the governor who was willing
to call the legislature
right back into session
and say, try again, boys.
And there's one thing
that changes, and that is,
the state Grange decides
that they are going
to descend upon the legislature.
And so, the Grange organization
shows up at the state capital.
The legislative chair
in Michigan
like rights these really
fascinating, you know,
recounts of exactly -- I thought
we were going to lose again,
she's writing, but
they showed up!
And she's like this is
the list of legislators.
They went in offices
and converted them,
and out they came, and we won.
You know, we won the next time.
So, the sorts of coalitions,
this is how you get men, right?
This is how you get these
connections that you have forged
in other spaces, right?
These other organizations that
Elaine was talking about, well,
you have to change culture.
What like they were
organizations where, right,
spaces in which that change
culture was being worked
out in a very organic
way, right?
And these women were
doing important work
for those farmers
organizations, and they pushed.
That this is what
we want in return.
>> Elaine Weiss: Yeah, I mean,
the suffragists had to make,
we talk about intersectionality
today, but the suffragists had
to face, because it's
a long, long movement.
>> Corrine McConnaughy:
[Whispering] it's a
very long movement.
>> Elaine Weiss: And in that
span, a lot of movements
and a lot of historical
moments happened
that forced the suffragists
to either make alliances
that would be helpful or make
alliances that seemed organic.
And sometimes, they'd
then have to step back.
Or sometimes they make
strange bedfellows.
So, for instance, the Ku Klux
Klan actually supported suffrage
in the South.
Why? Because it would
bring white women
in to bolster the white vote.
But, you know, it's a
weird thing that they're
out there advocating
for women's suffrage.
The Carrie Chapman Catt makes
the wrenching personal decision,
as we enter World
War I in the spring
of 1917, to support the war.
She is personally a
pacifist, as is Jane Addams,
as is several other suffrage
leaders, but they say no.
This will get us --
this will bring friends.
This will impress Congress.
This will show that we're
patriotic, That we're citizens.
We deserve to vote, and so, she
even agrees to be on this as,
as does Anna Howard Shaw, it's
kind of sham Women's Committee
that President Wilson creates
as window dressing to say,
you know, women are involved,
and women were involved
in the war, but it's something
that personally was very
distasteful to several of them,
but they made that
political calculation.
They were going to
become -- support the war,
and Carrie Catt writes a formal
letter to President Wilson
that says that I
offer the services
of the two million women
of the National American
Suffragist Association.
And it kills her to do it,
and she spends the rest
of her life atoning for
it by working for peace
in several different
organizations
and founds several
organizations for pacifists.
But it's really fascinating
to see those kind
of alliances meet
and sometimes split.
It's, you know, again, a lesson
in political organization.
>> Colleen Shogan: Another
question I think I saw.
>> Audience Member:
Hi, good evening.
If you could choose one moment
during the suffrage movement
that made the ratification
of the 19th amendment
politically viable,
what would that moment be?
>> Elaine Weiss:
You can go first.
>> Corrine McConnaughy: Made the
ratification politically viable?
Oh, I suppose I'd go back to --
I think again, as a political
scientist, I think always
about like who was
pressuring votes, right?
And these partnerships with --
so, we just talked
about partnership withs
farmers was fairly organic.
Partnership with labor
was far more difficult,
and it gets a big boost
under the Roosevelt run
as a progressive candidate.
So, if I think there's an
inflection point toward the 19th
Amendment, I'd probably place
it there Roosevelt running
as a progressive --
>> Elaine Weiss: Theodore.
Theodore.
>> Elaine Weiss: Yes,
right, TR the first.
He endorses, right?
He bolts from Republicans.
He endorses women's suffrage.
That causes both
the major parties
to address women's suffrage
for the first time ever
at their national conventions.
So, it's not until
Roosevelt bolts
on the Progressive Party
ticket and upsets, right,
the political order,
that we get a willingness
of the major party organizations
to actually take this seriously.
So, that 1916 conventions is
the first time the major parties
ever addressed the suffrage
issue in a serious way,
and both of them have planks
in their 1916 Commission.
So, I would probably
put it on that moment
of the progressive bolting
and part of what makes
that work is how it
upsets the partisan sort
of status quo, and
this is the idea.
That they're fighting over
these farmer/labor votes.
Where are they going to end up?
>> Elaine Weiss: I guess that
when it comes to the endgame,
to the ratification, there
are two major leaders.
There's Carrie Chapman Catt,
and there's Alice Paul,
who are working separately
but towards the same goal
of ratification, and they have
to fight this in 48 states.
They have to get, once it
passes Congress, which, again,
took 40 years and it only passes
in the Senate by two votes.
So, this idea that
there was consensus,
that there was a feeling,
oh, the time has come.
Of course, women, half of the
nation, deserves the vote.
It isn't true.
It was still a slog.
And in some states, some states,
they passed a, unanimously,
stood up and sang "Battle
Hymn of the Republic."
We know that.
And in some, it's fought to
the teeth, and Carrie Catt
and Alice Paul are strategizing,
mobilizing, sending crews,
going out themselves,
talking to the governors,
talking to the legislatures.
So, if there's, you know, if you
want to make it those leaders
but they're leading, you know,
enormous armies within
the states.
And I think one of the
great, exciting things
about celebrating the
centennial, which we are
about to do, is that it's
bringing up all those names
of women and men who
fought at the local level.
So, states are beginning
to really delve
into their own history
and celebrate the women
who are working at that level,
who maybe have not been talked
about before, and
researchers are doing that.
And also, looking for the
other voices which were not
in the normal historical
research spots.
So, the role of African-American
suffragists has been, really,
not neglected, because there
have been wonderful scholarship
about it, but it hasn't kind
of percolated to the public,
and that's beginning to happen.
The wonderful Shall Not
be Denied Exhibit here,
the one in the National
Portrait Gallery,
the one in the National
Archives are all beginning,
at the national level, to bring
up some of those other voices
of other participants, but
also at the state level,
it's happening and
at the local level,
and that's really
exciting, because there are
so many participants in this.
It's not just Carrie
Catt and Alice Paul.
It's all those other women who
devoted their lives to this
and sent their nickels and,
you know, went through the mud
and snow knocking on doors.
So, that's an exciting part
of celebrating this, I think.
>> Colleen Shogan:
One last question.
Actually, I have two right here.
So, we can kind of keep
them really distinct.
>> Audience Member: Could you
tell me what role Lucy Stone
played and in which states,
and also, whether or not people
like Mother Jones, people like
that, that were down in places
like West Virginia,
any leaders there?
>> Colleen Shogan: So, Lucy
Stone, and then, the question
about if there were
leaders in West Virginia.
>> Elaine Weiss:
Well, certainly,
there are leaders
in West Virginia.
I do not happen to
know their names,
but there are great histories
that, in fact, the Sixth Volume
of the Movement National
American Women's Suffrage
Association, History
of Women's Suffrage,
will give you some of those.
But just go online and put
West Virginia suffragists,
and you'll get --
>> Colleen Shogan: Actually,
on our commission website,
we have the state-by-state
chronicling.
So, we would have that on there.
We have state kits
for every state
that will explain the
leaders in the state.
There's a great women's
history initiative
that we're supporting, where
we're going to be erecting three
or four memorials in every
state, chronicling the fight
for women's suffrage,
either at the state level
or at the national involvement.
So, there's, yeah,
I agree, there is.
>> Corrine McConnaughy:
And, as far as Lucy Stone,
she's based in Boston is,
you know, she leads a schism
within the movement
in 1870, 1868,
and found the American
women's suffrage Association,
and they are -- they have
slightly different ideas of how
to pursue getting suffrage
for all American women.
The two groups finally, so,
they separated for a generation,
and they finally come
back together in 1890.
And so, that was the
National American Women's
Suffrage Association.
It's the combination, and she's
certainly great force in --
>> Corrine McConnaughy: So,
what I love about Lucy Stone is
that Lucy Stone and Henry
Blackwell, it's a family affair,
and it's the -- in their
letters to each other
and referencing each
other are just a portrait
in like a marriage built
on political conviction,
and it's amazing to me how much
Library of Congress, you know,
the Library of Congress is
responsible for preserving
so many of the documents,
including much
of their many pieces of their
correspondence, and Blackwell
and Stone are really
a team that very --
they have very complementary
skills.
Blackwell is sort of among
the first to be articulating
in private correspondence
this idea
of like well how are we going
to -- he's articulating this.
The conundrum, the --
- so, you need parties
that think this is a good idea,
but we can't promise them votes.
So, but we have to
solve this problem.
Right? And it's really
interesting to sort
of see this go around
between them.
So, that's one of
the things about,
for many of these other women,
it wasn't necessarily
a family affair, right?
It was this sort of --
Anthony is not married.
Kitty Stanton sort of get the
chance to go off, and then,
eventually, you know,
sort of she's at home,
and Anthony is doing
the more public work.
But what I love about Lucy Stone
is that it's a family affair,
and that involved their
children eventually.
>> Colleen Shogan: We have
one more question here.
>> Elaine Weiss: Those letters
have been digitized, too.
>> Elaine Weiss:
Right, yes, yes.
As we were saying, the
Library of Congress has them.
>> Audience Member: Thank you.
I was just wondering did the
women's suffrage movement
in the US have any impact
on suffrage movements
around the globe?
>> Elaine Weiss: Oh, yes.
We showed, or I think I
would put that another way.
Do the suffrage movements
around the globe have
an effect on America?
Because we're only
I think 27th nation
to grant the women
citizens the vote.
We're very behind.
There's a big push
after World War I,
but I think New Zealand
is the first,
almost 50 years before America.
So, we were not in the
vanguard in any way.
Someone like Carrie Chapman
Catt and Jane Addams are leaders
of the International
Women's Suffrage Association,
which is Catt and Susan Anthony
was involved in forming this
with the British leaders,
and it's international.
This is an international
movement.
They meet every few years,
usually in a European capital.
And they trade what's working.
You know, how did you do that?
And they bolster each other
and they have this
sense of sisterhood.
And so, it's a very
international movement.
>> Colleen Shogan:
This is a British idea.
>> Elaine Weiss: Yes,
this is a British idea
that Alice Paul learns from
participating in protests
in Great Britain and brings the
idea of these sort of medals
of honor if you've
been in prison.
And so, this is actually
Hollowell Prison.
This is the door of
Hollowell Prison in London.
The white is also an
international symbol, too.
It's also very interesting,
because you can watch the
sort of, the pageantry,
the symbolism, you
can also see travel
across international
borders, too.
>> Corrine McConnaughy:
The white is also an
international symbol, too.
You can watch the sort of
pageantry, the symbolism,
you can also see traveling
across international
borders, too.
And so, the wearing of white
at suffrage demonstrations
becomes an international
pattern, as well.
>> Elaine Weiss: And the
colors, you know, the green
and the purple and the yellow.
It has a slightly different
meanings in Great Britain.
There's this beautiful
picture, oh,
a 1917 suffrage referendum
parade in New York,
because they were
about to vote on it,
and a woman in full kimono.
She is a Japanese
representative.
And they were pushing
really hard for the vote,
but they don't it, actually,
until after World War II.
>> Colleen Shogan: Please
join me in thanking Corrine
and Elaine for a wonderful
discussion this evening.
[ Applause ]
And thank you to
the Law Library,
also, for sponsoring this.
Thank you.
>> Elaine Weiss: Thank you.