Transcripts For CSPAN2 Winifred 20240704

9 00 p. M. Eastern catch washington today for a fastpaced report on the stories of the day but listen to cspan any time just tell your Smart Speaker play cspan radio. Cspan powered by cable. Helping democracy is not just look like this. It looks like this where americans can seat democracy at work where citizens are truly informed. Where the public thrives. Get informed straight from the source on cspan unfiltered, unbiased, word for word from the nations capitol to wherever you are it is the opinion that matters the most is your own. This is what democracy looks like. Cspan powered by cable. Let me tell you about our speaker tonight. Winifred gallaghers book include how the Great America house thinking, just the way you are, a New York Times notable book working on god, the power of place, rapt attention the focus life and new, understanding our need for novelty and change. She has written for numerous publications such as the atlantic monthly, rolling stone, and the New York Times. Her newest book new women in the old west from settlers to suffragists. Untold american story. It is available for purchase fromit our partner bookseller politics and prose. If you use the link in the chat boxr which is also available on our website you will be able to purchase the book with a 10 discount. Just make sure to use the code special 10 when checking out. Now please join me and welcoming two of the smithsonians winifred gallagher. Height when deferred. Hi kathy. It is wonderful to be here with you. Before i begin, i would like to say a few words whom you see on your screen with her cousin. They are on the homestead and northwest north dakota. She was a Norwegian Immigrant who spoke no english at all when she arrived in the u. S. But she filed her homestead claim, lived on it for five years, then sold for a nice profit. Which she used to start a new career as a photographer it with withher own studio. The other women will talk about tonight, she made the most of the unusual people the American West forwarded to new women. I would like to explain also we will pick up the slides later in my talk partly because the women in general, particularly the ones im going to talk about were not much photographed until the womens Rights Movement really picked up later in the 19th century. I began thinking about women new women in the old west during my 12 years of living have time in rural wyoming. I was impressed by the strong versatile women starting with the w 80yearold mayor who prey much ran a local affairs from government to business. And that is not even counting the actual cowgirls. Was there something in the water . I did some research and found my friends were carrying on a long tradition of independent competence on mindedness. It began and the old west era of the 1840s into the early 20th century. Went more than half of america was settled. But historians failed to notice however, was that women are busy busybuilding homes and communits from scratch not only joined but a crucial moment read the human rights revolution that enfranchised half the nation. Indeed, by the time the 19th amendment was finally ratified in 1920, most western women had already voted for years, sometimes for decades before their sisters and a single state back east. The colonization of the wests on the Suffrage Movement were over lapping and three generations of women were critical to both. Yet their doublebarreled achievement have simply been neglected. According to the foundational myth strong silence and then run the west. In fact, women were equal essential to the process. Moreover they were not stereotypical murderous pioneer wives or hookers with hearts of gold who supported men in various ways. But single homesteaders and doctors on suffragists. In their experimental improvised Settlers Society, these hardworking determined women found unique opportunities, social, political, economic to become more equal to men by acting more as equals. All of these white, black, asian women were new to the west. Some of them and some of the native american and Hispanic Women also came to personify what was called the new woman. These new womenec rejected the 19th century selfsacrificing domesticity. And anticipated the early 20th century more liberated models. Based on the kinds traditionally limited to i appreciate inc. Womens west s understanding something about their position in larger American Society which was terrible. They were citizens in name only. They had no official place. Very few legal rights. According to americas version of English Common law a married woman, a wife, who covered by or officially absorbed into her husbands person. In exchange for his support and protection she was legally obliged to serve and obey him. She could not own or inherit or hcontrol property including her own earnings. She could not sue in court, run a business divorce or even claim custody of her own children. The connection between womens lack of economicc status and a lack of rights was highlighted in america just after the revolutionary war. While that man fox, many women including Abigail Adams the future first lady capably ran their family farms and enterprises. An recognition of their service patriotism new york, new jersey, massachusetts and New Hampshire allowed them to vote. Then the menhe returned from the war. By the time of the constitutions ratification in 1788 most women had been disenfranchised they held until 1807. By the mid 19th century rapidly gathered r steam and rapidly urbanizing america, womens status declined further. At least those t of the middle d upper classes. In the old agrarian economy home and work were inter mashed on farms the labor of both sectors sustain the family. Especially the booming urban areas and job in the new factories and offices now supported their wives and children. R eager to codify this huge shift confined to or you routinely called separate spheres. Menn got the public world of the homeex excuse me they got the public world of industry and commerce law and politics. Women got the private world of the home they continued to do housework and childcare but they lost the status of economic co providers for their families. Their only acceptable career was marriage. Indeed they could compromise their respectable reputation simply by seeking a mans education. Much less auc profession. Arjust as a westward migration began however, social reformers started to renovate the victorian home. Turning it into womens new power center. They built upon a theory evolving since the 18th century they were not so much inferior to men as it always been thought and different from them. They were weaker andm. Dimmer of course but also more elevated, nurturing, virtuous. Which quickly became a secular bible on how respectable people should live, Catherine Beecher a champion of female education and a mother of Home Economics put the home and the homemaker at the very center of americas rapidly changingly Society Women were no near. But the arbiters of morays and manners, child rearing, charity, important matters previously adjudicated by men. Indeed beecher went so far as to proclaim what was later termed womens moral authority perhaps even superiority create a balance of power. It has been america alone women are raised to inequality thats a pretty radical thing to say. This glorification of their domestic role endowed women had elevated their social standing. Also provided for a platform for launching campaigns for further empowerment. A certain irony that they turn which was keeping them down in a certain level. They turned it into an advantaged to go from home to world. Enslaved women who had worked cannot emulate the genteel model of womanhood and gratian are the first female teachers and nurses did so qualify amply if at all. The aspirational ideal of the domestic the fuse sentimental religious v vittoria in society migrated to the west. Most 19th century americans including beecher considered politics to base a pursuit for women but not all. In july 1848 as migration increased Elizabeth Cady stanton who we see here and her magnificence. And Lucretia Mott both abolitionists famously held a meeting in seneca falls, new york. To discuss what were first called women rights. The event was later promoted as the birthplace but seneca falls really helped to formalize and republis size earlier amid the ferocious battle to abolish slavery. By the 1830s, black abolitionists soon personified upheld universal suffrage they inspired white women abolitionists to rebel against their own secondclass status which was based on gender instead of race. They were well aware in their of theirown upstate community oe women the iroquois have long han property and leaders. After two days stanton wrote a declaration of sentiments that elegantly rephrase Thomas Jefferson all men and women are created equal. Despite the lofty language the first goal was distinctly practical and domestic. They prioritize the rights to control property, divorce and maintain child custody. But help protect their families from improvident or abusive husbands. Even these zealots considered suffrage so farfetched they included in their declaration after the lastminute arguments. Mainstream society however, the women rights proclaimed including equal education and employment are considered so ludicrous newspapers, lampoon the idea by printing a list of the womens rights. In that same year of 1848 territories passed the Mississippi River gold was discovered in california on the vast oregon territory also claimed what is now our enormous southwest as spoils from the mexicanamerican war. The rush to the new frontier began in earnest. Whats it differed from the rest of america in significant ways that affected womens positions starting. Until the turn of the century white men significantly outnumbered white women there particularly in towns and cities. Scarcity increase their value as the overall supply and demand. Far less popular that list was home to a great majority of the countries native american, hispanic and asian which position the white anglosaxon protestant women who dominated these early migrations to be cast as material among savages and an alleged wilderness. Quickly became a showcase for the virtuous homemaker in her snug cabin. Transcontinental expansion. Women status benefited from conditions in the west sandler societyde which by definition it was simpler and more interested in progress than in tradition. It was all hands on deck, everyone was needed to do whatever needed doing and people could not pay too much attention to these victorian ideas about what womens work and mens work. In the west as in most of America Today took industrious partners which increase the value of womens work. No man wanted to homestead without his wife to do all the domestic work, give birth to the work labor force and importantly earn money from her home production whether selling eggs or bread or taking and selling or borders. By the time the pioneers got to the west they were often cash poor they had very little with them there was no help to be had. This gave women a lot of opportunities the cash they made for the first couple of years supported their family. Not surprisingly agrarian women had their pick of suitors. Too many men, not enough womens, women got to be very picky. And mining town women is their domestic skills to make what seemed like small fortunes by marketing hot meals and clean laundry to the overwhelmingly mail population. The pioneer woman of song and score it may be the than her remote homestead. But women have equally valid claim to the title. In 1849 after barely surviving especially taxing migration from missouri tattered and penniless. She was one of three what i womenamongst 6000 m men. One morning offered her 5 thats about 168 today even in new york that be excessive. He wouldve paid her 10 that she wouldve asked for. She soon bought her first boardinghouse and prospered as u pioneer in the west Hospitality Industry at a time when few women ran businesses elsewhere. Her final hotel the previous one had burned down so she loaded her cookstove in the wagon and took her kids they stopped at a nice spot and got some hay bales she hung up a sign saying Wilsons Hotel her first guest on slept on the other side of the hay bales. She was a very good cook. They west Settlers Society was free of entrenched hidebound establishment determined to keep women in their place. Building n communities required every pair of hands and the town mothers who organized many of the first schools, churches, charities greatly enhanced womens position in public life. One of the things that really annoyed men when answering the search on the book was because women did not have the legal right to start an institution, she found corporations, the women would do all the work to start the school or the hospital and their husbands would appear in the newspaper that it was his school. It was his hospital. And he got the credit for being the town father instead of the town mother. During sarahs first year and gold rush california she held Church Services in her familys intent. This went on for more than five years i believe. When they finally settled in california in 1854, the teacher turned her modest one thousand to a school port hurley resources were some books she had found and an abandoned wagon of bible, some fables. But her homeschooled son became a famous harvard philosopher. As her daughterinlaw later put it, quote wherever she was she madede civilization even when it seemed she had very little indeed from which to make it. Thats kind of a great quote that applies to a lot of these women we are talking about. When she arrived for central city, colorado brown, a black freed woman worked as a washer woman until she could start her own laundry. As your business expanded, she shrewdly invested in mines and real estate. She accumulated 10,0000 dollars then a huge sum and became a philanthropist. In other freed people to migrate to colorado. After searching for the four children who had been soaks during slavery she finally found her daughter. The local paper mark t the occasion describing brown is still strong, rigorous, tall. Her hair thickly streaked with gray her hair kind. Women like wilson and brown were not considered equal to men. But they had narrowed that gap. Their record of hard work and dedication one respect and made them a Political Force albeit not electoral to be reckoned with. During the civil war small but influential groups began to capitalize on two unique opportunities to get ahead. In the process they will be treated as equals by the federal government. Very important legal precedents. President lincoln and his more gender a galanter and republicans to the greater reconstruction. We are far too narrow of an idea of reconstruction was meant to create a coasttocoast nation that actually it never existed before we think about most of america on the east coast and the south. Gold was discovered in california theres a whole lot of nothing in the middle of there. The unifying the south going to study than half of america people forget that left is more than half of america. It does not get the same press it is considered flyover country. Its history is phenomenally interesting. Anyway in 1862 Congress Passed the homestead act. Which enabled a female as well as mail heads of household to claim 160 acres of free land in the west. At a time when most women had few Economic Opportunities at all. The chance to own real estate that could support an independentea life or to sell wo later for a sizable profit was a stunning advance. Bear in mind means or wealthier women. The only career they were allowed to have wasnt marriage. If no one would marry then they had to more or less live as an unpaid servant for one of their mail relatives. They landed their brothers children or they took care of grandpa and his old age. If you are a poor woman the only opportunities you had were really domestic service. This idea a woman could own her own property and support herself on her own land was pretty phenomenal event. Women. Especially did not have the opportunity to accumulate capitol. The ideait you could own this ld and then sell its and end up with 30 or 40000 in todays money was an amazing breakthrough. Importantly, women homesteaders also attained land owner status. The days at the agrarian founders washington, jefferson had been tied to citizenship was social standing. At first and america the only men who were allowed to vote for white men who owned property. Their names, the women homesteaders names on tax rolls besides mens becames important arguments for womens full citizenship. Few single women elsewhere could dream of a home of their own much less enough land for a farm. In 1873 pauline, a single 53yearold scandinavian immigrants, a lot of these women were middleaged. Filed for a homestead on a remote minnesota frontier. She lived near where Laura Inglis Wilder set her fourth book inn the little house series it was on the banks of plum creek. So pauline lived right near plum creek. And periodic plagues of grasshoppers wiped out gardens and houses and farms in moments. Despite the challenges, five years later when pauline finalized her claim, she ownea 14 by 15foot cabin, cattle, appeared and chickens. She produced or hundred bushels of wheat, dozens of eggs and. She lived off her land for 14 years and then sold it for 1280, more than 30,000 today. To make additional income for our retirement in a in a se in town she carried the mortgage. A lot of the women homesteaders after they proved up their claims they would hang on to the land and rent it to a farmer and they wouldnt income for the rest of their lives, in many cases, or until they wanted to do something else. This was a very unusual thing for a woman to be able to have her own money in that way. Very the review 19 century as especially women have access to college and professional life it enabled. But in july 1862 just a few months after the homesad act, Congress Passed the moral landgrant act. The law created nearly 100 tuition free coeducational public colleges and universities. Twothirds of the schools were in the rapidly developing west which desperately needed expertise. Given access to careers that enable them to support themselves, women graduates chose to delay family life now having alternatives to marriage. These these are some of thet coeducational schools in the world, in the world, and it was coeducation was frowned upon in the east, as you know. College girls back east at that time went to vassar and smith and wellesley, girls schools but western girls went to college with men. Given access to careers that enable them to support themselves, they could delay family life. Many became teachers that almost 15 of these career oriented new women enter traditionally male fields like medicine, journalism and the law. Almost twice Womens National rate of 8 . Thats kind of an oppressive statistic i think. In these towns between this region where people are coming up out of the mud, living in these ramshackle towns, and yet we have twice as many women are going into the professions as back east. Impressive. The classic new western women, as good as any man, willa was a dashing figure at the university of nebraska which was a landgrant school. A journalism major, who sometimes styled herself william junior and sometimes favored conventionally male haircuts and mannerisms, she was a popular editor of the college newspaper. Later, as the consummate poet, she based her most beloved characters, earthy antonine of my antonia, and ambitious alexander, a full pioneers, on the women homesteaders, often immigrants whom she had met as a rl on her grandfathers nebraska homestead. The publicized adventures of the west new women help americans come to terms with womens evolving role in a rapidly modernizing society. Now we can go back to the slide because it was a rapidly modernizing society. I think there we go. One favorite of the American Public was an eastern debutante who migrated with her minor husband. He studied mining at yale and then went west. She decided she was a talented artist. You represent the west from the distinctly female perspective in art, journalism and novels. No heroic cowboys alone on the prairie for her. She was determined to show that women were just as important as men to western development, and that indeed the men come you could kind of tell from the demeanor of the man and woman in the picture that the men were by no means all swashbuckling heroes. But few women could compare with caroline lockhart. Shes an amazing, amazing, a former wyoming night chess a special place in my heart picture began her writing career as a girl star reporter for the boston post victims like nellie bly started this thing like send the report to do something crazy and caroline would dive dia wetsuit to the bottom of Boston Harbor and jump off a building into a net the firemen were holding. Anyway, she went west on assignment and then fell in love with cody wyoming. She published the local newspaper. She cofounded the famous still ongoing cody stampede, and annual rodeo but she was most celebrated for her westerns, novels that challenged stereotypes of good guys and bad guys, race and gender. Several of the westerns became major hollywood movies including the fighting shepherdess based on the life of Lucy Morrison more, the socalled sheep queen of wyoming. Readers and moviegoers loved the mastery of western speech. Since we are talking playing, i dont like you know how. I dont like the way you act. I dont like the way you talk. I dont like the way your face grows on you. And if i never see you again, it will be soon enough. The hard drinking hard parting cowgirl never married but enjoyed many unofficial liaisons. At the age of 54 she became a cattle queen in her own right on her 6000acre ranch and lived to the age of 91. Just as the westgate ambitious women unique opportunities to own land and attend college, it gave them special advantages in the pursuit of more rights. Indeed in 1854 just six years after seneca falls conference and one year after the washington territory was founded, a suffrage bill failed to pass in the washington Territories Legislature via a single vote. The National Movement made them based in east but when the cause reemerged after hiatus imposed by the civil war, suffrage first caught fire in the west. The Suffrage Movement was a messy fragmented phenomenon that waxed and waned over decades of internal squabbling in public debate. Many suffragists did not consider people of color, including fellow suffragists, as their equals. Some leaders wanted to first focus on womens right to vote in School Board Elections. You would think that gee, why cant women vote in School Board Elections . But it was very contentious issues, if you give them an inch they will take a mile. Others claimed women deserved full enfranchisement. Some of them insisted that women womens equals but many more argued that women were mens moral superiors. They insisted that as municipal housekeepers, women would vote to protect and care for the homeland just as they protected and cared for their homes. What the movement lacked in ideological consistency, however, it made up for in sheer grit over three generations. In the west suffragists maximized the special advantages that women enjoyed in the region. Legislators in a sparsely populated territory were eager to increase thats i got more power in washington, d. C. They also wanted to entice white women because they need them to help balance with white gender ratio, and they also wanted to counter the ballots of men of color. Legislatures try to lure women with liberalized laws regarding property and divorce, not just suffrage. Indeed by the 1850s unhappy wives make california the first of the west many divorce mills. Controversial laws such as suffrage was also much easier and loosely governed, socially fluid territories than in states encumbered by a century of laws and traditional and legal precedent. Importantly, territories transitioning into states had to write constitutions which required the legislators to debate on issues including womens legal rights and political status. Finally, compared to men in the south and east, western men had witnessed Womens Service during ongoing settlement and were notably more receptive to their empowerment, particularly if it was to the mens own political advantage. For all these reasons, in 1869 the women of the wyoming territory who were outnumbered by men by a ratio of 91 became the first 921 were fully enfranchised. A year later, after Hobart Morris a suffragist, wyoming was appointed as the nations first woman judge. Despite her lack of formal legal training, she was so capable that none of the 27 cases she tried were a field or reversed. She was treated by the crude press as a freakish celebrity but one respectable National Weekly calder, quote, the terror of all rogues, and an infinite delight all lovers of peace in virtue. She acknowledged that her appointment was quote, a testf womens ability to hold public office, end quote, then added that quote, in performing all of these duties i do not know that ive neglected my family any more than an ordinary shopping. I love esther. In 1870 the women of the largely mormon utah territory were enfranchised as well. Well see emily wells, there she is. Suffrages such as the journalist emily wells who was one of her third husband second wives insisted that sister wives, that because sister wives share domestic chores, polygamy gave women more freedom. In fact, the whole enfranchisement of women in utah back to them by the Republican Party set the twin evils of the era were slavery and polygamy, and they assume that if they gave mormon women the vote, that mormon women would vote to eliminate polygamy but, in fact, the mormon women were just as religious as the mormon men and polygamy was part of the religion. So it backfired on the republicans. Importantly, both the wyoming and utah territories enfranchised women i halfcentury before the passage of the 19th amendment. It is often said that western women, western men gave women the vote but after those two gifts, other territorial and state governments responded only after women persistently lobbied for bills saw them defeated and tried tried tried again. In the 1870s and 80s, activists such as Abigail Scott dunaway, there she is, much later she, she really is, shes the Elizabeth Cady stanton of the west, and there she is visiting with the great women herself. Women such as abigail fought on in legislatures and courtrooms to improve womens rights to own property and divorce as well as vote. Back abigail became a suffragist with her husband pressed a friend of his and countersigned a load of his friend, the friend defaulted on the loan and mrs. Dunaway home which she shared with her five or six children, the bank seized their home. She was so outraged, she it worked a dog establishing i think their second firm, establishing the farm and giving things up and going, that she on the spot became a suffragist. And again as was true often of the early feminists, what she really wanted was womens property rights. Because women have no money, they had no power. Well, so abigail is very busy and courtrooms trying to make her case but other western women continue to accumulate political power by moving from Community Building to large scale social reform which was also catching on in late 19th century, later 19th century america. Many women enlisted in the powerful nationwide womens christian temperance union. It began the campaign against the vices that jeopardized the family, particularly drunkenness and prostitution. Before long, however, wctu embraced suffrage that included sanitation, labor regulation, food and drug laws, the rehabilitation of prostitutes, starting at kindergarten. This pragmatic shift was especially popular in the very practical west. Contrary to its image the wctu still one of the largest and most important political organizations in American History, gave tens of thousands of women aipac from the home into the larger world of personal growth a path and politics. I strongly influencing Public Policy before women could even vote, the wctu strengthened their claim to the rights of full citizenship. There were many, many, many more women in the Temperance Movement than in the Suffrage Movement. Its really a neglected area of American History, probably because it was dominated by women. The western western sufn stereotyped fighter eastern counterpart as white, but a surprising number of were women of color. For native americans, hispanic, black and asian women, political activism first and foremost meant ensuring their families survival amidst the systemic racism that was just as bad in the west as in the east. Many of the wes First Chinese women had been sold back in china by their indigent parents or kidnapped to become sex slaves in california, yet polly who we see here, escaped from sexual slavery. She married and became a beloved homesteader on idahos salmon river. Our homestead as to how a National Historic landmark. Despite difficulties that we can hardly imagine, suffragist later emerged from the ranks of women of color to amplify their peoples choices as well as their sexism. They wanted to speak up for native american women, black women, asian women as well as women. They include elizabeth, a black teacher and a cofounder of colorados nonpartisan equal Suffrage Association, a very important organization. This was a time when a lot of Suffrage Movement was itself segregated in many instances and Elizabeth Ensley helped provide an alternative to that. And you will meet a hispanic journalist and rights activist from texas. She shown here in her printshop. She at one point the Texas Rangers came to break up or Printing Press and she prevented them, she barred the door and she told him repelled them. She prevented them from doing that. Native american activist such as suzanne laface and sarah, there she is, and orator, inspired influential white women to join the fight for equality to the wes original peoples. One of the recruits, helen hunt jackson, a prominent journalist, went on to write a century of dishonor, a blistering history of the government treaty violations that she sent a copy to every member of congress. So she wrote ramona, which breast me of you read, i know it used to be a High School Reading lists, a perennial bestseller that prevented the same injustices of government treatment of native peoples in more accessible fictional form, unfortunately she died before she knew that it had really captured the public attention and actually started some of the reforms that she wanted to see happen for the California Mission indians. Suffrages have also been stereotyped as traditional wives and mothers. What a striking number of these activists like the wes outstanding women in general was single, like a homesteader and force Services First female fire lookout. Or divorced like Clara Shortridge foltz, a mother of five who became the pacific coasts first female lawyer. She was a real firebrand. Her brother became a senator. Of course she should have been the senator but she actually started the position of public defender which was considered a very radical thing. She championed public defenders and now of course they are everywhere, but the first one was in california. She was an amazing woman. She was married to a real narrative will. She left him, no Legal Education or anything, five little children. She studied the law, passed the bar and just went on to become a crackerjack lawyer. Others were gay like montanas jeannette rankin, the first woman elected to the u. S. Congress. Or bisexual like adelina warren, a new mexican educator and politician. By the 1890s, huge numbers of women such as luna kelly, and Nebraska Farm wife and mother of 11, helped make the west the National Capital of the new aggressive politics. She was also a folk singer and a poet and she wrote a very rousing ballad called stand up for nebraska that brought everybody to their feet. Progress is upheld womens rights and a poorly Economic Justice for average people, and opposed the corrupt lyrical machines and corporate monopolies of the eras political machines up until this time there certainly have been rich people in america but in two oh the gilded age which started after the civil war, there were not these enormous inequities like that separated, like the superrich from everybody else. So this was something that americans were just coming to terms with, and thats how the Progressive Movement developed. The kansas homesteader turned lawyer Mary Elizabeth lease, cofounded the new Peoples Party before she could even vote. The electrifying orator help audiences enthralled for hours, warning in her irish voice that the u. S. Had become a government of wall street by wall street and for wall street. Many progressive women also quietly helped to shape the laws of new western states, right down to the more genderneutral wording of their constitutions. When the progressive states of colorado and idaho enfranchise women in 1893 and 1896, the west which was already the national hotspot of suffrage because of wyoming and utah, became a global epicenter of suffragist as well showing the spotlight with the other settlers societies of australia and new zealand. As immigration surged in the early 20th century, the public heatedly debated the question of who is a real american. Women wanted to know how could barely literate immigrant men could vote but an educated woman more on home soil could not . In the west suffragists pointed to womens long record of service during ongoing settlement still going on, and demanded full citizenship. Devising a successful formula for winning the vote in the holdout states, suffrages built successful coalitions with other forwardlooking nonpartisan Good Government groups, progressive clubs, farm and labor unions, liberal republicans, certain churches who needed womens votes to promote their own agendas. Suffrage had always been a kind of the snooty middleclass upperclass thing mostly associate with white women even though there were lots and lots of women of color. And to win in the holdout states they had to break through these barriers of race and class under the banner of unity and diversity. They also recruited women from different ethnic groups, poor working women, waitresses. This was the time that women were starting to work in factories, in the west in canneries. They were seamstresses and the lived away from home. It was a whole new workingclass group had to be integrated into the Suffrage Movement. So all women of different races and classes were enlisted to join in an unofficial labor union of hardworking citizens, whether they were unpaid mothers at home or clerks, seamstresses and waitresses, who were entitled to move. In oregon doctor esther paul lovejoy, there she is, shes so beautiful, her pictures are dazzling, who made house calls by dogsled during the alaskan gold rush, then ran portlands board of health patted the multiracial everybody is equal suffrage league. Her partners included harriet redman, Job Opportunities for black women were very limited. So she worked as a janitor at the cities in u. S. District court but you also the president of portlands colored womens equal Suffrage Association the sophisticated thirdgeneration western suffragists also mounted new kinds of splashy creed of campaigns that change american politicking for ever with marches, publicity stunts and the first button told maggie even electric signs. In in seattle, coauthored book womenscookbook. Good things to eat. I think their six big men and women. The edward knickerbockers and buckle under the name. She led this party on a three week camping trip to carry a suffrage banner to the summit of mount rainier. Here she is in washington. The other washington. By 1914 suffragist had california, arizona, kansas, nevada and montana. Most western women could not vote. Before women in that single state. Ironically by the time the suffragist triumphs that year the west tomography had synchronized with the rest of thees country. Women no longer benefited from the settlementn errors the conservative turn created the political backlash. Even the rugged cowgirls who had recently competed with men. Or replaced by spangled rodeo queens who raise sedalia from the palominos. Once the history of the old west inal general, the record of its women is not a seamless march of progress. Sstheir history has a jagged trajectory of advances on one front a and retreat on another. The progress for some in decline for others. There is no way to balance colonization benefit for white settlers and their descendents. With the terrible cost to the regions regional peoples. Or to reconcile the racism endureddu by women of color including women in the Suffrage Movement with the gains made it. To move forward however, americans must engage humbly with the tragedies of our shared past. And also take part in its triumphs including ongoing empowerment. Before the first eastern easterngreenhorns arrived in thr covered wagons, the west had changed countless times during the 14000 years of its history. Indeed its a landscape of red blue and purple continues to shift today. Inspiring legacy of the goverlooked westerners who helpd define the independent capable active American Woman later personified as an important part of that long record. Towards equality never has it ended with suffrage. Take part from that western for mothers who proved that despite formidable obstacles change is possible. Even for rules once seemingly written in stone. Thank you. Thank you winnifred. That was a great. We have been keeping track of questions from our audiences. We have a couple to get us started. To our viewers please note we welcome your questions now. Please post them on the q a box will ask them of winnifred. Okay, first question i understand the homesteader land owners status was huge for women. But why did Congress Pass it with that particular language . Who was the instigator for getting women into that veil . One who was responsible for everyone going along with it . Good question. I big a part o of it was the wet desperately needed women. It was over overwhelmingly mail as we talked about earlier. They really wanted to get women into the west and have families. The settlement of the west was a matter of settlement. It was not so much like that calvary. The colonization occurred through settlement. That native american hispanic people had been there out of the way. Settlement really conquered the west. You couldt not do that without women to be wives, mothers, bear the children and increase the number. It lincoln and the republicans, and his branch of liberal minded republicans were gender egalitarians. Both parties worshiped and adored women. But the republicans are much more inclined to give them legal empowerment. In fact he was a big bone of contention in the Suffrage Movement that they would not enfranchisen women when they enfranchised formerly enslaved men. The republicans were afraid if you put the women into it would be too much they would not be able to get the black men. So there were a lot of factors at work. But the fact they really needed women for settlement is a big one appear. Okay great thank you. Heres another question that just came in. Do not recall the names of the women thatt winnifred identified as gay. I am curious if these women lived openly as a lesbians during that time period . That is an interesting question. It is very hard to identify western women as gayay because unlike certain gay men they would get arrested for doing something that was illegal in a particular town they would appear in papers. There was considered perfectly fine. It was considered perfectly fine fory women to be best friends bt they hugged each other, they kissed each other they slept in the same bed. They live together maiden lane or in a boston marriage there is no attached to women living and having partnerships with other women. But, i think i want to say about 4 of women in the west in this era lived either alone or with another woman. I was really b struck by the number in the book whose closest relationships were with other women. Fascinating. Frances willard the president of the wctu who we talked about, she was known she is now described as the Elinor Roosevelt of her day she d was a real fireball she was very much like Eleanor Roosevelt and like Eleanor Roosevelt she had relationships with men and women. You. Ay, thank what was the background and incentive for men, were there any to champion womens struggle for achievement andie equality . You know thats a really good question. There were in an enormous number of good guys in the west, demonstratively more than the east or the south particularly the south not so many suffragist men there. I think just a lot of men knew that it was rates. Right. One man said my wife is as smart as any man in smarter than most. Especially in the Settler Society where everybody was pitching in. N. That women were working as hard as the men and doing a lot of the stuff that men did. It was not very practical pragmatic culture. Like why would you say she couldnt vote when she does everything that i do . There wasl fairness. I mentioned in this speech the washington territory in 1854 at the territory is 1yearold. Suffrage lost by one vote. There were men voting. So i think we have to give the men credit. Okay. Se without men none of those suffrage bills would have been passed. Womenen had to talk men into supporting them. Thats a very good point. Was the western womans inclination to be more inclusive or expansive in their effort of several differentnt background part of their success . What may have hurt the groups . Yes i think so. Although to be fair, women emerge in the suffragist back east were doing so poorly. They did not get their first state until 1915 or 1916. They were just losing across the board. You can see from the pictures and Susan B Anthony these a very well educated upperclass women they considered themselves the ladies they dress like ladies. But they were not getting very far with that. You had to reach out both in the east and the west be on the class borders and the race borders. Which is certainly in the west the west was multiracial than the eastern. They are again this is a Settler Society we do not have summit laws and rules and regulations here. The racial question just came inin from one of our viewers if the western states that encourage suffrage were primarily whiteag or what aboutt suffrage for native american women . Some native american women and men did not get the vote untilot the 1920s and even later. A number of native american women and men did get the vote when the act was passed this was an act that people who promoted thought it was going to be a wonderful thing for native americans that turned out to be a disaster. It enabled the tribal reservations to be apportioned they gave to different people if you claimed one of those plots kind of like a home said he also got the right to vote too. Some did get the right to vote there. A lot of native women as we talked about they campaigned for suffrage because theyd wanted to empower their people. They want to give their native people more of a voice. To be a native suffragist or a black suffragist or hispanic or asian it was a more complicated suffragist who is interested in getting the vote. This was a more complicated story. Okay, speaking of complicated stories and going back to the earlier question about gay women in the west. [laughter] it was a lot of fun working on. Someone wrote into say she said i am probably very naive but how do we get the informationhe about the sexual preferences of these women i find this fascinating but generally genuinely curious about the source for this information. There have been academics who have researched it and done some digging through records there are occasionalth w cases where a woman she was suffering from a Mental Illness or someone else said she was suffering from a Mental Illness so that got into the papers there were records like that. But a lot of them, census woman who you see a was only lived by herself or another woman for a certain period of time. In this whole era like 95 of women marry. Thats what was happening. Women that remain single they are reported in the census. The other way you can sell was sometimes money. Women who had some property, some possession. I there were those. I think mostly issued later in the century certainly with franceswillard president of theu and a lot of the other women they had correspondence with the person who is there. Can you say are you sure . She had a necktie shed a very passionate relationship with the student the university of nebraska, do we know what they did in bed . No we dont. Academicscs that we cannot actually say she was gay even though all of her abiding relationships were with other women. Let us all just so fascinating. Okay, nexts f question. You may have covered this already. I apologize if i missed it. When suffrage was tough for women and the various states of the right to vote include any minority women . The minority of women have the right to vote when suffrage was passed . Yes. In the states . Yes. Yes the progress and included minority women . It included minority women. Although it does get tricky in certain cases native american women were not enfranchised. Different states had different ideas about legal rights of native people. Some were relatively progressive. Horganan was notably not progressive at all. H even after the 19th amendment was passed in 1920 native american women some native american women still were not enfranchised. Its very difficult to make a local statement. I would have to look att each state and seat. But generally yes if you could, yes. If you could prove that you were a citizen i would say yes you could vote. Thank you. Next question, where they are traditional this is traditional women who worked against womens progressive day that women who help defeat the era. A yes. S there was a very vigorous anti Suffrage Movement w is called te anti suffrage party. They were in fact George Pattons mother beatrice i think its beatrice patton. Lead the troops in calvert he grew up in california. They said if women gotot the voe they would grow mustaches. [laughter] that men would have to stay home and change the diapers on the ae women will be cavorting around in jury boxes. For some reason have this idea s a very lurid women of the converting with the men in jury boxes. There is a very vigorous anti ouSuffrage Movement in both plas but i wouldh say more avirulent in the east obviously it was. Okay, interesting. I am impress to these women accomplish soha much with the equal requirements of marriage, childbirth and child rearing, how didal they balance all this . [laughter] really is. Especially women like Abigail Scott dunaway who i call the mother of western suffrage. This was eight homestead daughter. Her parents went west in a covered wagon but she grew up on a homestead part she married a homesteader whenom she was 14 or 15. She had five or six children. They developed a one homestead the soul that they built up another farm then he lost it all on us to put legal maneuver nothing daunted and then he got hurt and ate wagon accident could never work again. So abigail moved the whole family to portland. Started a womans newspaper and started campaigning for suffrage and somehow supported everybody. So these women were made of sterner stuff for sure. Sterner then me that is for short. [laughter] for sure. [laughter] piglets i have five children i cannot think what they must. Might me either breed that is just amazing. This is a very specific question about the homestead act and acreage. Could men and women equally qualified for the 180 acres . Is hundred 60. For couple was not doubled . Depends on where you were. And oregon and 1850 the land claim act was actually seen as a sign of womens empowerment. A stable guyec can only get one hurt 60 acres but it married matt and his wife to get 320. She could not get it on her own but as a couple they could get 320. Mostly i was 160 acres. The homestead laws did not alloe they were biased against wives. A wife could not file her own claims separately from her husbands. In a way itt privileges single women. Many of them were widows. There are various states of singleness. Thanksi you. This is a question to you. Was there ever a point in your research you felt gratitude for being born in this time period . Or did you feel you were bored in the wrong century . However discouraged we get and it is easy to get discouraged these days in america between the pandemic and our polarization if ever there was a good time to be a woman, it is now. If you look at what these women went through they were chattel. Harriet beecher the author of uncle toms cabin, famously said a married woman has the same rights as a slave. No more, no less. Basically they were there husbands property. The way they built their evolution from taking the domestic authorities they had in their home, taking it out to the community by starting community organizations. Broadening up to social reform and then finally suffrage. It was amazing, their efforts. I think of my own mother did not have the opportunities that her brotherr had. And this is just one generation back. I can memorize in the high school and College Reading articles young womens magazines and if youre going out with the boy tolerant you better wear flat shoes. Dont act too smart. Its not all that long ago. Think of a great deal to be thankful for. I agree. We are just about out of time and running out of questions. Im going to leave you with this last question. It circles back to your book. Who was your favorite woman from the book . It is a really hard question. I do love doctor esther cole joint we did see her picture she was the one washing clothes when tthe tub with her husband who s a surgeon. She was born in a logging camp. A very poor family a huge a big family, lots of children. She had almost no schooling but was very impressed by the women dr. Who delivered one of her baby sisters. She said to herself when i i grw up im going to be a doctor. By the time she was a teenager her parents had moved into portland, they looked in the hotel where the gas and hotel was a professor and he started tutoring her. She was very bright. By the time she got to the point she could apply to medical school she clerked and some of f the First Department stores in the west. She was a salesclerk to make sae money for tuition t money. To coach of the University Medical school part she was one of three women in her class. This is not 1890 ish. She married a surgeon in hern class they took off up for the practice for a little while in portland they said no, this is not exciting enough. For the check after the alaska goldrush, did house calls on dog sleds but started a d hospital. Prevented some terrible epidemic. She came back to portland, only visited him for summer spread had a baby, got her mother to watch the baby. She carried on her medical practice, started the Suffrage Campaign broke all kinds of class and race and barriers ended up running for congress in 1920. She did not win but she spent the rest of her life working for womens medical associations both here and internationally and wrote two books. She was an astounding woman. Everyone should look her up to see her pretty pictures appeared quickset is fantastic. Thank you so much winnifred. What a fascinating evening of fascinating women. We wish you all of the best with the book. I thank you so much for joining us tonight. Ich do want to remind our audiee that winnifreds book new women in the old west from settlers to suffragist and untold american story is available for sale from our partner booksellers politics and prose. We are putting up a link in the chat box right now. 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