Transcripts For CSPAN3 American Artifacts Votes For Women Exhibit Part 2 20240713

Next a visit to Smithsonian National portrait gallery. In the second of a two part program, American History tv is given a guide id tour mark the centennial of the 19th amendment. Miss lemay examines the tactics under the leadership of alice paul. Hi. Im the curator of votes for women. Its on view at the National Portrait gallery at the smithsonian institution. Im standing in front of what we call your title treatment. Its a large blow up of a german born actress. She was acting as columbia, a figure which represents the United States during the conclusion of the 1913 parade in washington, d. C. And thats just one event of the long Suffrage Movement that this exhibit highlights. We have 124 objects that goes into the long history beginning in 1832 and bringing it right up to 1920, but the then also declaring the 19 th amendment which it didnt do which was enfranchise all women including women of color and i took it up to the Voting Rights act of 1965. If youll come with me, well go and explore the 1913 parade more in depth. So, we are standing in front of federal postcards of the 1913 parade, which was organized by alice paul and this was a completely different tactic than what had been done before by other suffragists. What alice paul was trying the to do was to create headlines and so she, after spending some time in britain she basically got radicalized by the british suffragists and learned how to create attention grabbing kind of suspepectacles and events. When she came back to the United States in 1911 and 12 she then organized with the Congressional Union this parade. 8,000 suffragists marched down from the capitol here in the beginning down pennsylvania avenue and then they stopped at the Treasury Building which is basically the end of pennsylvania avenue and at the Treasury Building they had this pageant. You can see lady liberty in her attendance. In between the suffragists had to make their way through 500,000 spectators. Thats a huge number. One of the problems of this parade was that it did not have Police Protection because the chief of police in washington, d. C. Was not a friend to suffragists. So he denied them Police Protection, even though alice paul had applied for a permit. Instead, the secretary of war, who is part of the president ial cabinet, henry l. Simpson put the national, what we would think of the National Guard on stand by in nearby fort myers in virginia. So when the crowd got really unruly and started, basically, man handling and being very aggressive towards the suffragists thats when they literally called in the calvary from virginia and had that group serve as the protectors of the suffragists. So it was quite dramatic in that sense because the suffragists were not expecting these huge, huge crowds. But they did upstage president wilson because the next day was his inaugural speech for his first term as president , and almost nobody showed up to his speech and he asked where is everybody and he was told all of the spectators had come out the day before to see the suffragists. On my left, your right is the official program for womens suffrage. This is one of four existing programs that remain from the parade. You can see how theres the art figure and shes in this purple robe thats the color of royalty and walking down in front of the capitol, presumably pennsylvania avenue with a trumpet with a banner that says votes for women hangs. Shes heralding in this new cause for freedom. I mentioned alice paul who had trained or been radicalized by the British Suffragette Movement and brought back those tactics to the United States. Shes the next generation of suffragists. Shes broken off from the National American womens Suffrage Association which was led by ana shaw and employing these more attention grabbing headlines like the parade as well as creating visual culture like this poster im standing next to. And it was dickinson who made this poster. He was plowed by the Container Corporation and married to a suffragist. That was the connection that the husbands of helps women out there advocating and being active for the cause of having political voice, they were doing their best to try to support women. He incorporated the double headed axe and a winged hat which is worn by this ancient god of hermes. And illustrating the divine messenger of equality. The double headed axe was significant or symbolized the mother of goddess. There were these different ways that the suffragists were trying to communicate equality by reaching back into history. So nina was an illustrator and artist who made over 200 illustrations like this one. This is called his district. She helped the suffrage cause by creating depictions of women at work advocating for the cause. And they were then published in the suffragist which was a magazine newspaper that the National Womens party produced for years and years. And so here we see this young woman who is very much educating herself by reading a book called campaign textbook and shes beautifully dressed. She has a nice sort of embroidered shirt on with her hair up with a cloth and well done and shes wearing nice shoes and shes sitting in front of her desk thats crowded with books. So the books are list of voter and right by a map of his district. This is how suffragists were lobbying. They were the first group to understand lobbying, what it meant and what that would entail and how it would help them gain power to convince their representatives and legislators whatever his district of. This could apply to any state. So this is part of that state by state kind of effort that the suffragists were doing. But under the lead of alice paul they were really interested in the federal amendment. So they were not asking the state by state representatives to change their amendment, instead would you support an amendment if it were to be passed, passed in the house, passing the senate and convince your federal legislators in the state to ratify it when it goes out for twothirds of ratification thats necessary. So nina is a great figure in the Suffrage Movement because she helped to popularize it. She helped people understand it. She herself was educated at the cochran of art and then philadelphia of art. So were excited to get some of these objects on the wall in the exhibition to make sure we understand today how the Suffrage Movement was being taught in its own ranks during the era of the 19 teens. In 1917, alice paul decided to do something even more drastic than marching down pennsylvania avenue and that was to pickett the white house. This is one of the first groups of picketers that were nonviolent, that stood outside of the white house and basically declare their protests on the president in personal terms. They would carry banners that said, mr. President , what will you do for womens suffrage. The president , of course, being Woodrow Wilson who had been elected in 1913 and carry out two terms as president and he did not endorse the suffrage cause until 1919. So we have about, at this point were in 1915 and then in 1917 they start to picket the white house so theres two long years of picketing. Every day these women would stand outside of the white house and hold their silent sentinel as they referred toby the press. They would leave their headquarters which was across Lafayette Square which was situated in front of the white house. On the other side of Lafayette Square was the headquarters of National Womens party. They would leave their headquarters with banners in hand, carrying the colors of purple, white and gold which they had adopted purple into suffrage colors with alice pauls new group, the National Womens party around 1913, and basically that was what they did for two years and stood their ground. They also included you can see at the top theres College Women, so they are wearing their banners of which colleges they went to. So they had College Women protest or different state delegates would protest or even working women would protest too. So they would take working women only had one day off a week from work. And so that was on a sunday. Basically they couldnt protest unless it was a sunday. So we can talk about the working women here. You see the title cover of the maryland suffrage news depicts a woman who was white, who was a seamstress who has been working more than eight hours today, which are normal working hours that are regulated by federal law. There were no laws that regulated working. So working women felt that they were being abused by and there was no laws to protect them. So this woman has basically passed out at her sew iing desk and it was done for one of the many suffrage chapters across the United States, the maryland suffrage chapter and its from the collections of the Maryland Historical society. So, the suffragists were eventually arrested and they were arrested for obstructing traffic which wasnt exactly their fault, it was, in fact, all the male spectators that had come out to jeer at them that were creating the blocks of sort of the masses of human bodies that were obstructing traffic. But they were arrested and you can see in this picture, this portrait of these two women, the policeman is holding their banner, so confiscating the banner and the women are most likely not going to pay their fine and then they would be sentenced to jail in the d. C. Jail or the lorton work house. What i find interesting is that they are very well dressed, so the women this were picketing were from an elite wealthy background. The majority of them. There were, as i mentioned before there were working women that would help picket on sundays and working women were very much a part of the suffrage cause later on. But there were no africanamericans that were a part of this movement or this effort at this point because a, alice paul did not include them. But b, i also wonder if they, because they are a vulnerable population to be arrested meant that they were putting themselves at a higher risk even than the privileged white women were at. So theres kind of a balance, i think, that they were striking at this point in time. The government gave paul and the others suffrage prisoners the privileges of the american political political prisoner. So the American Government didnt treat suffragists as Political Prisoners they treated them as criminals. This meant no food, no reading, no privileges to suffragists when in prison. Suffragists picked up on that and created banners to point out the russian government gave a political activist those privileges, so why didnt the American Government do the same for other political activists in the United States is the question. So if we move this way, you can see another beautiful drawing. Shes likening the suffrage effort where the women are getting fantasia barrinoed and assaulted by angry men. Shes likening that moment to training for the draft. So in april of 1917, the United States entered world war i. The this is a major, Major Movement for suffrage because then the suffragists were able to say that, you know, they were doing all this effort on the home front, or, you know, they were serving as nurses and doctors over with the red cross and with their own suffrage support units that were supported by the suffragists and getting involved in the war directly so why couldnt they have a political voice if they were basically giving up their lives for the United States . Ninas drawing gets to that where these suffragists are carrying banners, mr. President what will you do for women suffragists. They are carrying the banners. Is that piece of cotton that imprisoned suffragists for obstructing traffic, for picketing the white house, they then during their imprisonment decided to create their own embroidered signatures and its on a piece of burlap. It was a witness of testimony to the fact that they were there and this happened to them. And finally on this wall you have two photographs, one is of lucy barnes in jail. She was also with alice paul, one of the leaders of this militant suffrage moment in the history of the Suffrage Movement and here you see the arrest of the suffragists so they are being put into these police with a gonzaga and being carted off to basically get sentenced to jail. So from 1917 through the end of 1919 the suffragists continued to picket outside of the white house and i was really interested to see images of these suffragists almost up close and personal, almost environmental because i wanted to emphasize that these were individuals with their own lives, you know, spending their time which we all know is precious on this important cause. So the video behind me is playing through some images of them picketing and they kept up the pressure and so by creating the headlines, by creating the spectacle, i think that the suffragists finally achieved the kind of momentum that they were really searching for throughout the entire movement, because the pressure that they placed on president Woodrow Wilson was so much that he finally endorsed the cause. And when he did, on may 21st of 1919, the amendment that was proposed actually passed the hou house of representatives and then passed the senate on joune 4, 1919, at which point the amendment was sent out to the states to get twothirds of signing off and ratify this amendment. So this part of the exhibition covers the militant suffragists, explains why they were doing what they were doing and then in the last room well look at the 19th amendment, see what it actually says and see how womens preliminary voices changed after being granted the right to vote but also to look at which women didnt have the right to vote and what they did about that. When women finally got the right to vote then they had a political voice and then they were voters. So different parties recruited them in different ways. So youve got Calvin Coolidge running for Vice President along with warren g. Harding who ran for president for the Republican Party ticket in november of 1920. This is from october of 1920 thats exclaiming to women, for your own good, vote for the Republican Party, vote the republican ticket. So they were producing all this kind of recruitment, basically. This was published in vogue. Also material culture in the form of the Yellow Ribbon and it says, under the 19th amendment i cast my first vote, november 2nd, 1920. Clearly engaging the new female voter and so it was for harding and coolidge in this straight republican ticket, and then on the piece of paper on which the ribbon was sold, it says souvenir of this greatest event of my life. So they really dramatized the act of voting but for some women it was the greatest moment of their life. The they had achieved the First Step Towards equality. And gaining a more democratic experience as a citizen of the United States through the vote rights that they had achieved. In the concluding gallery of this exhibition, i wanted to make sure to point out the text of the 19th amendment and what it says and what it doesnt say. So it reads, the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. So letting that sink in, when you think about the wording of the 19th amendment as it applies, giving the right to vote to women, nowhere does it say guarantees the right to vote. And that is a big difference in its achieving the right to vote for everybody. Sort of what we think the 19th amendment did and the reality of what it did. So in this moment states still can find ways through which to disenfranchise voters and up to this moment, up to our contemporary moment in 2019, there are states and laws out there that are seeking to disenfranchise voters. So were still contending, basically, the wording of this 19th amendment because its not as specific as we would like it to be and it wouldnt be until the vote rights act of 1965 that things became very Crystal Clear and that people had the right to vote and were guaranteed the right to vote and not be discriminated against based upon their race. Im standing in front of a portrait of a native american was forced to attend the carlisle boarding schools which created assimilation of native americans with White Society by not allowing the home speak their native language, by placing them, putting them into western dress and so forth. So as a result she becaundersto the culture of her native tribe, she was a sioux indian and also able to bridge the gap and talk with white leaders and as a result she was able, to with other native americans she found in 1907 the society of the American Indian and this was an activist society that really promoted equal rights for native americans. It was a long road for native americans. They werent even considered citizens of the United States until 1924. So this is four years of a the 19th amendments s ogranting th citizens the right to vote. That didnt apply to native americans. And ever since native americans continue to have to fight for their rights, including most recently in north dakota when voter enfranchisement laws made it you cant vote unless you have a physical address. Many native americans living on reservations have p. O. Mail boxes. As their address. So they are not allowed to vote under these current laws. So, to continue i just wanted to point out also the latin x, citizens of the United States who include citizens of puerto rico and were looking at a portrait of a woman made in 1992. She was quite elderly at this time but she had been elected as the first female governor of san o sanjuan. In 1932 she was a suffragist and advocating for the right to vote of literate white women in puerto rico. So she was trying to advocate for suffrage but a step sort of approach. It wasnt until 1935 that women across puerto rico, logical women were given the right to vote and then later on she was elected as the mayor of san juan in 1936 through 1958. Shes a really beloved figure. Shes not the only suffragist from puerto rico. Another one, wanted universal suffrage. But we dont have a portrait of her and we couldnt get one in time for this exhibition. So this is a portrait from our own collection that we were able to use to help represent latin x populations in the United States. And finally, im just showing you a portrait of suzette tibble who was very active for native american rights and she was the Expert Witness when there was a civil rights canes 1879 against laponka. She was able to help the native americans choose where to live. So they had been removed left and right, left and right, all over the place and so laponka was attempting to return to their homeland. In this case she was able to get, help make, into law the rights of native americans to choose where they were able to live. So this is another example of an activist who was not single issue focused, only on sufficiesuffrage, but working on other ways to help improve womens lives and rights of women within the native communities. Who, you know, just didnt have that one issue that they were working towards but, instead were working towards lots and lots of Different Things could insiding with suffrage alongside with suffrage. Right now were looking at a portrait of fannie heymer who was a great activist especially in 1964 democratic convention. She gave a speech that galvanized the American Public because it was televised. She said im sick of tired of being sick and tired. This was alluding to her long struggle to try to have rights as an africanamerican, Citizenship Rights in the United States. And so earlier she had attempted to vote in the early 50s and she had actually been denied because she was illiterate. As a young woman she had to give up going to school in order to help her family, so she worked as a young woman and never learned how to read. So this is one example of an activist who, whose words were spoken from the heart and she really had this unmeasurable effect of influencing the American Public at large because her speech was televised in 1964. And so the Voting Rights act was signed in 1965, in part because of that convention in which fannie played a major role and it was signed by president lyndon b. Johnson. And im also standing, this is a later portrait of pats arcpatsy. She had seen and witnessed the infringement of her Citizenship Rights and so part of her legacy is now the Voting Rights act but also title ix. She became an architect of title ix act which is the equal rights anticipated which a lot of women have benefitted from. These two figures helped take the story up to 1965 and points to beyond to how Citizenship Rights as an ongoing conversation and how these activists, particularly these women really helped change and influence american law. So i told you a little bit about this exhibition. It included six galleries and this long hallway and really covering the time from 1832 to righted up to 1920, but also looking and pointing to the events that happened after the passage of the 19th amendment. So right up to the 1965 Voting Rights act. And through the portraits of these women, what im really hoping people come away with, is that these, these women were empowering themselves and hope to empower us today. They were looking to the past and looking what had not been done. They set out a task for themselves to change the United States constitution. They did it. And then they have set the example for us today to take our vote rights and to ensure that they were made sacred and they remain unquestioned and safeguard for eternity, for american citizens. In this chicks not only are you learning history but hope you are feeling empowered yourselves. This was the second of a two part tour of the National Portrait gallery votes for women exhibit marking the centennial of the 19th amendment. You can watch this and other american artifacts programs by visiting our website at cspan. Org history. This weekend on lectures in history, Johnson County Community College professor talks about the u. S. Spanish war and acquisition of hawaii. Heres a preview. In 1890 congress increased tariffs on hawaiian sugar. This is bad more hawaiians. What you see happening is a major disruption to their economy, 189217893, americans with u. S. Military support from pearl harbor overthrew the hawaiian government, the native hawaiian leader at the time and the president at the time, president harrison supported adding hawaii as a territory in the United States. However, congress doesnt get it done before he leaves office, the next president opposes it, and hawaiians vocally opposed it. However they opposed it peacefully. They knew if they used violence to prevent an American Invasion, if an American Invasion took place they would then be deemed enemies and wouldnt be allowed to keep their property. Not only would people die but their access to property would be undermined. They dont violently resist. Then president mckinley will support and u. S. Annex parts of hawaii as part of the United States. Annex is always the word you hear people use to describe how hawaii became part of the United States. Annex means acquired without war. Okay. Annexed generally means acquired without war. Native hawaii juans agree this spaceful transition . No. Right. Peaceful transition. No, right . So annex is a word that comes from the colonizers point of view. Learn more about the expansion of the United States during the spanishamerican war saturday at 8 00 p. M. And midnight eastern on lectures in history. Join the classroom here on American History tv. 40 years ago on november 4th, 1979, iranian students stormed the u. S. Embassy in teheran and took hostages, beginning a crisis that would continue until january 20th, 1981. Next on reel america, 444 days to freedom, what really happened in iran the inside story