Beautiful, thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen. It just lifts the spirits and prepares us for the learning ahead. We are so grateful and honored that you came tonight and grateful to cspan for covering this important discussion about womens suffrage and elizabeth stantons role in it. During these anxious times, as many people are avoiding leaving the home in large public gatherings, its so important to engage in Lifelong Learning and that is why watching cspan is so important. Please also, and friends here as well, use the National Constitution centers virtual online resources to learn about the constitution. We have this spectacular new program called classroom exchanges where we unite classrooms across the country for live discussions about the constitution moderated by judges and master teachers with classes around the country as you look for ways to continue your learning from home. Check out the interactive constitution, pick up provisions of the constitution you dont know about. Let the learning continue. We are going to begin tonights discussion, which is devoted to Lori Ginsburg and her wonderful book, by discussing this exciting new exhibit at the National Constitution center that will open on june 10. Its called 19th amendment, women win the vote. It is about the history of the 19th amendment and how women won the vote. Joining me to describe and discuss it is my wonderful colleague, elena, who heads the exhibits department here. I just wanted to have a brief conversation with her about what she and her great team are trying to achieve in the exhibit and the story they are trying to tell, trying to excite all of you about the exhibit and to set up the great discussion to follow. Elena, first of all, welcome. Thank you for being here. Thank you to you in your team for the amazing job you have done. At seneca falls, Elizabeth Cady stanton and other great advocates of womens equality passed the declaration of sentiments, which set among other things that we hold these truths to be selfevident that all men and women are created equal. They were using the declaration of independence as a model but trying to extend it to include womens equality. What were the authors trying to achieve and why did they gather in seneca falls to write it . Na elizabethe was the primary author and it is amazing to look at the document itself. We will be featuring a copy in the upcoming exhibit. We wanted to not only feature the artifact, but the inspiration that came from the declaration. You can read the different grievances that she wrote against men instead of the king. We have featured those in the exhibit. Interesting in general, in the time the use of the declaration of independence in argument for womens suffrage, i have been culling for a lot of quotes with speeches, congressional debates, rating how women were fighting for the right to vote. They are frequently going back to those founding ideals in the declaration and saying no taxation without representation. They are central arguments were they say wait a minute, we were kind of left out from the founding era and we are going to rewrite that and say that all men and women are created equal. Between the relation the declaration and constitution is so central to the exhibit. You and your team did such a wonderful job telling the story about civil war, reconstruction, and the promise of the declaration extended to africanamericans and how lincolns lincoln stood before the hall in 1861, pledging that he didnt have an idea politically that didnt come from the declaration but in this exhibit you tell the story of the poignant fissure between africanamericans and advocates for womens suffrage who started off precivil war united. Frederick douglass was a great advocate for womens suffrage but after the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, the last of which extended the right to vote to africanamerican men but not women, the movements split. Tell us about the split and the consequences. Elena its a significant story that we have started in the civil war reconstruction exhibit that is permanent here at the constitution center. We continue the story into the 19th amendment gallery, where you can see the roots of these arguments and how there was unification after the civil war towards a common cause. Before that, it really being slavery, with slavery abolished we gote 13th amendment, to the 14th amendment and are very critical word, male, is inserted into the constitution for the first time, upsetting many white women, particularly those that were fighting for a those that were fighting for suffrage. They ultimately end up starting to split over the 14th amendment and ultimately with the 15th amendment, as jeff said, that guaranteed Voting Rights for africanamerican men, that was the final break. That there were women like stanton and anthony who were going to exclusively push for womens suffrage first, exclusively. They would not allow africanamericans to get the vote before them. So, you see a lot of the racism that started to creep into the movement here and really become the forefront of the debate and really end up continuing through and i would be interested to hear what Lori Ginsburg has to say on this topic because it is really central to the narrative, how to address the racism. Historian and me have different ways of approaching the narrative and for me it is helping visitors to understand the story. For her, through books, talks, and lectures, she is able to show the narrative. I want to make sure we have that conversation about the different sure we tell make the truest narrative of the story. Jeffrey it so great, youre working crafting this script. The insertion of the word male was so central. It showed that for the framers of the 14th amendment, they did not expect it would grant the right to vote because if Southern States denied it to any male citizen, then the apportionment in congress would be correspondingly reduced. That made it harder for womens suffrage advocates to argue as they did in the 1870s and 80s that the 14th amendment should be extended to women. You tell the story of people like victoria woodhull, who argued before john bingham, the man who framed the amendment, as having rejected the claim. A very big and important part of the exhibit, you tell about how the right for vote the right statebystate. There were surprisingly a few the granted it, but it really picked up in the 1870s and 1880s. Why . Elena at that point particularly in western territories they wanted to encourage women to come. It was a practical reason to attract more people who would be able to give them cause to apply for statehood. Wyoming was the first. There are a lot of great illustrations from the time showing progress sweeping from the west to east. And then you start having people pushing for a constitutional amendment, a 16th amendment, the next in line. Then you have a lot of women pushing at the state level for change, hoping that it stays hoping that if enough states fall ultimately there will be , national change. It really propels the story into the 20th century where we look at this continuation of different tactics. Towards the end there are these final few years where it gets dramatic and you are seeing a lot more of the photography that we are familiar with, picketing in front of the white house, parades, processions, all of these public is happening. Ultimately with world war i you have this push to ultimately grant women the right to vote and really fulfill a true democracy. Jeffrey that leads to the final part of the exhibit, where you tell that incredibly dramatic story of how president wilson changes his position on the 19th amendment and the states are ratifying it and it all comes down to a very dramatic story in tennessee. Give us a sense of what happened. Elena the youngest state legislator in tennessee planned on voting no on ratification. This was the final state that was needed for it to become a part of the u. S. Constitution. He received a letter from his mother that said you really should vote yes on this ratification. What does he do . He switches his vote at the last minute. Nobody expected it. It pushes it over the edge and ultimately tennessee ratifies. It took one final vote to add it to the u. S. Constitution. Jeffrey amazing. It shows how close politics are and how one vote can make all the difference. As it happens, in a great panel that we did in grand rapids on monday, it was about the Electoral College. Turns out that burch by proposed an amendment that would have eliminated the Electoral College and had a popular vote for president. It passed the house with overwhelming bipartisan support and president nixon, with george h w bush, and it failed in the senate. Constitutional politics can indeed turn on one or two decisions. What are you most excited about displaying in the exhibit . There are so many great artifacts that you have. Whet ouretites appetites with what you will be showing. Elena we will be getting the pennsylvania copy of the amendment. Those of you from pennsylvania, it is kind of cool. We will be featuring an array of ephemera from the era, just women in various ways trying to get the right to vote and convince other people that they should have the right. There is a lot of cool imagery, a lot of posters. Different buttons with pants on them or rolling pins. A lot of visual cues there. One of my personal favorites will be featuring a ballot box from the reconstruction era, when some women were able to vote. This one i believe is from utah. There is a county printed on it. I tried to track down exactly where it is, utah allowed women to vote early on. It has printed on it womens ballot. Those are some of the highlights. Jeff that is wonderful. Im so grateful to you and your team for doing such a great job creating this exhibit and i cant rate to share it with all of you on june 10. Please join me in thanking elena. [applause] now, friends, we are so honored to hear from americas leading biographer for elizabeth caddy stanton, Lori Ginsburg. You will be hearing all about her remarkable life, lori will be interviewed by the head of constitutional content, so please join me in welcoming lana , my colleague, and Lori Ginsburg. [applause] good evening. Thank you, jeff. Thank you, elana. Im excited to continue the conversation with you about the exhibit and the conversation with lori. Lori, thank you for being here to discuss your book on stanton and thank you for being a member of the National Constitution center. Thank you to the members out there for your support and coming to the program as well. Your support makes it possible, welcome. Lori, i want to start by asking you a little bit about stanton and her life. Before we do, i will introduce you a bit more, telling about your background. You are a professor of history in womens studies at Pennsylvania State university and you have written several books on womens history, including recently untidy origins. The book that we are discussing tonight, elizabeth caddy stanton. Mi pronouncing it right . Lori i think the correct pronunciation is caddy, but almost everyone says katie and i dont know why. Lana well, tell us a little bit about her life. Born in upstate new york, her relationship with her father i found really interesting is detailed in your book. Lori first, thank you for having me here. Its a pleasure to come to the constitution center, always, and meet the people that make the extraordinary exhibits here. I have always loved them. Elizabeth cady stanton is something i have always argued with. I have written a number of books and she is always in the room. She takes up a lot of space. She is a fascinating character. Charismatic, bossy, elitist. Brilliant. She is quite amazing. I think that people who study u. S. Womens history cannot help but grapple with her in some ways. I believe that for all of her flaws there is no one like her in the 19th century. Born in johnstown, new york, her father was a judge and her mother was a descendent of a revolutionary war hero. They were quite conservative. Wealthy, property owning, slaveowning. People often forget that that was still the case in upstate new york. Much of the north. Traditional, as stanton remembered it, on matters of gender. The famous story that she told was that when she was 11, her last brother died, she crawled into her fathers lap seeking to give and receive comfort and he put his arm around her and said my daughter, i wish you were a boy. Everybody groans at that, and the sting of the remark is certainly something many women feel. But its not actually an irrational comment for a father of a brilliant daughter who recognized her life was going to be quite limited by the time and place in which she lived. There were not very many options for a wealthy young woman born in 1915. She got the best education she could for girls, but she was always resentful that she didnt get to go to college with the boys after handily beating them in all subjects in grade school. She took that resentment with her in making a life that was devoted to challenging all the many ways, and you will hear this said many times tonight, not really suffrage, although many ways she felt womens lives were restricted and spirits crushed by virtue of being girls. Lana its interesting that her father was very much opposed to suffrage and she rebelled against that throughout her life. You hint that this may have been part of her motivation behind the work that she did. One thing that he did do was, being conscious of the laws that regulated women, he put a lot of property in her name because he was maybe distrustful of husbands and the ways they would treat their wives as property. I thought that was interesting. Lori in 1848, april, the married womans property act passed in new york, giving married women the right to own and inherit property. It was fathers like judge cady who supported this because they wanted their inherited wealth not to go to sonsinlaw. Not necessarily profligate ones, but just unknown quantities. Elizabeth cady stantons husband, Henry Brewster stanton, although he became a lawyer and was in the state senate for a while, he was not well off or a suitable beau when they met. Elizabeths father was clear that he was going to leave property separately for her. Only for her. Cleaning house that they owned. For a conservative family to have their lively, brilliant daughter fall in love with a 35yearold abolitionist lecturer, that was not the choice. At first the father forbade the marriage. They got married and went on their honeymoon, they went to the World Antislavery Convention in london. Lana a very momentous event in her life, her first time out of the country, interacting with british women, very advanced in the tactics that they were using of suffrage over the u. K. , that was a powerful experience for her. Lori at issue is mostly impressed with the american women that she met there. She met with a bunch of the Antislavery Society women who were elected by their local chapters of the Antislavery Society as delegates to london, but when they got to the convention, the british quakers who were much more conservative on matters of gender, much more mainstream in british life, they barred the women from participating and put them behind the bar, which outraged the young Elizabeth Cady stanton to no end and outraged others, too. William lloyd garrison among others sat behind the bar with them and refused to participate because of the exclusion of groups. For stanton, she described it as a political turning point in her life, meeting Lucretia Mont and these other women who had for years already in the 1840s been already struggling about these issues. Lana you and jeff were just talking about the exhibit. We were talking about preseneca falls. Just as important to the movement, the main focus of the exhibit drops you in at 1848 at the convention. So, you know, whats the approach to telling the story of, you know, stanton, her work prior to seneca falls and incorporating the work of the Antislavery Movement and the importance of that to suffrage . Elena is interesting when you go to start an exhibit, you have a limited space. Never an infinite amount of space. You have to make important decisions at the getgo. Where will we start in time . Where will we end in time . Its not always clearcut. We decided to go with 1848. That doesnt mean that we dont acknowledge whats happening before. Historical events occurring before that, what was voting like at the founding is really important. We include the story of new jersey, their first state constitution allowed some women to vote, particularly if they held property. Primarily widows. Its that early point where you understand where we are in time. What do i need to know for when we get to 1848, what was life like for women . We tread the ground from the original constitution being written through 1848, reaching a peak in 1848 where we tell the story of stanton and we feature a lot of other women and men who were fighting for womens suffrage. You will be able to meet some of these women and men in an interactive element in the exhibit where we will feature bios for each of these individuals. Stanton is one of them. You will get a little bit of her background and her influential role. Its interesting for a writing exhibit. Theres only so much you can include. If you envision for any one person, there must be about 50 words, which is about three sentences. It can be a Herculean Task just to get it down to that important nugget information. Its always interesting to think of how like lori is able to write a whole book on one person and i have maybe two or three spots in the exhibit if we are talking about the declaration of sentiment or stanton in particular. Lori i would say that although this book is about one person, i have written books about large groups of people, historians writing one book, we are always in conversation with each other. Its important to note that we disagree with each other. Sitting at large tables, there are archivists doing different kinds of work. We are always in conversation about some of the same question. Where do we start and end of the story . What is the framework, what is the interpretation . The main difference to me is not so much between what we do as it is the temporal focus or the topical focus as the ways that we interpret stuff. For me, there is no Womens Suffrage Movement in 1840. There isnt really one until after the civil war. These people are abolitionists. Each person at the Seneca Falls Convention had heard of womens rights before because they were all involved in the Antislavery Movement in one way or another. Its not just the antislavery provides context for womens suffrage and rights, though it does do that, but it was the audience, the constituency, that school of abolitionism that launched their thinking and their careers in different ways for different activists, of course. Its important to keep in mind, and it is very hard to do this, very hard to understand how radical this all was. I have some tricks i do with students about this, but it is hard to understand that when the Seneca Falls Convention demanded numerous, as you pointed out, a range of rights for women, the vote among them, when people demanded an end to slavery, it seems so obvious to us that we couldnt imagine how outrageous they were at the time and it was important to keep in mind that these people were the lunatic fringe of their generation. People didnt want to be seen with them on the streets. Its hard to hard for us to do that. To remember that. Lana with seneca falls, there was a large consensus it seemed around most of the points they were trying to make. Such as seeking the right to vote and, to the extent that other womens suffragists said that you cant put this in there, people will think were crazy, even her husband said that it will seem like a farce, but she insisted, and it got in there. Lori can i explained a little bit . People have often, she included, have often thought that the folks who objected to it it did so because they were timid or to timid or politically cautious. I think thats not the case. People like Lucretia Mont didnt believe in working in electoral politics. They were nonvoting abolitionists. The men, too. The quakers believed that politics were, hard for us to believe, dirty, corrupt, based in violence. They chose not to work in the world of electoral politics. So when someone like Lucretia Motts said that it is with great reluctance that she demanded to vote for women, even issue was demanding it, the even as she was demanding it, the reluctance was not because she was timid or conservative but because the vote was a fraud a fraught tool for what were called at the time moral persuasion abolitionists and reformers who didnt believe that voting was the best or most appropriate way to create moral change in a society. Stanton, who thought she was the most radical person on the planet, always right, exaggerated other peoples timidity about this. Lana interesting. Was lucy stone similar . I know that she founded the american womens Suffrage Association that had a different approach to the one that stanton and anthony would go on to found. Lori thats decades later. Lucy stone was speaking as an antislavery agent and adding lectures on womens rights before stanton even thought to get on a podium a couple of years earlier. Lucy stone saw a connection between demanding the end of slavery and an end to the restrictions on womens legal, political, what do we want to say, cultural lives. This is 20 years later, after the civil war. The split occurred for a variety of reasons. You mentioned a kind of abolitionists versus women rights activists after the civil war, but it is important to remember that many white womens rights activists sided with those who thought black men should get the vote first. Stanton did not. This is such a complicated and interesting debate, they took ethical positions based on a different way of seeing the world. For stanton, the 13th amendment ended the question of slavery. At one point she said i wrote this down, i just think it is a wonderful quote. She said 1868, the curtain had fallen on the last act, and the lights are extinguished, the audience gone to their homes. This is in the face of enormous, vicious, racist violence that we know she read about. For her, antislavery stood more or less as prelude to what she saw as the more important rights for women like herself. Lucy stone did not agree. Africanamerican women as well as white women thought that it was more urgent in the crisis for black men to have the vote so that their communities could be represented in southern legislators. Lana its not really i would resist calling it a sort of black men versus white women split. There were many different kinds of splits. There were many different emergencies in the face of early reconstruction. I know that you are interested in hearing the thoughts about how to approach it in a fair but accurate way, presenting the history to a modern audience. Lori i think that stanton really thought she was taking the moral high ground, saying she believed in universal suffrage. You understand that they dont mean to include children, and you laugh, but logically children are citizens as well. This is how unthinkable womens suffrage was to many people. It was similar to calling for votes for children. Or analogous. They could have stuck to the moral high ground saying that no ones rights should proceed anyone elses. Instead of doing that, she resorted to some rather extraordinarily ugly, racist remarks that still make us, that are still painful to read. She made them publicly, alienated her friends, including the ever loyal frederick douglass. No and in history as a state but saintone in history is a but he put up with a lot of grief from her. You know, she didnt stick to the moral high ground that she could have. A political absolutist. Absolutists can be thrilling, but they can also be sometimes wrong. [laughter] interesting, too, though, because i think you describe she was very cautious about writing about anything that she felt. She wrote a lot, but didnt write that this was how she felt about this subject for that subject, but was very aware that she was the portrayal of the Suffrage Movement but there were all of these other complications around what she was writing about with regards to race and nativism. She didnt think it took away from her saintly image. She thought she was right. That was not the part she worried about. Like everybody, i think she had issues with her children. For such an advocate of progressive womanhood, divorce, womens autonomy, she had seven children. Virtually no other suffrage or activist leaders have that many children. She had a lot of children. At one point she referred to her seventh baby as her biannual clumsiness. Implying that she had some idea of how not to have children but did anyway. Like everybody, i think she had family difficulties. Some of the children sided with her, some with her husband. Some of the children were the caretakers. You know, its a complicated family and she destroyed a bunch of papers that would have given us more insight. With her relationship with Susan B Anthony, who had her own obligations without children, but as you think about it for instance stanton and the children she had around her, wondering how you are able to do all the work with children in the household, its a challenge that women today still struggle with. Lori the way she took care of it when she had a housekeeper. A quaker woman who stayed with her for 35 years, anthony would show up and help. It was probably chaotic. There were times when she couldnt be on the road, so she would be home and writing, which is what she loved anyways, writing speeches and thinking. We describe her as the founder of the Womens Suffrage Movement, but she described herself as a leader of thought, not institutions. She was much happier staying home rather than going to conventions, which she felt were boring. When we read accounts of conventions, they will say that she gave this speech, but really she wrote it and anthony read it for her. Because she didnt like it. Lana right, you said it was a was immediately after when they had different conventions, she didnt want to go. Lori she just loved what she called throwing thunder. She loved the riling up her friends. She has a great quote that i was hoping to use one day, on her 75th birthday she said that her feeling is to tone up rather than tone down. You know . Thats a great motto. I have to think that her friend Susan B Anthony never worried much about her toning down. Her friend would have preferred her to focus. Because anthony believed that womens suffrage was the primary goal and everybody needed to focus. Stanton didnt, she was always on the next great cause of womens oppression. Lana one thing they both did was in the midst of the various strategies, pursuing the 19th amendment, the state forms, finance of the full strength of a you mentioned november 2, 1880, we were talking about that talking about that in the exhibit. Maybe describe a little bit what the thinking was behind going to the polls to try to vote . Lori jeff mentioned this earlier, there was a practice called the new departure that they came up with, which was that the 14th amendment granted women citizenship and they were entitled to vote. They just should do it. It started early with a number of women, white and africanamerican women in washington, d. C. , who tried to vote. There were dozens of women all over the country, new jersey, a susan b. Anthony got arrested. Ecame a big celeb. The judge, for reasons that escape me, asked if she had any final words to say at the end of her trial. Er [laughter] which has always struck me as such a full listing because of course she gave a speech and published and distributed it around the country. T became a big she refused to pay the 100 fine. It became a big deal. Also, because she was no voting, shticks a seriously. Voting is never symbolic. We know this. She decided that the two candidates were awful enough to one was slightly better than the other. So she voted for grant over grilli. It was hard. Stanton, i think in 1980, when she decided to vote, it was a symbolic act on her part. There is a funny story where the person who takes your ballot, he wanted to buy her ticket. She kept it and he signed his name. It is very cool. She made it a big deal but it never became the cause and then she was on to other causes anyway. I think you mentioned the ballot box is that from the new be par chure departure era . Yes. Thinking that it is a place where will they have granted women the right to vote, we think it was not meant for women who could vote but were trying to. So we pair that with the story of the women voting under this new departure strategy. And when i was doing the verge for this exhibit, i was learning about this. It was a constitutional story. They are using the 14th amendment and saying we are citizens. Therefore, we have the right to ote. So they got new amendments ratified. Thing that gary to the polls. So having a range of experiences. So when we think of how to convey information to different types of learners, everyone in here has a different way they prefer to learn. Great if you do that. This particular story we decided to tell through an interactive. There will be ballot boxes that you will be able to list out and learn about different womens stories. So one of them featured is carrie burnham, great philadelphia story. She went to the polls in 1871 and tried to vote here and failed to do so. And she took her case all the way to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and they said, you know, yes, youre a citizen. But that does not mean you get to vote. O that was ultimately an early ruling that would lead to the Supreme Court ruling a couple of years later in 1875. Saying the same thing. So that was kind of at the end of the new departure points when the Supreme Court ruled on it. But we wanted to have the opportunity for people to engage with these stories and connect with people who are maybe from your hometown, that you can learn about what youre trying to do in this important era. You write that she has a great intellect and was influence by her father and her judge. And the lawyers that were around her. What was her role . She realized right away this was a great strategy. She was not supportive of victoria, who in 1872 ran for president. [laughter] you know, so she was right there to support the first woman to run for president. And anthony was very unhappy about this and said whatever you do, do not put my name on any list for victoria woodhulls presidency and stanton responded by doing exactly that. [laughter] she was quite an independent thinker. But not always a selfaware one. You write that there was this conviction that she as an american citizen, with respect ith what elena was saying that what was being said about citizenship, she was entitled to vote based on that and that that was a conviction she had. I think what came out to be ugly racism in a debate over the 15th amendment, i think there was a bone deep conviction that as a daughter of american revolutionaries and as a white, protestant, middleclass woman, she was as american as the men of her class and background, and that the only disability that she experienced since she, of course, thought she was smarter than all of them anyway. That the only disability was the disability of sex. And it was on the basis of this profound sense of entitlement and belonging that i think she thought she should have all the rights not only to vote, you know . The right to an education. The right to property. And the right to vote. All of these things that became very much a part of what we take for granted. And that middleclass women did gain throughout the 19th century. I think her conviction that she was very much a member of the elite, of the founders of the nation, it was very important to her. Theres a part in the seneca era part where she egs presses outrage. That the most ignorant both native and foreigners had. That is not in the battle over the 15th amendment. She had a sense early on that she was march serving, for lack of a better word, and people who were given more rights than she was. I am as good as the voice boys, that kind of ttitude. I think that plays into later later on. Its really her daughter harriet who was upset about this. She thought maybe we could get more suffered if we just ducated women. This was a time after 1880, when more and more immigrants were coming into the united states. Many of them not english speakers. Many of them not protest at that particular times. Right . If you think about the great surge of immigration between 1880 in and 1920, there were a lot of the tieins, most of them catholic. And stan pretty easily joined and stanton pretty easily joined with the forces that would limit suffrage to england. Her daughter, who had moved to england, was outraged by this. She just viewed this as her mothers great failing that her elitism had taken hold of her in this way and that she would succumb to that kind of ntiforeign, i dont know, snobbery, elitism. So they did conflict about that. I do not know what anthony thought about it so much. Did we cover her relations with her daughter . Yeah, we have two moments, i lluded to the one earlier. There are basically three generations because it is about a 70year period. So you get to meet these people and we highlight harriet at the beginning with a photo of her with her baby daughter, harriet, who we know later becomes a sufficient ra ist. Sufferagist. She pops up later, working for the same causes her mother was working for all stop we try and do the same with other connections like lucy and her daughter as well. Especially in philadelphia here, there is interesting, to continue the abolitionist roots, really going through the Suffrage Movement as well. Toward the end of her life, youre right about how she did not travel as much although she was quite famous at the time. And so what, you know, i mean, she unfortunately, dies in 1902, still 18 years before the night teens amendment was ratified. What would she doing toward the end of her life to continue to elp the cause of suffrage . I agree, it is unfortunate she and anthony did not live to see the ninth amendment ratified, but there is a whole thing about how she died so soon but 87 at that ime was not so soon. By the end of her life, she really got bored. Intellectually i mean. She and anthony sat down to write down the womens suffrage. In part together sources that would appear but also to establish their role as leaders of the movement and to shape the move yament honestly to shape the move in a very kind of a particular way. A bunch of different things, is at if anyone is interested in more readings. A wonderful book has been written on the subject. She then decided she wanted to rewrite the bible. Because stanton was an ardent secularist. The word did not exist. Very skeptical. Deeply protestant in many ways. But very skeptical. Of organized religion. Opposed the efforts to change the rules. She tried to gather women from round the world. What we would call feminist biblical criticism but it didnt exist yet. So there wasnt a word for it. Her friends were very annoyed at her about this. Anthony, Martha Carson wright. They were like really . You are going to spend your time on this when there is so much work to be done . She was adamant that this was important late in life work for her. O she wrote this book, she edited it, and was chastised and censored for by her own organization and movement for it. Because by the 1890s, the movement was getting the support. Of more conservative ministers as well as the support like the womens Temperance Union who believed that womans suffrage would gain a pure fide home and so on. Things that they were struggling for. They were not so interested in alienating the clergy. And so, she continued to be as unrespectable and as nowing as she could even within her own movement. And did she focus throughout at the end of her life about cupature at the time . Nd most of them were repealed . Yes. There are still unequal laws. It was not until the 1930s that you as an american woman, if you marry a foreigner, you lost your citizenship. Suffrage the womans pass, some american women discovered it. There certainly and all of our lifetimes. Discriminatory laws against women but the laws of Property Ownership had changed. Even by the 1860s, many laws of wage ownership had changed. There are still complicated laws about domestic labor. But that remains unresolved. I think the issue i think youre right about the issue of divorce was another controversial one that she wanted to fight for. But it created tension with religious suffragists and she did not necessarily want to fight the fight. Right. Including her friend, Antoinette Blackwell who was a minister by training and just didnt want to touch the idea that marriage was nearly or primarily a legal contract that could be broken. But the women were also temperance advocates. And the argument was that women should be able to divorce drunken husbands. There was an ongoing debate about what was worth bringing up in the context of womens convention. Stanton was able to bring up anything you know, stanton as prepared to hurl her thirned. And not everybody her thunder. And not everybody she was not stra teen ifpblgt we have a great number of audience questions. Is there anything you want to ask, that she could help guide us on . Yes, so for obvious reasons, weve been focusing on a particular period of time, stantons life. But there is plenty that comes after 1902. And plenty that comes after 1920. As i mentioned, how we grapple ith this, im curious what you most want to convey to people about what the 19th amendment did or did not do. That is a great question and a complicated one. Which historians are still grappling with a lot. The main thing i would convey, is before the passage of the 19th amendment, millions of women already voted. 15 states had full womens suffrage. Nother states had president ial suffrage, which i never understood. Other states have partial suffrage. So millions of women could vote before the 19th amendment. Now, i understand in the context of a museum, devoted to the constitution, it makes sense to focus on that, but millions of women could vote prior to it but also many women could not vote after. And its equally important to point that out that africanamerican in the south, many native american women, many Chinese Women who are not allowed to become citizens, many women in territories i recently learned that women in puerto rico didnt get the vote only literal woman got the vote nine years later under pressure when they. S. Congress gave them the vote. For the 19th amendment, it is an interesting moment and act to commemorate. But historians are going to complicate any kind of celebration of it as accomplishing much, but it may have accomplished a great deal, africanamerican women in the south to try and register to vote and white southerners recognized, we had historians writing about this, white southerners recognized it would take a lot of work to disenfranchise twice the number of people they had been disenfranchising. And i really dont mean that sarcastically. It took work to set in place this and more people to disenfranchise the status quo. And jim crow. I think at the exhibit, we touch on what the other advances in Voting Rights, including constitutional amendments pass in the right to vote as well as well. They hoped to carry through with that narrative. There was an understanding that for the people who could vote, what were they going for . And now some pursuing the e. R. A. Others pursuing legislation for labor laws, minimum wages, that kind of stuffer, and then all the other people ho couldnt vote . What was their struggle like . How did that play out . Africanamerican women in particular who went to the suffrage organizations, acting for health and expanding black suffrage, were basically told is over. Its over and they were not given any assistance in doing that. Well, let me get to some audience questions before we have to wrap up. The first question, what was it that allowed this lunatic fringe to develop . Upstate new york, Central New York really along the eerie canal has been known as the burned over district. A place of revivals, ministers had revival through the 1820s in 1830s. And it was famous for they were quakers there, but mostly radical protestants of various stripes who were very active in antislavery and the mormons were up there. Kinds of ice, all ults an sects, all kinds of groups emerged. Some became more or less mainstream social justice. Some became extremely rightwing. Others became utopian communities. Just a lot going on there. And that helped us burn some of the feminist suffragists to the work they did . Yes. A number of years ago, i wrote a book that you mentioned, about six women in Jefferson County to new york, way up on the canadian border. Six women who in 1846 two years before seneca falls petitioned their state constitution for full political and civil rights for women. And these were six virtually unknown farm women. They didnt then go to the Seneca Falls Convention. They disappeared from history. So there was stirring up there. There was talk. I dont think it was outrageous in their communities. And the west as well is when many territories grant the woman er the right to vote. That may have also been a practical reason to encourage women to move there. The right to vote moves across the country over time. Great. So lori, you mentioned the womens Temperance Union. How does the passage of the 19th amendment influence or spread her the passage of the 21st amendment or it was their cross over from suffrage to temperance . That is the 18th amendment. Prohibition was 18th amendment that came before the womens suffrage amendment. And i think it probably had a lot to do with small protestant women who could already vote in many towns and states. They had a lot to do with passing the 18th amendment in a couple of years prior. Interesting that a lot of the antisuffrage arguments that are very active that point formerly organizing around the 1890s, but really lot of them coming from the liquor industry and very practical if women get the vote theyre likely going to vote for temperancers for prohibition. It is important to remember, there were powerful forces. It was not just that women were too delicate to vote. That had long been solved. Women were in all areas of public life. And i think i dont know who Still Believes that by the 1890s or whenever or through the next 30 years. But there were powerful forces gainst women voting coming including by women, very conservative women who believed this would bring out other radical behaviors. I actually have a great i actually have a great quote on this theres a magazine called the great patriot which was devoted to not passing womens suffrage and allowing socialism and all this stuff. At one point, they said, after womens suffrage had passed and was ratified and in the constitution, they have all these lawsuits to undermine it. And they wrote, first of all, let us remember that womens suffrage is tied to the 15th amendment, forced upon the then helpless south. So this is many decades after bleck men three decades after black men had been black men had been disenfranchised in the south. They are still bent out of shape at the 15th amendment because they recognize this goes together. They went on to say, nobody but the mentally blind ever expected the feminist movement to stop the vote. And then they go on to quote from a magazine called the Birth Control review. Edited by margaret sanger. This idea that to demand for womens rights was a slippery slope, it is true. [laughter] you actually dont know what youre stepping off on to when you make this outrageous demand. It actually was true. [laughter] i think that leads into another question which asks when women first got the right to vote, what impact did they have on, i guess, any sort of Election Outcomes and i dont know if you know what age were there age limits at the time . 21. Yeah. They had less of an impact than they said they would. They didnt although the ame. They passed a couple of acts that were sort of progressive era government helping clean up milk, things we take for granted. But they, you know, i read one story recently who said the passage of womens suffrage was a bit of a thud because it did it landed with a bit of a thud because it didnt lead to the kinds of dramatic changes that people expected to have. Now, stanton and anthony in that earlier and that earlier generation didnt actually think women suffrage would lead to this but secure legislation. They thought would make women more fully citizens of the united states. That is just harder to measure. May well have done that. I mean, its just hard tore measure. But i think stanton would have been quite shocked to learn more than half white women in the country voted against the presumed first woman president. So i guess ill close with my final question. Ill give you a chance to is ask her any questions you may have. Is there anything about stanton that we havent mentioned that you want to say . And, you know, what, your thoughts on what her legacy today, and how the suffragist after stanton passed ea way took that legacy through the 19th amendment and beyond . Well, its a kind of good newsbadnews thing. None of us would be willing to give up the rights demanded, that she viewed as individual rights that we should all have. I think she was brilliant at tablishing certain rights as inhearing in the vehicle and being essential for women. At the same time, i think the kind of assumption, the entitlement and racism in her thinking and writing have left a legacy for us and feminism that has been very hard to address and eradicate. And i think that those are long standing damaging things that arent just, you know, slips of the tongue. Ar i think they run deeper than that and i think they are damaging to all of us. So we are currently in an anniversary year, this is why were having these conversations around the 19th amendment. So im curious, you pointed out earlier the differences between using the word celebrate and commemorate. So how dow you you feel that we should commemorate this amendment . I was making the point that celebrating means there is a happy ending and is a happy story and i do not think it is a happy story. There is a wonderful awesome for the referred to herself and many of us as a feminist killjoy, always out to ruin a good celebration. But i think a come men ration is really important because it makes us think about our history. You know, were living at a time when people are talking about statues and flags about the names on buildings, and the names on universities, aledr and all and all of these things are part of come men Rating History we need to explore thoroughly and i think there are wonderful exhibit and washington, d. C. , about the 19th amendment with different points of view not different points of view. A look with different interpretations. I think it is great we have this conversation, historians figuring out how all of this stuff is complicated and then, how do we put it in a visual way that is accessible to the most umber of people. Thank you so much. Thank you for being here. [applause] thank you so much for coming. I hope you will come back june 10th. Thanks again. Good night. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] this is American History tv on cspan 3 where each weekend we feature 48 hours of program exploring our nations past. This memorial day on American History tv, a reair of our recent Program Parking the 75th anniversary of v. E. Day. Heres a preview. Well, there were friction, no doubt about it. And the british in particular had doubts about eisenhower. No doubt about it. He had difficulties really through the entire final year of the world when feel marshall bird montgomery who was the senior british commander in europe, a very difficult character, it must be said. So there were those who had doubts about eisenhower, there were those who had doubts at him when he became the theater commander in the mediterranean in 1942. He never heard a shot fired. He and his west point classmate omar bradley had missed world war i. They had not been deployed. There was a feeling of who is this guy and why is he the one who is the Supreme Commander . Y feeling si lived with Dwight Eisenhower metaphorically and my admiration for him grew every year during that span. He was was about r an he was an y extraordinary capable leader in that his primary job was to hold together this fractious coalition. Eventually there were more than 50 countries in what Franklin Roosevelt called the United Nations fighting with the united states. And eisenhower was brilliant at Holding Together that coalition against all of the sense triff cal forces that tried to pull apart every coalition, every wartime coalition. , you know, eisenhowers laurels at the end of the war were very earned. He showed himself to be a capable ally commander, a war winning commander and that big smile of his which one of his subordinates said was worth at least an army corps in morale terms was fairly earned when we get to may 8th, 1944. Watch the full Program Monday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, 5 00 p. M. Pacific here on American History tv. My name is eric finley, and i am the docent for the dora finley africanamerican heritage trail. This is the 14th year in mobile. They got started five or six years prior to that when one of our africanamerican city councilman took a trip to boston on city business, and while he was there, he saw a sign that said African American heritage trail. He thought it sounded interesting because it was kind of a novelty, it was prior to most of the museums we see today. He took the tour and enjoyed it. He got to thinking on his way back, mobile is close to 300 years old, and he hears