Transcripts For CSPAN3 Challenges After Womens Suffrage 20170729

And native americans. She also describes the difficulties faced by women running for political office. The Smithsonian Associates hosted this one hour, 45 minute program. Our speaker tonight is robin chairnsey, the interim and a professor womens history. You heard her speak about one the ago in the context of belmont house. At the time, she said she was doing research on what happened after women got the vote. I thought that was a really interesting program, and it is clear from your response that you will do as well. So please give a warm welcome to robin munsey. Thank you. Robin munsey thank you so much, rebecca, for that introduction, and for the imitation to come back. Is always so nice to be invited back. It is like it did not go too badly. And thank you to everyone at the Smithsonian Associates who have made this possible, taking care of all the publicity and logistics. Let me make sure i have this all right. The 19th amendment, the woman suffrage amendment to the u. S. Constitution, finally made it through congress in june 1919 and was ratified by three quarters of the states in august 1920. After that, no state could deny the vote on the basis of sex. Is to exploreob some of the meanings of the 19th in thent, immediately aftermath of its passage. Before we drill down on that, however, i want to no more than 10 minutes, i want to sketch out some of the context in which the womens suffrage amendment passed and widgets firstfruits were tasted. I will lay out some of these win its first when its first fruits were tasted. I will lay out some of these parameters that led to these political voices we were hearing in the 1920s, and why we are not hearing some womens voices in the 1920s, because that context will shush some women and magnify the voices of other women. Staygoing to try to really focused here, and not dillydally, but i think this context is really important. Thewill remember that womens suffrage amendment passed through congress and was ratified in the middle of and immediately after world war i. This included a Vitriolic Campaign against immigrants and radical politics. The result of that antiimmigrant and antiroll campaign and you radical campaign was the deportation of hundreds of people perceived to be radicals that were immigrants, and they included women like emma goldman, an anarchist and feminist twos voice was mighty loud in u. S. Political culture in 1910, but was deported in 1918 so would not be a story part of the story in the 1920s. So the deportation of radicals is kind of the explanation for the slacking off of the left in the political culture of the 1920s. Even women who are not immigrants but on the political left were jailed and tried up on antisyndicalism laws. California,women in who was a member of the communist later party and rested and tried communist labor andy and arrested and tried was fighting through her case in the 1920s. That, and he radical and antiimmigrant campaign that antiradical and antiimmigrant and benefiteded by the popularity of the ku klux klan in the 1920s. The first klan had died out in the late 19th century, but the late new klan had organized in the 20th century, and it came into incredible prominence, and even electoral legitimacy, really, in the 1920s. Women were both active in the clam clan and active in fighting the ku klux klan. We will talk about that a little bit later. This antiimmigrant, antiradical climate that was dominant during and after world in a verylted in 1924 restrictive Immigration Law that was known as the johnson read acts, in 1924. That normalized formalized the already existing ban on immigration from asia, and it dramatically introduced reduced immigration from europe. It was a bit immigrants from Eastern Europe and southern europe, italians, slobs, greeks slavs, greeks are the targets of that law in 1924. Previous, millions of immigrants have been flooding to american shores. American immigration is cut down to a trickle after 1920 four. Immigration from Central America was not touched by johnson read, so there are several hundred thousand of mexican immigrants, but nothing like what you were seeing before the 1920s. The result of this antiimmigrant campaign and antiradical campaign, one of the results, was that for radical immigrant women who stayed in the 1920s and 1910s, the message to them was if they would thrive in the United States, they needed to find middleoftheroad politics. They needed to assimilate to much more conventional middleoftheroad politics. I am thinking here, especially at this time, we are thinking of the voices of italian immigrant women, many of them who were teens, andin the 19 were instrumental in multiple strikes. These were numbers of women who ane involved in politics, anarchist element to the Labor Movement, but their voices will be completely silent in the 1920s. We will not hear from them at all in the 1920s. At the same time that the antiimmigration, antiradical theaign was dominant, in early 1920s, the great migration of africanamericans out of the south it into cities intoe north, eventually cities in the west, out of rural areas of the south and into cities in the south of that great migration had become significant in the mid1910s. To the timewe get immediately after the war, that had created vital and much larger africanamerican communities and cities like chicago and new york, philadelphia, cleveland, and to try when light veterans came and from world war i detroit. When whites veterans came home summer,ld war i, that they found themselves competing for jobs and housing with new africanamerican communities. Some of those vets and their allies lashed out in horrified violence against those africanamerican communities. One of the places where race ints were the worst was chicago, but across the country hundred of africanamericans lost their lives in these massive riots that occurred in just that one summer. The summer of 1919 is known as the red summer because of the numbers of death and horrific conditions of those deaths, and there are many more injured in 1919. Conflicts, racial violence was also a part of the climate into which the womens suffrage amendment emerged. That great migration from the south into the northern cities by africanamericans also laid the foundation for the harlem renaissance of the 1920s, another crucially important context for our thinking. Women were deeply involved with important writers, artists, including people like this novelist from the late and a prolific writer herself, but also a promoter of other writers because she was the literary editor of the newspaper of the naacp in the 1920s. And the migration to the north and especially the racial violence that met that in 1919 and thereafter helped to lay the foundation for black nationalist politics, so important for many cities in the north. And the most wellknown of the organizations was of course the universal negro improvement association, the unia. The person who took this place and spoke to an organizer when he was in trouble she is not only an important nationalist leader but a very important leader in the 1920s. The context of the antiimmigrant campaign and antiradical campaign, racial violence and cities in the south as well as to the north. They are important in understanding which invoices have been magnified and which voices are subdued or silent altogether in the case of the left in the 1920s. The range of voices will be much narrower than the range of voices we heard. It would have been a very different context. This wonderful quotation from 1925 leads us to another dimension of the context through which the womens suffrage amendment emerged. I think you will probably all see it. Its a thing of the past. The wideawake woman is forging ahead, prepared for all emergencies. Im ready to answer any call, even to face the cannons on the battlefield. That quotation in 1925 points to the fact that in the 1920s in modern gendered system crystallized in the United States. A set of ideas emerged in the gender system, it helped that men and women were the opposite of each other. Men were competitive and active and women were by nature a passive cooperative, nurturing and healing. Men had uncontrollable sexual desire, women didnt have any sexual desire. In through the early 20th century, the victorian gender system was very much in transition. By the time we get to the mid1920s i would say its been replaced by a modern gendered system. The key characteristic was that it painted men and women as more like each other than the victorian gender system did. It did not insist they were the same or they were equal, by no means equal, but they were much more alike than the victorian gender system had imagined men and women to be. And one of the crucial changes from the victorian gender system to the modern system, women did indeed have sexual desire and a healthy, happy woman had have her sexual desires filled or she couldnt be a healthy happy woman. The sexual need was a crucial change in the gender system that emerged in the mid1920s. It meant if we just look at that component of the system itself. It is claiming women are more like men than the victorian gender system had imagined them to be. That amputation of sexual desire for women demoted so that sex becomes more important component or imagined to be more components of womens lives in the 1920s and thereafter. Motherhood gets demoted on the list of characteristics and values of women. It is harder to be sure that when you claim because women are mothers, nurturing and care for life, because not everybody is going to think thats going to be the case. The kind of appeal you can make in public life are going to change because of this reimagining of who women are, who they are by nature. Also by the late 1920s. Lesbianism had emerged as an acceptable identity too Many American women. That is especially because of the writing. A very popular novel it was condemned in england and tried or obscenity. And in the course of those conversations and that coverage of the trials could be part of someones core unchanging identity. That became acceptable to women it had not been accessible to the floor. It also came with a stigma. Think the began to loving relations they had with other women, to be a part of that, what is going on in this relationship . It also and a stigmatized identity also began to throw suspicion at times on womens friendships, womens organizations, womens institutions, womens colleges, a lot of foundations of womens advancement. The centrality of sex to womens identities, all of that required negotiating a whole new landscape for women and public life. Accommodating these new ideas. Im almost at the end of this, a broadcast radio emerges and opens all kinds of opportunities for artists like betsy smith. Many of you will know phillips. Shes an incredibly unbelievably prolific writer in the 1930s and 40s. She was the creator of the guiding light. It is the longestrunning show in broadcast history. It went until 2000some ring 2000something. Incredible. The radio was one of the important breakthroughs and new medium that women in politics are going to have to master in order to make their way into the politics of the 1920s. This is a same moment when modernist painters are coming into their own in finding a following in American Life. The 19th amendment is a part of all this change. A part of all of this up people heaval. Eople up and of course it was participating fully in the transformation of the dominant gender system because the 19th amendment was saying to americans that women were more like men in that they were now supposed to be participants in selfrule. In the same way sexual desire to women suggested women were more like men than the victorian system had imagined, so did the 19th amendment. The politics should practice selfrule. Theyre more like men than the victorian system had imagined. It is both an indicator and creator of the modern gender system. The first meaning we want to ascribe to the 19th amendment is precisely that. A new gender system had arrived that would help cement a system as the dominant system in American Life in the 1920s. Another one of the crucial meanings of the 19th amendment and anybody who was here last year would have heard this part. I just have to make sure we are all on the same page here. Another thing that represented was the existing political power of american women. It is one of the things that often gets lost in our discussion of the 19th amendment and the shorthand ways we talk about womens voting. We lose track of the fact that before the 19th amendment ever passed, millions of american women were already voting. It is impossible to imagine that the 19th amendment could have ever passed the u. S. Congress if millions of women had not already been voting. The first place american women get to vote is in wyoming. A territory in 1869. It granted women all Voting Rights and wyoming became a state in 1890. Colorado fully enfranchised 1893. In high 1894, there are women serving in the Colorado State legislature. The mormons in utah and idaho enfranchised fully. We have four states in which women are voting in every single election there is. When we get into the 1910s, by the time we get into the 19th we have millions and millions of women exercising the vote. I want to thank the center for american women and politics for this fantastic map. You can find it online. And i love this map. It shows us when women got to vote in which state. I will describe it just in case. It shows us about the who had the 19thwhere before amendment passed, before it was ratified in the 1920s, all these peachy i love this so much. Rebecca said im too easily pleased. I love that. I think that is so great. It doesnt make any difference where it belongs. This peachy color new york is there, michigan, all the states have fully enfranchised women before the 19th amendment. Women are voting in every single election. The gray states and nebraska, illinois, tennessee and vermont. All those had enfranchised women in president ial elections and local elections. But not statelevel elections. Really hilarious stories having to do with that. The light blue had granted president ial suffrage to women. It is kind of purple. Including massachusetts, connecticut, kentucky. Those states had granted women voting only in school board of elections. Yes. The great progressive state of massachusetts had granted women schoolboard suffrage. The darker blue had granted and no suffrage at all. Look at that. Millions of women are already voting. Womens suffrage amendments had been introduced to congress multiple times and introduced constantly in the 20th century. We can tally the votes for each of those introductions. And you watch as more and more women are enfranchised by their states, more and more men in congress are willing to vote to a federal amendment of the constitution. It is the existing political power of women made possible and pushed the federal amendment. This is so important because it helps us understand how political change actually happens. It is slow, piecemeal, grassroots, on the ground in your neighborhood and your state. The womens Suffrage Campaign that brought us the amendment did not happen in a few years in the 1910s here in washington. Thats the way the story is often told. That doesnt begin to capture how that huge political change really happened. Hard, steady, patient work. On the ground over generations. Millions of women voted before the amendment. Millions of women were enfranchised. It doesnt look like there was any help or massachusetts. Any hope four massachusetts, same thing for mississippi. Millions of women were brought into a full democratic citizenship. It changed the meaning of womanhood. Its enfranchised women in states it was hard to imagine would have done so on their own. However it is not the case that all american women voted after 1920. Florida had granted municipal suffrage. Florida is green. Women had not been given the vote in schoolboard elections. But it had been given the vote in certain cities, charter cities, so there is a partial vote in florida. Thank you for noticing, though the map is working. After the ratification of the 19th amendment, millions of american women were barred from voting. We want to be sure we are clear on all of that. Citizens of the United States, puerto rican women were made to citizens of the United States in 1917. The amendment said no state shall deny the vote on the basis of sex. It did not say anything about territories. Puerto rico and hawaii were territories. When this oversight was understood if it werent so tragic it would be hilarious. I thought we would enfranchised women there. That didnt happen. The Hawaiian Territorial legislature enfranchised women in white. But the Puerto Rican Legislature refused. And women in puerto rico had to continue to fight across the 1920s and into the 1930s. My favorite puerto rican suffragist was this woman. Who declared herself for women suffrage in 1908. She was a major labor activist. She is an anarchist. What does an anarchist care about suffrage . They want to get rid of the state. While you got one, you want women voting in it. She was a great proponent of suffrage in puerto rico. In 1920 was disappointed that puerto rican women were not in franchise. In 1929 finally the Territorial Legislature granted the vote and all adult women in puerto rico were allowed to vote in 1935. Its going to be the position of a lot of women there and after. If you are a puerto rican woman in puerto rico in 1925 you are not a voter. If you moved to new york you become a voter. Its not that you are in puerto rico, a territory that has not enfranchised women. Native american women who lived on reservations were not considered citizens of the United States. It wasnt until 1924 that Congress Passed the snyder act which made indians living in reservations citizens of the United States. Even though living in reservations in the United States, it didnt mean that all the states extend the franchise to all those citizens. Many states continued his not to enfranchised indians who live on reservations even after 1924. New mexico, maine, minnesota, and those states held out against the enfranchisement of native americans through the 1930s, into the 1940s. The Supreme Court issued a decision that said no more peace shenanigans. Each state has to extend the vote to indians living on reservations. 8 several of the states, arizona, utah and new mexico, took a long time, years to expunge from their laws the bar voting by native americans, native americans were kept by poll taxes and unfairly administered literacy tests, which brings us to the Largest Group of american women. Africanamerican women in the south. Many of you will know that in the earliest 20th century in particular, Southern States begin to disenfranchise africanamerican men who have been voting in their states and serving in congress and serving in state legislatures and ruling cities. That begins in the 1890s. Southern states began to disenfranchise and take votes away after the civil war. They were disfranchised by many means. One was by the poll tax. They tend to be poor. They have trouble getting up the money for poll taxes. There were unfair literacy tests. Make sure everybody is clear on what those literacy tests were. They did not just ask you to read something. They go in and the voter registrar who was invariably white would say i would like you to read Section Three paragraph two of the mississippi constitution and you would read and now interpret that, what does that mean . No matter what you said the foot registrar has discussions to say maybe not, you will have to come back another time. You couldnt read that to me no problem. Because of these unfairly administered tests many africanamericans were barred from voting and many illiterate white people were allowed to vote because of the discussion of the voter registrar that they could say fine to anybody they want to admit to the franchise as well as exclude people. There were reprisals for africanamericans who voted. Landowners would threaten to throw renters off their land. There was also violence. Lynching increased dramatically in the 1890s. Another spike in the 1920s. Through those same means, they unfairly administered literacy test. Africanamerican women in the south were barred from voting just as men work. That struggle, that struggle to get rid of poll taxes and overcome those tests and fight back against violence and economic reprisal, that struggle went on into the 1960s. Some of the most important activists were women like a sharecropper who became an important player in the early 1960s and the founder of the mississippi freedom democratic party. She is pictured here testifying before the 1964 Democratic National convention. She was representing the mississippi freedom democratic party. And given the evidence on Racial Discrimination on the part of the White Democratic Party in mississippi. She was one of the great activists in the struggle. Eventually those two ways of barring people from the polls were overcome. In 1964 the amendment to the constitution was ratified by three quarters of the state. It made poll taxes unconstitutional and the United States you can no longer ask, you could require someone a task to vote. And then it outlawed literacy tests for voting. And sends federal registrars to the south. And the number of africanamericans registered to vote skyrocketed within months of the passage of the Voting Rights act of 1965, which was an enormous help to native American Voters as well. In addition, we are going back to the 1920s now, asian immigrant women were also not eligible to vote. They were not eligible to vote because of citizenship. If you are an immigrant from china or japan in the earliest 20th century, you are not eligible to naturalization. If you couldnt become a citizen you couldnt vote. These changed piecemeal over the and 1950s. E 1940s they became eligible for naturalization. China is an ally. 1946 Asian Indians and filipinos were made eligible and it was not until 1952 with the walter mccarran act that the japanese and other asian immigrants were made eligible for citizenship. You are not eligible to vote either. Asian immigrant women were barred from the polls. Those of you from the district of columbia did not want me to overlook the fact that the district was denied president ial participation in politics until 1964. D. C. Did not have an elected local government. Even though it has a Larger Population in some states and pays more taxes. You have a situation in which puerto rican women, shes not a voter. She moved to new york. She becomes a voter. She comes to washington, d. C. , not a voter again. Whether or not you had Voting Rights depended on where you were, who you were and where you were in the 20th century. The struggle for Voting Rights has gone on and on. I would say it goes on still. Some of the kinds of restrictions that have been put on voting have especially disadvantaged and forced from the poll young women, poor women, women of color, women who have been incarcerated, the kinds of restrictions we are seeing now, mean that the struggle for womens suffrage continues. It never got over, never ended. Another problem with a way we often represent and talk about the 19th amendment, women got to vote in 1920. I said that. And its so wrong. It misrepresents so much because millions of women had to vote before hand. Millions of women still didnt have it and there are women who dont have it now. Its a piecemeal struggle that has gone on for generations and generations. It goes on still. One of the things i want to make sure is clear here, which make lost in the shuffle, while africanamerican women in the south in the 1920s were not admitted to the polls, they are excluded by the same means, africanamerican women in the north and the west are voting at the same time that other women in their states voted. One of the reasons for the victory of the things like the amendment against the poll tax and Voting Rights act is the increasing political power of africanamericans in the north. We are going to talk a bit more about that in just a bit. Another thing that may be confusing is that any asian descendent woman who was born in the u. S. Eligible to the polls was only immigrant women who were not eligible to naturalization who were kept from the polls. We want to make sure all of those distinctions are clear. Just because the constitution now said you couldnt deny women the vote on the basis of sex didnt mean that the full range of Citizenship Rights and responsibilities were extended to women automatically. I just laugh when i go to jury service. Who wants to serve on a jury. That thing comes in the mail and it says you have to appear this day. I dont want to do that. Its a crucial responsibility and privilege. Women who were accused of crimes had to go before juries that were allmale. A court with a very male i there is a lot of spitting. Tobacco everywhere. I dont want to be to proceed. Too prissy. They are male spaces. Lets say you are accused of shoplifting, you are a woman. You go into court and you have all these men there, the judge is a man. The lawyers are men. Matter . T if you think that matters, tell me why. Raise your hand. Why does that matter . Yeah. Intimidating, fantastic. Yes. Society working against you. Anything else . A jury of ones peers. If you think that gender has something to do with creating a peer in means a woman couldnt get a jury of her peers. I will get one more back here. Men and women have fairly different gender roles. Fantastic. One more all the way back. I was going to say many of them would have been Business Owners with a little biased toward what that meant. That could very well lead. Be. One more, i always say one more. Im not trustworthy. Feedmmand is doing it to his family. Still unlessoman she is about person . Shes a bad person . There are all kinds of things that can enter into the thinking of those men. It doesnt seem that a woman could get a jury of her peers if you think gender has anything to do with creating a peer. There are women activists who begin to open up Jury Services to women in the 1920s. This was a really long struggle. Something like 28 states had finally opened jury service to women. Even in those states you could say i asked them to myself on the basis of gender. It wasnt until 1973 that Jury Services opened in all states. When you get that dreaded letter in the mail that says you are called to jury service, praise to our ancestors. That is an Important Service we provide to each other and women struggled hard to create a possibility of women having a jury of their peers. No surprise to anybody because this continues to be a struggle, another aspect to democratic citizenship that women had a hard time cracking is of course electoral office, breaking into electoral office. Something like 20 of the u. S. Congress is female. 20 . Pathetic. To run fortrying office in the 19th century erie century. Sorry. The first woman to serve was jeanette rankin. From montana. D one of those western states had enfranchised women early. Beginning to serve in 1917. She is one of the votes against the war resolution. She was a pacifist. Is in congress in the early 1940s and roosevelt after the bombing of pearl harbor, she is the only vote against the u. S. Going to war against japan. Its a really important player in getting the womens suffrage amendment through the congress. She is the first woman to serve in congress. There is some progress. It is so beautiful. Four women served in a u. S. Congress in 1921. By 1929. Reached nine it is slow going. 1993, the woman vote gives a big bump to womens representation in congress. We are up to eventually . 20 20 in 2017. Women had better luck in state legislatures, these numbers and state legislators in the 1920s thousands. This is not many compared to the thousands of seats there were. There was substantial progress in the course of the 1920s. By 1929 there are 38 states that have at least one woman in their state legislature. We will talk more about that in just one second. I thought i would give you just a couple of examples that women who achieved National Office in the 1920s. A sense of who they were. One very wellknown woman who u. S. Congress in new mexico was nina warren. She was the first latina to run for congress. She does not win. She is from a very prominent new mexico political family. She is a very average avid suffragist. She is a great advocate of womens suffrage. She was elected to the position of superintendent of schools in santa fe and continues for a while. In 1922 she runs for u. S. Congress. She is having a fantastic run for that congressional seat when a relative of hers reveals that she was not the widow she claims to be but was divorced. That just tanked should have come out with that right off the bat. She had a very good run and remained prominent. In the 1930s she was the state director of the civilian conservation corps. There are latinas elected the new mexican state legislature. Two women in 1930. Some of the early Success Stories are in new mexico. In 1922, a latina is elected secretary of state in new mexico. A successful bid for National Office was made by ruth hannah mccormick. She was from two very prominent political families. She is the daughter of a very important Republican Campaign designer and activist, as well as politician. She learned politics as a child. She married into the mccormick family. Hes also a politician and she had a lot of money behind her. She was involved in campaigns of all kinds in the 20s. 1928 she runs for congress in chicago and she wins. She wins and goes to the u. S. Congress in 1929 and there until 1931 she always served one term because she was more ambitious than u. S. Congress. She wanted to be a governor or senator. She ran for senator in 1930 and did not win the seat. She did win the primary. She was the republican nominee. There was a lot of excitement white inen black and illinois. There was a lot of opportunity, she did not quite make it. She stayed in politics a long time, she never made it back into the u. S. Congress. A very different story here. Huge success. How many of you know Mary Teresa Norton . Nobody. Ok, so we are going to spread the word. If you are at the bus stop, say what about mary norton. Lets get the word out about her. Her story is a fantastic story. She did not go to college unlike nina. She is from a workingclass family. She goes to new york and she goes to business school. She becomes a secretary. Around 1909ish. He dies. She is grief stricken after the death. She then begins to work at a nursery. She is really good at it. She then becomes the president of the nursery as a fundraiser she gets to know pretty much everybody in jersey city and through the county. One of those people is the democratic boss and mayor of the city. When the amendment was ratified, new jersey was one of the states that have not enfranchised women. She said she was not a suffragist and she did not know anything about politics. He says, no women do. Go get them. She goes and organizes Democratic Women in the early 1920s especially thereafter and she is very good at it. She is set up for u. S. Congress in 1924. She wins, she goes to congress and runs again, a landslide victory. Over 80 of the vote. She stays in congress until 1951. Dealeran important new in the 30s. In 1938 she takes over the Labor Committee of the u. S. House. She is the person who gets through the fair labor standards act which is the first time there was a National Fair wage, minimum wage, and National Child labor laws. Mary teresa norton, she did not have a college degree, she was not a politician. That suffragist she was not a suffragist. She was a great politician. A really great politician. One of the things that you will see is women involved in national politics. One of the things they do have in common is that they are white. Women of color have more luck in state and local elections. Black women are very active in national politics. There are some very important players in the early 1920s the Republican Party. The overwhelming majority of black political advocates are republicans. It is the party of lincoln. Democrats in the south are the creating jimed in crow laws and have been trying to disenfranchise black americans. Many are solidly in the republican camp. After the suffragist amendment passes, the National Republican committee asked black Women Leaders to organize. One of the first women who is called on by the rnc is a woman who had been a activist for about a decade at this link. She had been the president of the National Organization for colored women. She worked very hard for republicans in the early 1920s. She actually turned the National Association of colored woman into a republican club. She works on behalf of the Republican Party. The Republican Party then created a black womans organization at a national level. She took over that organization in the 1920s. Many of you will know her. She had been active in the cw. S she was very active. She founded a school to professionalize domestic service. Feminist. Great very critical of any man who votingt the race by not for voting the runway. She becomes a major activist for the Republican Party especially in the 1920s. Even though, of course women in d. C. Did not have Voting Rights. She was traveling across the country on behalf of the Republican Party. The outlier here is alice nelson who was a poet that was born in louisiana. She was raised in brooklyn. She wound up in delaware in the early 1920s. She is a major republican activist. She was a member of the delaware Republican Committee. The state committee, very few africanamerican women were on those committees. She was appointed to the delaware Republican Committee in 1920. She served. She worked hard for republicans. We will talk more about this in just a bit. In 1922 the republicans have a chance as africanamerican women saw it to have a lynching bill anti lynching bill in congress. They blew it according to the view of many africanamerican women. She was so mad about that that she went over to the democrats. She said she will leave them be. She left. She became the organizer of the africanamerican democratic party. This group had its headquarters in new york. More in the 1920s, they claim that democrats in the north were not the same as democrats in the south did. Given the disappointment of the republicans for decades, maybe it makes sense to go to the democrats. Hardly anybody went with her in the 1920s. It is not until the second election of Franklin Roosevelt that a massive amount of africanamericans went to the democratic party. She is a harbinger of things to come. I thought it would be important if we read together what of her one of her poems. She was married to paul dunbar. Very famous himself. I fight you may want to stand up. Our halftime break. Get your blood going. You may want to even switch seats or something. I just thought we should read together this poem which was published in 1920. She has in mind world war i. It is called i sit and sew. Together. I sit and sew, by hand grow tired. My head lays down with dreams. The panoply of war. The martial tread of men, stern eyes, gazing beyond the soul. Whose eyes of not seeing death nor learned to see their lives. Must sit and sew. My heart aches with desire. That pageant terrible, that fiercely pouring fire on basic fields. D my soul in pity swings appealing cry, yearning only to go there in that holocaust of hell. Those fields of woe. I must sit and sew. The idle patch. Why dream i hear under my home late thatch . Why dream but it might fetch. Piteously calling me, you need me. It is no rosie dream. This pretty beautiful seem. It stifles me. Sit and sew. Thank you. That was incredible. That was published in 1920. You can see there. If you have seen the wonder woman movie there is a continuity here that is very powerful. One of the things we see is that in her poem is that there is a representation of such a look at the genderge in system. In the system, there is this because of my domestic commitments that they ought to be in public life. That i take care of children and i nurture and i and all of that but i have something to bring there. Men do not have that. She is rejecting that. She is trivializing the. She said she would rather be on the battlefield been in her home. That is a different kind of claim and we have seen in the main before the 1920s and there it is. All right, i want to talk about some of the important legislation and causes that we fought for in the 1920s. First, lets talk about some organizational changes that occurred around 1920. First, the National American womens suffrage organization which had been the largest suffrage organization, transformed itself into the league of women voters in 1920. The organization was very for familiar. This and a slew of other womens organizations became a joint Congressional Committee in 1920. It was a Umbrella Organization that was the lobbying arm of progressive women organizations and one of the things that they went after was womens independence and the lack of independent citizenship for married women. Before 1922 if a American Woman. Married a nonamerican man. She would lose her citizenship. If you married a british person you would lose your citizenship. Married women could not become naturalized on their own. These women succeeded in getting the cable act passed. That any American Woman who came to the United States could naturalize herself whether her husband was or not. If she married a foreigner that did not lose her citizenship with one exception. If a American Woman marries a man that is not eligible for naturalization then she also lost her citizenship. That meant any American Woman who married an asian immigrant man lost her citizenship even after 1922. That would not change until the early 1930s. That is a long struggle. One of the first things progressive women went for was the assurance of independent citizenship for married women. Another one that was more popular this kind of legislation that this group went for. It was a legislation that was aimed at diminishing mortality. Maternal and infant mortality. It was a infancy act that passed in 1921. It was drafted i think it used to having this wonderful thing it was a legislation drafted by the chief of the Childrens Bureau. That was created by congress in 1912 at the urging of activist progressive women. Hordes of women who followed these progressive Women Leaders. Created in the federal department of labor. Activists convinced William Howard taft the president to head of theman womens bureau. He appointed julia lathrop. She had lived that whole house, so many of you know about that. She had been involved in progressive campaigns in illinois in the early 20th century. She went to washington as head of the Childrens Bureau. She had many interests, but one of them was infant mortality. She had a lot of studies done to discover that the u. S. Had some of the highest mortality rates in the industrialized world. It still does. She crafted a whole range of different responses to that. One of which came in the maternity and infancy act. It offers the states hire public matching funds with which they could hire Public Health nurses to go find pregnant women and those who had infants and examine them. And teach them to e of either themselves or their children. And sometimes, they had clinics, so at a county seat or at a church or in a Community Building or a school, public nurses would set up a clinic, and they would publicize through womens clubs and churches and synagogues send up the word that , they would set up on saturday morning at this particular place, and pregnant women could come and bring their children and be examined and get Health Education with the help of the Public Health nurse. When so this comes before congress right after savage. There is a president ial election in the fall. Most of the guys in congress believe there had not been time, really, between august and november, for all women to get registered to vote. So they could not tell that after the 1920 election, they claimed that they feared that women would vote as a block. That all women had the same political commitments and ideas and would vote as a block. Lathrup played on that. She had women all over the country hounding their representatives and saying to please pass this, Womens Health depends on this. Sure enough, it passes with lots of guys saying i never would have voted for that thing, i do not believe in spending money on woman ings, but every my state was writing to me. They also i did not mean to vote for it, but i felt like i had to. So it passes under the threat of this women book women voting block. Thedjusting very briefly power of progressive women to get legislation through congress because of the fears of this womens block, treated by the passage of the 19th amendment made in the 1920s, in the places where the maternity and infancy act was implemented, infant mortality rates declined. If itnot know because was because of the legislation, but it certainly seems possible. After 1924, it was clear that women were voting pretty much the way men in their family were voting to that women were also divided. That there were conservative women, progressive women, there were women who wanted public nurses coming into their homes, women who did not want public nurses in their homes. Congress got wise to the divisions among women voters, and they asked the mortality and infancy act. But a version of it is revived in the Social Security act of 1935. Certainly, the act employed an asrmous numbers of women Public Health nurses and aides and administrators. Another fear in congress was passage of the childs labor amendment. It is before the 1924 elections. Lathrop was sick of the failure of national antichild labor laws. So she said we will have to just change the constitution. Amend the constitution to say that congress can legislate in this area. Sure enough, in 1924, she gets an amendment through congress. That then is never ratified by the states. Never did find the three quarters of the states necessary to amend the constitution. The fact that she got her through congress is another indicator of the fears created in congressional parts by this womens block that did not, in the end, exist. African american women were very much involved in trying to get maternity and infancy act funds into africanamerican communities across the country. They are active on behalf of antichild labor laws across the state. The had a lot of legislative goals in common with white women. But they also had goals that were particular to africanamerican women that have to do, of course, with Racial Justice. Too, came to the National Scene in the early lynching was 1920s. One of the Major Concerns of africanamericans in the 20th century. The most important and visible lynching crusader was ida wells, who became ida wells barnett. Beginning when she was a Young Journalist in memphis, ida well s, then, began publishing articles that tallied the numbers of lynching each year across the United States. Most of the mostly in the south, but not exclusively in the south, for sure, and she exposed the lies that white southerners use to justify lynching, which usually was that there had been a rape a black man raping a white woman. She showed, by using instead of white newspapers, using the white press, she shows that she is documented when you look at the local paper. Rape is not there. It was not the excuse there. It was a cover. So she is run out of memphis on on the threat against her life. She becomes an International Activist against lynching. She ends up in chicago in the made 1890s. She marries a lawyer in chicago and continues her antilynching crusade for the rest of her life, actually. She also became the founder of a social settlement in chicago. She was a very average avid suffragist. She is important to the winning of suffrage in illinois. She becomes an important actor of Republican Party. She runs for office herself in the late 1920s. She is just everywhere on the half on behalf of Racial Justice and social justice from the 1920s on. It looked like as i said the Republican Party is a party of most africanamericans in the 1920s. In 1920, of course, the president ial election returned a republican president and a much more republican congress. So it looked like, to africanAmerican Voters, this is our moment. They started advocating for the dire antilynching bill. Against the so hard segregation of the federal government. You may know that here in washington, the federal government became much more segregated under Woodrow Wilson. Africanamericans are pushing back against that, a huge issue for that. Many africanamericans are pushing congress to implement the 14th amendment. The 14th amendment, as you know, said that any state that disenfranchised adult men should thanr any reason other rebellion or crime should have its representation in congress reduced by the proportion that they were reducing the electorate. Of course, it had never been enforced, and so until their was this huge push to enforce the 14th amendment by africanamerican women and other activists. In the early 1920s, looks like the antilynching legislation is going to pass. Federal make lynching a crime, because so often local Law Enforcement officers were part of lynching crowds. Barnett is anls behalf ofleader on the dire antilynching bill in the 1920s. Group called the antilynching crusaders in the 1920s. The antilynching bill actually got through the house of representatives. It got into the senate. There is lobbying until you cannot see straight. The democrats threatened to filibuster. And the republicans drop it hate it is at that point that alice said to heckelson with the republicans and becomes a democrat. There is this crushing defeat for africanamerican women and men, who had worked so hard and had so much hope in the early 1920s that may be the antilynching bill would pass. Not a surprise, given everything we were talking about, that the ku klux klan was actually powerful and visible in the 1920s. There were huge parade here in washington, d. C. And across the states. They were especially powerful in places like india and colorado. I people elected to local offices from the klan. Women were very active in the klan in the one of the 1920s. Interesting things about the activism of women in the klan in the 1920s is though they are pressing anticatholic, antisomatic, antiblack, racist agenda, they are actually for equality of white women and white men. Klan were the the majority of them were working women. They were physicians, stenographers, Business Owners, they just covered the whole range of women workers. They are very important in organizing boycotts against businesses owned by jews or catholics. Tried to destroy those businesses in their communities. They start whispering campaigns against benefits for office for the parties they do not prefer. Picture of what anybody, male or female, in the klan is like, but one of the important leaders, Daisy Douglas barr, was a quaker preacher. One of the most important in the in the klan 1920s. This group is not what one expects. So there is enormous racial conflict in the 1920s. Women are on both sides of that conflict. Tank, especially because of corruption, in the late 1920s. What of course, it will rise again later. I think i will do pretty well with my time here the real issue i want to talk about bless your hearts. Is the equal rights amendment. I think many of us in this room associate the all right amendment equal rights equal rights did pass in congress in 1972. In fact, the equal rights amendment was timed in 1923 by alice paul, who was the founder look. Women again. This is alice paul, the founder and leader of the National Womens party. Who, after the suffrage amendment was won wanted to guarantee that in the law that laws could not men and women differently. The equal rights amendment was supposed to achieve that goal, make it impossible for laws to treat men and women differently. Thats the would have allowed employers and everyone else to treat men and women differently, but it would not have allowed law to treat men and women differently. The overwhelming majority of ,omen activists in the 1920s 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s adamantly opposed the e. R. A. Most of the women we would consider feminist today opposed the e. R. A. And for extremely good reason to they thought they were right here that they would undermine protective labor let legislation for women workers. In the late 19th century and through the early 20th century, activists in the Labor Movement and their middleclass and delete allies worked like demons to get laws that set limits on the hours that women workers had to work, gave minimum wages to women workers who had such a hard time organizing, because the Labor Movement was not interested in them, worked hard for them to gain power through the lawve bargaining was more important to women workers than many men, because the Labor Movement was so reluctant to organize women workers. Ofa whole generation workingclass women and their middleclass and delete elite allies worked to get laws that set limits on the number of hours they would work and set setting maximum hours, those laws had come hard. They were not extended to men. The Supreme Court had decided that most protective labor legislation could not be extended to men, because it was a violation of con tract contract law, but because women were so much more vulnerable than men, these kind of laws could be extended to women. So they were. Loads of women, wage earning women, benefited from those laws. If the equal rights amendment had been passed, it would have undermined those laws. It would have hurt many more women than it would have helped in the 1920s, 1930s, in 19 orders. That seems very clear. Context confers meeting. This is one of the places you see that clearly. A legislative move, a legal move, that most people think is a progressive move was not a progressive move in the 1920s. It was considered class based legislation that would benefit privileged women at the expense of wage earning women and it would have. It would have. It would have hurt more women than it wouldve helped. In evidence, further evidence of the fact that the e. R. A, when it was originated and decades thereafter, evidence of it being more conservative than progressive, the Republican Party in the 1940s was the first party to support the e. R. A. Thought it was probusiness. It would have allowed Business Owners to exploit women just as much as men. Equal exploitation. By proworkingclass party the 1930s democrats do not support this, as they see it as an attack on the working class. It,blicans say lets go for because it frees businessmen. So context is everything. Itself. Is meaningful in what confers meeting meaning is the context in which it exists. The e. R. A. Is a fantastic example of that claim. , 1938 we are in the secondf roosevelts term. Most new deal legislation is already past. The secretary of labor, with the help of old mary norton, who you will be talking to everybody about at the bus stop after we finish they get through that set ad act minimum wage and maximum hours law for men and women. Eventually, the Supreme Court okayed it. At that point, you may think once you got protective labor legislation going to men and women, while would you not support the e. R. A. At that point . That is because virtually no women workers were protected. Maybe half, under half, women wage earners, because only people in certain occupations were covered by the fair labor standards act. So in loads of states, women workers still need protected labor laws that they had gotten in previous decades. It was not until the 1960s and title vii of the Civil Rights Act that it was interpreted in the ways it was interpreted that it began to make sense that the e. R. A. Made sense for wage earning women. Changes. Topics for further lectures, i would say. The 19th amendment represented the existing political power of women. Willie and has millions of women had the vote before the 19th amendment. The 19th amendment is unimaginable without those voters, especially in the west. It was an important step in the creation of a modern gender women, that men and women were more alike than the victorian system had imagined them to be. Enfranchise all american women. Still, millions of american women were excluded from the polls, even after 1920. It left many aspects of citizenship untouched as, for instance, jury service, elections office, and many other aspects of citizenship we have not had time to go into. It helps to expand the scope of the federal government itself. One thing i think i did not say, when i mentioned the shipper town maternity and infancy act, is it is the First Federal and social welfare. It expanded the privy of their federal government. It is one reason guys and congress were reluctant to pass it. It did not seem like this is where the federal government ought to be involved. There was not a precedent for that. Womens vote and the fear of women voting as a block actually helped expand the scope of the federal government. Would also want to say that it laid the groundwork, the passage of the 19th amendment, helped introduce into American Political Culture the equal rights amendment come a which would continue to be a controversial issue for women and men well into the 1980s. The end. [applause] so if you are not too exhausted, we do have questions and answers. I was supposed to get through by 8 15. I cannot believe that work. That shows the United States, where did you get that from . The map . That map is online at the center ,or american women and politics rutgers university. I think you would probably find it by typing teach a girl to lead. That is a fantastic website for all types of information about women in politics. [indiscernible] was Woodrow Wilson conflicted about the issue of womens suffrage . Yes. He wanted it to be left to the states. He did not want to take responsibility, because he did not think it was a at a real issue. Finally, he got stuck into a corner and urged congress to pass the amendment. Suffrage leaders in a prison here in bc . Yes. One of the things i do not like about the way that suffrage history is often taught is it makes it seem like the whole Suffrage Movement was in the alice paul all about and the National Womens party, and the women who chained themselves to the white house fence, who went after wilson, and where perfectly forcefed in prison. By the way, at the prison, there is a new museum that will open fairly soon. It will feature some of the history of the suffragists who were forcefed there. Absolutely horrific. That is not the whole story pay them that is not the whole story. There would not have been an amendment if there was only the National Womens party in d. C. The relationship between frontier america and the women vote . The map is so dramatic. The question had to do with why the west . Andis it the west franchises women so early and sony places in the east do not . There are enormous and numerous studies trying to explain that. There are all sorts of explanations out there. I think the most compelling is that the political structure, the infrastructure of politics in the east, is so well established that it can withstand virtually any challenge to it. In the west, that infrastructure is still new. Wyoming had none, because it is a territory. Already, it has the mans for suffrage. In the west, the political structures were simply less firm. We do not have generations of families who had always been in control of these institutions, for instance. Did not have loads of money behind those institutions the same way there was old money behind institutions in the east. So they are permeable. They are weaker. Those weaker institutions can be challenged and defeated. I would say that is the most important the most compelling explanation, in my view. But there are plenty of others out there. We can talk about a reading list afterwards, if you would like. You first, and then the women behind you. In the handout on Important Organization and agencies, i am curious why you did not mention the womens bureau, which i just retired from in january. Thank you so much. Since 1974. Here the first publication i was responsible for finishing their was a publication on the impact of title vii of the Civil Rights Act on the state protect it laws, which showed some states repealed them. Some states extended those conferred benefits, such as meal periods, rest periods, to men. Of course, not every state had a meal or rest period law. The reason i did not mention the beer is because i did not have a place to put it into the story of the 1920s. So clearly. Although if i had had more time and could have talked longer about the e. R. A. , i certainly would have talked about the womens bureau, because it is crucial in the fight against the womens the e. R. A. The bureau is initially crated during the war. It is called the women in industry service. Bureau in a permanent the federal department of labor. It continues to be a very of waget advocate earning women. It is crucial in the fight against the e. R. A. In the early going. The Huffington Post just posted something about what the proposal is in the president s budget for the womens bureau, which is to reduce the funding 2. Somethingion to million, to do away with regional offices and leave only 15 people in the National Office. LinkHuffington Post has a to a letter that is being drafted and signed on to to raise, you know, raises as an issue. Thank you for that, and thank you for your service. And the women right behind her. My question were there the equivalent of literacy tests or white women after the 19th amendment . Jim crow type of laws directed towards white women . Of course, white women were subjected to those same literacy lost in the south. White women also had to go in and face those tests. It was just they had white registrars who were on their side, on the other side of the counter. So they were more likely to be an franchised than africanamerican women, not because they had a higher theracy rate or understood mississippi constitution any better, but because they had an advocate on the other side of the counter. And women in pretty rico, in 1929, only literate women get the vote. That remains the case until 1935. Not in massachusetts . No. Once more over here. Then the liberality of western states, i would suggest check census records. What you may find is many of the western states had a predominance of single men, most of whom needed single women. The legislators realized if you moreuffrage, it would likely attract the single woman the that the single men needed. Just something called the harvey girls. How many families in the west had a harvey girl as one of their ancestors. I should have mentioned this. Especially the guys in wyoming are famous for saying we have two women here. Lets get a few more. Lets offer suffrage. It was not clear that was a winning strategy, though. One of the things to keep in mind is suffrage womens notrage, that campaign, was a campaign of women against men. It is women and men support womens suffrage against women and men who oppose it to you it is not women versus men. That is not the history of this. So whether or not that was a winning strategy, i am not sure. But i know there were guys who had it in mind. How about over here . A question about the child labor laws. You said they had been declared unconstitutional federal ones. And the red of the amendment was never ratified. But how was it was passed . The fair labor standards act in 1938 not only set . 25 minimum wage for workers in various occupations and made the 40 hour work week the work week for those who were not going to be paid overtime, but it also abolished child labor in most industries. It was the rare labor standards act that then survived the Supreme Court. A lot of people thought there was no way the fair labors standard act would survive the Supreme Court, because other laws in each of those categories had not. But the Supreme Court had changed enough by the time the rare labor standards act came before it that it was permitted. The constitution was never amendment amended to make that possible, it was a change in the Supreme Court itself. Great question. I had a couple of things. I encourage you to listen to the hello girls speaker, who is magnificent. It is a discussion of women suffragette movement, the first of young thousands american women going over, serving as nurses on the front during the spanish flu. Her talk is on the hundreds of a few, i think hundred women who went over and served as telephone operators, connecting the lines between the french. They were bilingual, so they were connecting the french and american lines. Veryhelped she is a good speaker. But my question, of course, is knowing that there were tens of thousands of women offering to go overseas and going overseas, all of the nurses going overseas, people working in the such, how muchnd of an impact you think that had giving women in the right to vote . There is a lot of contention over that. It does seem possible that that moved some men in congress to vote for the amendment. But i do not think we have the work yet that would show us that. What we definitely do have is this pattern of men in congress who have women in their states who are voting, at least in president ial elections, shifting to vote for the amendment. So we know that women voting out in the states, hiding been already enfranchised, makes a difference. We do not have the work it would take to see if men in congress changed their votes on the suffrage amendment once women started doing that work in the war. That could have had an impact, but we do not have the work to show us that yet. It is a live question. Fantastic question. The Suffrage Movement, among those who wanted suffrage or mored the relations equalize the relations between men and women and those who actually wanted to protect women . That they thought that they did not care if it equalized the relationship, it actually helped for example, the laws that gave women breaks. It did not apply to men. Fantastic question. In the early 20th century, there are loads of different arguments for womens suffrage. Probably the majority of them and the most powerful in the early 20th century were arguments based on the difference between women and men. There were arguments that said because women are morally superior to men, because they are sexually pure, more pious than men, they ought to have public power. That, a very powerful argument, that women are more nurturing, that they are operated by nature, that they know a thing or two about housekeeping. And because of the emergence of corporate capitalism, the things that had been done in homes before that women had control over, like security of the food and the milk they gave their kids, the purity of the air around them, the water they drink they had some control of that in the farm. You go to chicago, and you have no control over that. The house is filtered because the water is filthy around you. You have to buy products from people who you do not trust. Because of that, people argued, women need public power, because they would say we need food and drug laws. It is because we are responsible for our families, that we had to and obligations men, that we have to have public power in this new context. That is probably the most powerful and widespread argument made, but there are loads of other ones. People arguing that women because women are rights bearing individuals, just like men, they ought to have the power of the vote. Anticipate in selfrule. That is the argument for womens equality to that women are full human beings like men, and they ought to have the same rights. Whoe are also people argued, especially in the Labor Movement, wage earning women who argue because the Labor Movement is not supporting us, the only way we will get any protection ourhe work place, improve wages, improve working conditions, is only through legislation. And the only way we get that is through the power of the vote. So a very practical set of arguments there. There is a whole range of arguments. Sometimes, africanamerican women argue on the basis of just justice, but also argue on the basis that maybe they can help stop the disenfranchisement of African American men and jim crow if they get political power. So there is a whole slew of arguments. Probably the most common and effective in the earlier early 20th century is based on the womens differences with men. For the others who advocated for children, did they bring in Birth Control issues into that argument and, for that matter, abortion . No. Julio engstrom, in the Childrens Bureau, avoided issues, public they, of Birth Control, because there was so Much Division in the population. The population of women and men. And certainly not in congress. She believed and i am sure she is right that it would have been difficult for the Childrens Bureau to continue to get appropriations had it come out on in favor of Birth Control publicly. But privately, she did write women flooded the Childrens Bureau with letters. All kinds of very personal stories told in those. Incredibly moving to read through some of those letters. How do i stop having all these babies . Sometimes, she would send information on how you could get hold of a particular nurse or doctor or what would become planned parenthood. To try to get help with that. But it was strictly under the radar. Too dangerous, too hot to touch. You were talking about women not getting full citizenship is because they got the right to vote. Iis might be esoteric, but was surprised to find out that the u. K. , for example, only started passing citizenship of children through mothers 10 years ago. And so i am curious when that would have happened for the u. S. , if women were not considered full citizens, could there children become american citizens by being born to an American Mother or only american fathers . As long as youre born in the u. S. , you are an american citizen, regardless of the citizenship of your parents. If you were an american women and you married and foreigner and were living abroad, then your child is not a citizen. But any child torn in the u. S. We have birthright citizenship in the u. S. It is still the case. If you are born in the u. S. , you have the defensive. That is true then and is true no w. This is a followup to that. When did it become necessary for people coming to the United States to become naturalized to become citizens . Longere has been quite a shifting thought there. There has always been a process became a citizen, though sometimes it was very informal. Century orthe 18th 19th century, you just got off the boat. And you were a citizen. Right. When does that change . Sometime in the late 19th century. And it is still very informal in the early 20th and it is different in different places. It gets codified in the early 20th century. The 1920s. Ied in but there is a series of steps in the early 20th century that begin to codify that nationally. Great question. Have we done it, exhausted ourselves completely . [applause] thank you. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] sunday on American History tv on cspan numb, we look at two u. S. President s. At 6 00 p. M. Eastern, john f. Kennedys life and photos from the smithsonian american art museums collection of photos. The wonderful thing about the kennedys is they never pushed photographers or writers away. They did not care how they were photographed. They did not care whether that tied was fixed, whether the coat was on. Then you that if they made themselves accessible to the media, they would be published. Of course, it was a groundswell. No question about it. That the Media Coverage of jfk was the first time we had ever seen anything like it. That is followed at 8 00, looking at Ronald Reagans relationship with Pope John Paul kengor discussed his book. John paul ii had sent a cable to reagan when reagan had shot im praying for you. They developed the worlds most exclusive prayer society. As for moscow, if they are worried about kinship between the pope and the president , now they are going to really worry about it. American history tv. All weekend, every weekend, on cspan 3. After words, rosa delauro talks about her effort to protect social programs in her book the least among us. What Social Security reached its lowest point, we had Ronald Reagan and tip oneill who came together and acted, and congress acted, to make Social Security solvent into the future. Of handsis wringing about Social Security and being insolvent can be solved immediately by lifting the cap. Watch after words sunday night at 9 00 eastern on cspan 2s book tv. Every hundred 25th anniversary of the salem witch trials. Up next on American History tv, author and sale of State University professor Emerson Baker provides an indepth look at the history of sailor. He explores how it went from a simple town in massachusetts in 1692 to a city synonymous with witchcraft. This is part of an allday symposium held at salem State University in massachusetts. Good morning, everybody