Women yielding political power. Im with cspan, American History on tv on cspan 3 every weekend is happy to coordinate with the organization of american historians to moderate this panel discussion. And of course it could not come at a better moment in history with the 19th amendment granting women the right to vote passed by the house u. S. And u. S. Senate in 1919 and then ratified in 1920. Here we are a hundred years later, the 116th congress has the highest percentage of women ever making up a roughly quarter of each chamber. And we have a female speakr for the second time, and we have four women so far running for president. Todays panel will look at women, the role of women and the key turning points of women in american politics. I want to introduce each of our panelists and come back through and have each of them talk about their books or the period of time theyre writing about for about five minutes and then well open up the conversation to all of you. So let me introduce you t
History in congress. The story begins with Jennette Rankin who is elected to the house in 1916 from montana shes elected to the house four years before women had the right to vote nationally. And in a way shes really a bridge from the sufferage movement to women attaining full political rights. She was active in a National Womens suffrage organization. She helped women get the right to vote not only in montana but a couple states west of the mississippi and she runs in 1916. Shes elected to one of montanas two atlarge districts. Part of her platform shes a passivist. Shes sworn into the house on april 2nd, 1917, and the house has come in to special session, extraordinary session because the president that night, woodrow wilson, delivers a message to Congress Asking for a declaration of war against germany. This is the u. S. Entry into world war i. And rankin, when that vote is held, is one of a group of about 50 members who votes against u. S. Intervention in world war i. She served a
Were here to talk about the president ial race, the Key Senate Races obviously. Lets start with a piece of yours, divided party or big tent. The subhead says while the gop is straining ability to governor, democrats divisions are propping up a big tent for now. Tell us about the democratic side of things first. Joe biden has some key decisions to make here in the coming week or so about who will be his Vice President ial pick. What do you think that comes down to in terms of the important things in his decision . Whats going to count most . Right. I think the number one issue for joe biden is doing no harm. The Vice President ial pick is only going to have so much of an impact on the general election in november. What hes probably most concerned about at this point is making sure hes choosing somebody who is not going to hurt his prospects. Luckily for joe biden, democrats are not in a majority in the senate and they do not have control of the white house. That means that all those dem
Programs. In 1982 he appeared on book notes to talk about his biography of president truman it won the Pulitzer Prize for biography and to help change the view of the truman presidency. Here he is from 1992. Cspan you start off by saying as far back as he could remember truman held onto the mythical roman heroes. What is that all about . The mythical hero who left in time of war with the great general and was victorious and renounced all of his power and returned to the farm. Thats a theme the country was founded on. If you are at the capital with the great painting of George Washington turning over his powers as commanderinchief of the Continental Army to congress the symbols earth all throughout that painting because they believe this is what democracy entailed that any citizen should be called upon at any time to serve b ultheir country in any capacity and the power belong to the people and would bepo returned to those who held it. He like to say i never forget who i was, where i ca
I was about to say how special this night is that you all beat me to it which is great. Welcome. I am the executive director of the Jfk Library Foundation and on behalf of our colleagues in the library we are thrilled you could be here all forms are great but tonight it is a treat because its also the beginning of the centennial weekend and we planned this months ago we literally thought would be the best pair a speaker and moderator we could get for this historic time . This is we have and we are thrilled they are both here. [applause] first a few brief announcements first the underwriters and sponsors including our media is spent on sponsors and for the centennial. We are kicking off the centennial about what were doing over the next few days but over the next few days there are opportunities from seeing a new exhibit with 100 items with those that have never been seen publicly before opening tomorrow. Doing a peace corps day we have an astronaut here as part of the attribute to nasa