a portrait of persistence. for this exhibition, i worked 3.5 years researching, finding all the objects and teach myself this history. for this exhibition we have , about 124 objects, of which there are 63 portraits. in curating the exhibition i was , hoping to commemorate the 19th amendment and tell the history of the 19th amendment and how women lobbied to get this amendment passed and ratified. but also ask questions about it. and ask, what does that do and what does that not do? and why 1965, the voting rights act is considered a mother a , part two of the 19th amendment. if you will follow me, i will take you through the exhibition and show you a few of the objects that tell this history. so let's go. we are in the first gallery of the exhibition. i mentioned we have portraits that drive the narrative. i also wanted to include pieces of art, like the one we are looking at. it is titled the warfare at home and it is by a female artist. lily martin spencer. she was active in the 1860's. i wanted to include this painting, because it portrays young children, these four kids, one is a baby. the three kids are celebrating. and the mother. she is reading the new york times. i do have a servant or helper cleaning the dishes. what i like about this painting is that it is from 1866 and it depicts the civil war. in the battle of vicksburg. it is looking back and spencer decided to portray this moment in time by looking at the lives of women. and the women are very serious but the children are very much engaged in the celebration, because they don't understand how severe and difficult that battle of vicksburg was. vicksburg, during the battle, men on both sides starved, the confederate army and the union army, because the city was surrounded by an embargo. why am i talking about the civil war in a suffrage exhibition? that is a good question. what i wanted to do was demonstrate the divide between the north and the south. as well as between the races, african-american and white because this plays a big part in the suffrage movement, especially when the 14th amendment was passed and ratified in 1869. it included the word, "male". this is the first time in the history of the constitution that gender was specified, and it delivered a severe blow to the suffrage movement, where women try to advocate for their for their right to vote, but they weren't even considered amendment does. -- citizens, which is what the 14th amendment does. the 14th amendment granted citizenship to anyone in the united states. when the 15th amendment enfranchised american citizens, it only enfranchised half the population. this is a huge divide. the suffrage movement disagreed on how to handle it. they split between each other. that is whenthey split between each other. susan b anthony and elizabeth cady stanton wanted to advocate for suffrage by excluding black women, whereas lucy was trying advocate for universal suffrage. we are going to talk about one of the major african-american suffragists. her name was francis ellen watkins harper. she famously gave speech at a suffrage convention. she said we are all bound up together. she was trying to explain to soshe was trying to explain to, people that she was also an african-american and a woman combined. bound up together, intersection al. black women couldn't just sit around and let people take away their rights and not advocate for them. so they became active in church groups and they worked on learning how to speak in public, understanding their rights, understanding how to get those rights by their local communities, by being involved in those local community church groups. that's an interesting topic not a lot of people have gone into or understand as much. people do understand the suffrage movement was divided, but they don't understand that african-americans remain very active. endeavors --xhibit this exhibition endeavors to make sure we include african-americans and their stories, like sarah parker, whose portrait is on the far wall. she was an activist in anti-slavery society of massachusetts. she took her activism abroad. this is another interesting story, how american suffragists were not only focused in the united states, but they were also active elsewhere. in europe especially. last, we are going to talk about seneca falls and what is being referred to as the myth of seneca falls. so, this is a portrait of elizabeth cady stanton and susan b anthony. it is from 1870 by napoleon simoni and he captures them together. anthony is pointing to a book, and they are very dignified. and this is what would be a publicity shot today. they were using this portrait to represent them to a wider audience. they didn't even meet until 1851. and so seneca falls, as most of probably recall from our history books in high school, was a gathering, the first national convention in 1848. in new york, in seneca falls. and elizabeth cady stanton and others penned the declaration of sentiments, which is the beginning document, one of the first documents that put into writing that women were advocating for a vote. so what i hope this exhibition explains is by going back way back to 1832 is that women were getting together and talking and advocating for their rights, for their citizenship rights well before 1848. and so suffrage just didn't appear out of thin air. it actually has a long history that others would argue started well before. so there is a great intellectual debate i encourage you to look into. i brought us up to 1869 and now we are going to move into the next gallery, which starts in 1870. we are in the second gallery and i wanted to make sure to include representation of the women's christian temperance union. because it helps us get into a lot of different issues that american women were facing. temperance was a large organization that had about 150,000 women across the united states involved. they would gather and meet in what was called chapters. in 1873, the women's christian temperance union actually endorsed the sufferage cause. all of a sudden, sufferance has expanded its membership and reach by 150,000 people, which is an incredible amount. for that era. at the top you see that women's holy war. what is great about this very active, energetic, current, is there is a woman who is like a joan of arc figure. she is leaping over these well marked barrels of alcohol. you can see gin, whiskey, beer and rum. and behind her are all of her with pickaxesomen and hatches -- hatches -- hatchets. and they are part of the temperance league. in the name of god and humanity, that is with the banner one of them is carrying. the battle is against alcohol. when women were married to alcoholics, they became a very vulnerable population. so they were organizing amongst each other in ways that help them get support and also understand their rights and what they can do to advocate for their rights. on the bottom, you see the prize. -- the oratorical prize. it says women's christian temperance union at the top. i wanted to include this little medal, because i was curious to know how women were teaching themselves how to speak in public. you think of toastmasters of today. they were actually awarding prizes to women who were speaking and having a contest in order to award them. for their good speeches. and, of course they were talking , about christianity. and temperance. that is an interesting object i so was able to find. , the reason why was important for women to know how to speak in public was in part because the suffrage cause, the word about it was being spread through speeches. a lot of women were going on what was called the lecture circuit and they were speaking in auditoriums and being paid lots of money. dickinson earned $20,000 annually in 1873. she made more than mark twain. so i think that is an , interesting comparison. because whose name is remembered today? even though and elizabeth dickinson was more famous than mark twain at the time. talk more about some of the scandals the suffragists got involved in. victoria hall was well ahead of her time. she started her own business as a wall street banker. she advocated for free love, which means sex outside of marriage, which was definitely outside of the norm for women. in the and she also ran for 1870's. president on a third party ticket and she was the first woman to do so. here we have a nice portrait of her attempting to vote, asserting her right to vote. as she would see it. she voted when you weren't supposed to vote as a woman. is and you can see her she is pointing her finger in . she is pointing her finger in the air and asserting her right to vote and she dropped her vote vote intord of her into the ballot box. , lots of women at this time were doing what would be referred to as illegal voting today. because it was illegal for women to vote. woodhall wasrino one of thousands across the country who sought to change the system by going out, voting, getting arrested, not paying fines, and then serving a sentence in jail so they can appeal through the court system. and they tried to change the laws that way. but they failed. and there was another severe blow dealt to the suffrage movement in 1873 when the supreme court ruled against a woman named virginia minor who had tried to vote and got up to court system. but then the supreme court found that women should not vote legally in the united states. so we were discussing how , victoria woodhall asserted her right to vote by placing her ballot in the ballot box. and here we have a different type of ballot box. this one is made of metal. the one in the victoria woodhall portrait was most likely made of wood. what i like about this ballot box is it explicitly says women's ballots on it. it is very much in your face that women were voting separately and most likely not on equal terms. four equal types of suffrage. they can maybe vote for municipal suffrage or school suffrage. or in some states before 1920, about 15 states allowed women to vote in the presidential election. so, this box is from l1 indiana, , which is one of those states that allowed women before 1920 to vote in the presidential election. it was made by barnard and company out of st. louis, and they made these boxes between 1860 and 1920. i think this is an interesting piece of material culture that illuminates what women's rights were like and what it looked like, what it felt like. we are looking at a caricature of victoria woodhall in 1872. this was done by thomas nast. this exemplifies some of the struggles women were going through at the time. so as you see this is a , caricature. victoria woodhall was known for halos on the top of her head but the cartoon turns them into devil horns. and then he adds wings so she has become a demon. she is walking away from a woman who is looking over her maybe a little undecided that shoulder as if maybe a little undecided that she made her , decision, she is going up this mountain. and you can tell there are one, , 2, 3 children she is carrying, as well as the alcoholic husband strapped to her back. and so this exemplifies the , choices women had. either you throw in your stock with somebody like victoria woodhall, who is advocating for free love at the time, and that is a very soft term for sex outside of marriage. she was advocating that women should enjoy sex and have sex outside of marriage. ends why get married and have the burden of an ill husband and without any support? all these children without any support? , so victoria woodhall was trying to promote choices women had. but of course, at the time, women were definitely not supposed to be having sex and enjoying it. so this is very much a taboo subject. and thomas nast really captures that in his caricature of victoria woodhall. we are looking at a portrait of the first woman to argue a case before the supreme court in 1880. she was arguing for cherokee land rights. she became an expert witness for native americans in subsequent trials. what i like about this portrait is how dignified she looks, she had her hair wound up in a beautiful coiffe. she had her collar on, and it represents her as this respectable woman, because she was a suffragist and they were constantly being accused of being outside the bounds of femininity. she was actually the first woman to campaign for a presidency. i mentioned victoria woodhall, who is the first woman to name herself as a candidate for presidency. but she couldn't campaign because she was serving a jail sentence. yet she had founded what was called the equal rights party. this was like a democrat party and like the republican party, but it is a third party ticket. the suffragists are running for president on what is called a third party ticket. it is thanks to victoria woodhall that bella anne lockwood is able to run. she is a good example of what women could do. she was a lawyer, she was advocating for rights in the supreme court and running for president. over here, we have a lovely portrait of abigail scott dunaway, who is active in trying to persuade male legislators to change the laws of these western states. she was based in oregon and she founded the new northwest, which was a newspaper in 1871, that advocated for women's rights. a lot of people think suffrage was only based in the northeast. in fact, it was very active across the united states. there were mormon women advocating in utah. wyoming became the first state famously to endorse suffrage for women in 1869, and then utah in 1870. there is a nationwide approach to this reform movement. it was probably one of the longest reform movements in the united states in american history, and one of the most widespread. we are in the third gallery now, and this is entitled the new woman. it begins in 1892 and goes up to 1912. the new woman was educated, on her bicycle, out and about, not in the home, physically active. in this puzzled a lot of people. and you can see this depiction of the farmer, his wife and possibly his daughter. the new woman in her writing habit. she is wearing what looks like bloomers, pants she asked them for a glass of water. they of course oblige, but as she is drinking this glass of water they are thinking, what is , this person? is she a woman, what is she doing? why is she outside of the home? you can tell the confusion a lot of americans had when women started to advocate for their rights. and also enacted the rights and their freedom to move around in society. and to go to school and to get educated. and so magazines were picking up , on this. leslie's was owned by marian leslie who had married frank leslie who had died and so she changed her name to become mrs. frank leslie in order to assume the authority it took to publish a magazine like this. you can see the use of the color. this is a woman riding in open air carriages in a parade. so she's obviously carrying the banner of votes for women. it speaks to some of the privilege behind the movement. so, a lot of wealthy white women were the ones that were actually out there advocating in parades like this. in part because the parades excluded african-americans. but, they were doing well and getting the word out. and so, miriam leslie changed her magazine to make sure it included illustrations like this. if you study it after she took over, you can see a clear trajectory into the feminist causes of the era, which is interesting. finally, we are going to look at an example of anti-suffrage. this is from 1894. new york had tried to change its state referendum to include women's right to vote. but it failed, despite having 600,000 signatures in support of changing the state's legislation, the referendum failed. this exemplifies what was happening in this era, where the suffragists had to take on a state-by-state approach. there were no longer going for this amendment change that had been proposed in the 1870's. or the judiciary changes. they were actually trying to do a full court process state-by-state. but it was not going very well and was very frustrating. congress is not supporting women's cause here. you can see how can she vote when the fashions are so wide and the voting booths are so narrow. so it is depicting this woman as a fanciful, not serious ditz, if you will. if you can't figure out how to dress yourself, much less fit in a voting booth. so how could women even see , themselves having a political voice? there's a lot of anti-suffrage that accompanies the whole movement and in the exhibition i chose to highlight some of those examples and really not focus on it too much. because i was more interested in how african-americans were really involved and what the strategies were in the movement. we are looking at two examples that speak to the history of colorado and women's voting rights in colorado. i wanted to highlight colorado because it is the first state where suffragists were able to male and convince the legislators to change the state constitution to make sure women could vote. wyoming was a territory, they one sort of grandfathered in the right to vote when it became a state. but women didn't have to lobby wyoming legislators to get the after it became a stay to get the right to vote. it was already written into their constitution. the colorado example is pretty interesting. if you come in close, you can see the three party tickets. at the very bottom of the ballot, this would be what they voted with. in 1893. you can see equal suffrage approved or equal suffrage not approved. once colorado women achieved the right to vote, they elected female legislators. this is a portrait of three of the four female legislators from the era of 1893 through 1894 you , youn, jones and riddle have two democrats and one republican. in the back, we've got three portraits of african-americans. there is ida hunt, anna cooper, and mary church terrel on the right. these were studio portraits that were made of these women while they were students at overland -- oberlin college. it was founded by abolitionists and was one of the first liberal arts schools in the united states to accept african-american students. what i love about these portraits is how young they are. and you know that each went on to lead great lives as activists, as women who are advocating for citizenship rights, particularly for african-americans. and for all people of the united states. especially anna julia cooper was a teacher at the m street college school, now the dunbar high school in washington, dc, , she was living the life of someone who truly believed in giving liberal arts education to african americans. as did mary church terrel, who in 1893 founded the national college women's association. but she was also teaching at the m street college school that is now dunbar high school in washington, dc. what i like about these two women was they were taking on the responsibility to assimilate african-americans in the post-civil war suffrage era in a -- reconstruction era, in a way that would give them white collar access so they can become a once they went to the high school, then they went to college, and they were business people. leaders, teachers, or nurses. so they embodied that argument of w.e.b. dubois and booker t. washington that these two men have been having. about how to best assimilate african-americans during reconstruction. booker t. washington advocated for technical training. where's wb device advocated for liberal arts training. dubois advocated for liberal arts training. and these women were walking the walk. they are less recognized than the men and they are very much equal to both of these men in the ways in which they were strategizing how to make life better for african-americans during a very difficult time. and so these three women are in , this exhibition because they were not advocating for only suffrage, but they were advocating for other things outside the parameters of the single issue focus. african-american women were doing a lot of activism, even though they were still excluded from the national american woman suffrage association, which the two factions we were talking about in the very beginning, when in 1870, the suffrage memo divided they have come back , together in 1892. they then move forward with great force and good strategy they are doing, still the state-by-state strategy. but they are also excluding african-americans the whole time. so my point is these women were , not just sitting around waiting on the sidelines. they were being very active in and of themselves within their own groups and their own societies and their own local communities. we are standing in front of a banner carried by ines and dorothy in 1911. the writing is actually an excerpt from scripture called the glorious light, written in 1871 by the british dean of canterbury. what i liked about this banner is how it has that sense of spirituality that was so important to the suffragists up 19-teens.e it also has that sense of emerging onward and making progress forward. i wanted to make sure to include a couple of banners that we borrowed from the national women's party. because they really speak to a lot of the thinking hines the movement and it also points to the activism. this concludes the first half of the exhibition. we have covered the movement up through 1912. we have covered the first generation of suffragists and from this point on, we are going to discover that suffragists still do not have -- still haven't achieved the right to vote, women still don't have the right to vote in the united states, but we will trace how they switched tactics and really achieved progress in a very comparatively small amount of time. up through 1920, and then talk about the changes and the ongoing battle through 1965. in the second part. >> this was the first of a two-part tour of the national portrait gallery's exhibit, of the votes for women marking the centennial of the 19th , amendment. you can watch this and american artifacts programs by visiting our website at c-span.org. -- c-span.org/history. q&a,nday night on journalist elaine weiss on her book the women's hour about the ratification of the 19th amendment in 1920, which granted women the right to vote. >> it passes the house by a margin very small. it passes the senate with only a two foot margin. -- a to vote margin. itre are senators sitting on after the house passes it in 1918. it takes until june, 1919 before it passes both houses. margin.-vote the senate knew they were sending it out for ratification to the states in what is called an off year, when most state legislators were not going to be in session. that was sort of purposeful to make it more difficult. the suffragists how to convince 30 governors, to call their legislators back into special session, to consider the amendment. atelaine weiss, sunday night 8:00 p.m. eastern, on c-span's

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