The country in every state and every election for the first time have the right to vote so they came down to tennessee and it got wild. About 27 million women were of voting age. Of course not all would vote and as we know for africanamerican women and native american women they would not loan they would be allowed to votero but but 27 million women were eligible to vote the politicians were worried it was a president ial election the candidates were very worried to be up for reelection to be a political freeforall. Before we get into the characters involved in the characters that i write about the participants in this book they write in their memoirs especially for the northern women coming down to participate in this legislative battle to filibuster they were not used to thatrt heat so when i started my research in the summer of 2015 i specifically went down in august to feel the heat i wanted to feel it very bearing down on me like method acting so how it can bear down and surround you and then to imagine what it was like without air conditioning wearing 10 pounds of close that women would tend to do so would help me to understand teeseven why did it come down to that quick. So the suffrage cost was going on for a decade, 72 years at this point with the first organized meeting thats not the first time it was discussed or women were advocating that the market that so from that time 72 years and for various reasons i explained in the book they were at the state and federal level finally got a federal amendment passed afteree 40 years and have been stuck in congress 40 years and then finally after world war i and women were participating in a very different way than before Congress Finally relents narrowly to pass it goes to the states three quarters of the states have to ratify that is 36 states there was 40 in the union 35 ratified by summer of 1920 just one more is needed and it turns out tennessee is the best hope. Most of the southern had rejected the amendment but texas and arkansas had but there were two other Southern States in play North Carolina and florida North Carolina frejected it when tennessee considered it then florida refused to call a special session so it came down to tennessee and thats a dangerous place to have the entire enfranchisement of half the population because it was aa Southern State a lot of ambivalence and in opposition but also a very vibrant womens suffrage organization so they say we can do it come down and help us so they come down then you see almost a different ballet from the Suffrage Movement and again looking at the opposition corporate and religious opposition and that has women of different persuasions. It is a fascinating microcosm and an even moral question. Carey cat is the leader of the Suffrage Movement teeseven i got my movements mixed up. I am so sorry. What is so interesting is i was shocked im not a suffrage follower i have been studying this for 40 years so when i encountered that there were women organized all over the country and then to oppose the federal amendment i was shocked i couldnt comprehend that women could oppose their sisters getting the vote. Women do not speak or think monolithically so one of the challenges i follow she is very well educated and the dean of a small college, a professor and comes from a veryou traditional conservative background in tennessee and she grows up in a household where the idea of women doing something in public was not accepted and she feared that hello of feminism that she sees that as a natural and also some religious opposition and racial opposition because one of the things we encounter in the Southern States, is the idea there is opposition because black women are given the vote by constitutional law and that was not accepted politically. Spearmint. So she is the leader of the tennessee anti suffrage. Ai she is an interesting woman and those leaders who come down from new york to help her so she leads the tennessee contingents but she is assisted by strong and wellfunded from those who had been opposing it also will little bid friction how they know to run the campaign in tennessee. Describe how she kept her cool. She was called into service july 1920 they realize tennessee will deliberate the legislature will be called so she gets the summons from her home on the southern part of the state the suffragettes are coming so she travels to nashville and arrange for her to stay in the Fanciest Hotel which is the hermitage which is still beautiful but she is of used to this type luxury and it is not airconditioned and its event hotter than usual. So she spends the first night in the bathtub running cold water using the telephone to call her colleagues to send telegrams come to nashville we need to oppose this amendment comfortably and sheth is doing this from the bathroom. She writes about this in her memoir. I had to check with the hotel did they have showers but i guess shehe was in the bathtub. So carey is a fascinating figure in iowa farm girl who becomes a teacher and was widowed twice catches the eye is Susan B Anthony she was a very good mentor and she could spot talent that could be future leaders of the movement and she trained them and had them accompany her on the oicampaign trail because she was trying to get interest and enthusiasm for suffrage. She sees that she has the fire and the logistical mind to lead a movement so she actually becomes Susan Anthonys successor literally takes over in 1900 as Susan Anthony is aging she becomes president for a while and it leaves it for a while then comes back and says the womans hour has struck and she takes over as the master strategist. At the time the Suffrage Movement is split now this is the Third Generation they have been fighting for so long a Third Generation emerges and they are tired of waiting. We see this impatience of waiting so a young woman with a phd from university of pennsylvania had volunteered who startse a movement of a more radical extreme Suffrage Movement and attractive and young and who was the head of the National Womens party and we see this happening all the time in the Labor Movement or the Civil Rights Movement and the daughter of west tennessee and is told women dont become lawyers and joins a Suffrage Movement and then gradually joins the National Womens party so those are the characters that we follow the head of the establishment of 2 million women who are affiliated with the National AmericansSuffrage Association she comes down to new york to run the strategy and running the womens party there were two womens organizations working separately and then pearson who was leading the opposition and then a whole constellation of men and politicians and corporate lobbyist they were a big part of the equation all gathering in nashville for the fight teeseven we will continue to talk to elaine. But first we will listen to your questions. Did they ever meet each other at the hermitage quick. They must have. I dont have documentation of that moment that they were there for weeks and weeks both wings had headquarters at the hotel the anti suffragist had their headquarters many legislators and lobbyists were there it was a crazy place their meeting in the lobby and in the dining roo room. I dont have and believe me i have looked, a confrontation altogetherer but certainly they were bound to bump into each other in the hallways. She is a lightning rod and an outsider intoo yankee so she is not allowed to be in public or in the legislature she runs things. I who owns the hermitage today cracks. Yes. So helpful it has been beautifully restored and many of those same elements and then built in the 18 hundreds and was only ten years older. But when i stayed there for the dedication to help them kick off the centennial year than i was truly a thrill because one of the things she talks about her letters is the state house is right out the window and a block and a half away. And there i could see it. So her into your legacy is played out in that beautiful state house that is so close she cannot touch it and has to wait for the messengers to run between the statehouse and the hotel. But that was exciting the hermitage is now unveiled and now the lobby is dedicated to what happened in the hotel teeseventi now lets take calls. Diane you are on with the author. Caller about a month ago on cspan i heard a theory i had never heard before that a lot of white men wanted their wives who wanted the black negro men to go is that true . That a lot of white men wanted theirhe white wives to vote to counteract the black vote. That is very true. There was a sense especially in the south there were more white women than black men to vote of those that would be of course it would be prevented by voting taxes and literacy requirements and we encounter that in my book with the congressman and the senators and the legislators and they do say to give my wife or the daughter the vote and more white people will be voting that is more racial uncomfortable aspects of the movement that we need to understand and to explain teeseven jim from california. Caller the intersection of the Suffrage Movement the Temperance Movement in the past at the same time. Yes indeed. From the very beginning in the 18 seventies and eighties the Womens Christian Temperance Union begins to organize many of the suffrage leaders we have to understand for some it was a moral equation but for others temperance was about Domestic Violence because women had very few legal ways to redress an abusive husband or father. They could not bring them to court so temperance becomes an answer to the Domestic Violence problem and the suffragist who also look at the vote as a means to gain other rights for women and what you will see even in the summer of 1920 prohibition is already in effect so why would the liquor lobby bey interested . By the way it was trying to upload suffrage in all the states for decades because they dont want women to get the vote because they fear they want prohibition so if it is already in effect and why are they interested . They were hoping that they could keep women from the ballot box then to have prohibition would not be enforced. So they were looking to congress and legislatures that would not enforce prohibition and thats why even in 1920 in nashville they are fighting to stop the federal amendment. There is a wonderful scene that i describe called jack daniels that is the liquor lobby attempt to persuade legislators that they should not ratify and it was the speakeasy on the hermitage who had liquor 2470 legislators singing keep the home fires burning to keep the federal amendment from being ratified and then not to be affected quite as strongly. August 1922 months away from a president ial election. That is what happened in nashville because the politicalre parties some had been supporters summer at the state or national level. It is interesting republican supported and for the most part with reforms and trust so actually they were the heroes in many states of the Suffrage Movement so you have the parties are very nervous about suffrage because it is a president ial election and then the candidates themselves who play a part in my story because both sides want the president for a candidate to support them so james from ohio is running with a Young Franklin roosevelt as his Vice President and partner and then we have Warren G Harding who is also running from ohio and they are being pressed by the suffragist and antiy suffragist. So you do see the president ial election is what is happening in nashville. Host eureka california good morning. Caller i just want to pass on from my late grandmother who was a part of the whole Suffrage Movement in minnesota back in the day to get the vote. Then she was an educator as well. So she started a private organization at that time a lot of the women that could not own property or cash a check so they had a private group which nobody knew and they would collect money to send girls to school and i just wanted to pass that on. That is fascinating. Thank you for sharing that. T. One of the great things as i tour around the country talking about the Suffrage Movement i have been tota minnesota it was a very vibrant grassroots activism there and a scandinavian women Suffrage Association who actually would go to parades in native costume. So one of the things to understand the thinking of it as Susan B Anthony and we really dont have a sense how large the movement was in every city and state in town suffragist were organizing american women, latinos, one neof the great things is now entering the centennial year august 2020 and every state is beginning their commemorations. But to findd more research at the local level now we are going into archives and places that were not looked at like the black womens club or the Church Records all these places that told the story of ordinary women who make a big sacrifice the pastors are against them marching but they are at on every level off to the country and one of the great things is getting a much larger and more complex idea of what the Suffrage Movement was not just two ladies at the topp. Host the natural step eventually bestowed by wiseman and without much drama to ask not how that happened. [laughter] the next call is from ann arbor michigan. Caller particularly where do they go . I apologize, very difficult to understand you. If youre on speaker or on a cell phone, that will not work for us. Speak very clearly into your phone. Thank you. My question is, the women and how they evolved or did not evolve after the minute was passed, did they say im not going to vote on principle or do they ultimately evolve . Thank you very much. The antiafter. Thats a wonderful question and i do deal with that in the afterward of the book. One of the fascinating and unexpected result is after ratification when the women who fought so hard to word this meanamendment that would give a woman a vote. They take advantage of the political power and they do both. They learn to organize and while the suffragist dissipate, they go off in Different Directions and of course there are legacy organizations of the suffragist, carrie cat forms the legal voters which is at 100 years still going strong across the country, alice paul of the womens party formed the draft the equal rights amendment which has been not ratified after 96 years. It was introduced to congress in 1923. They enter suffragist actually organize and use their newfound electoral power and the Organizational Skills to try to oppose certain legislation in congress that they feel is government overreach and they call it socialist if that sounds familiar. They accuse the suffragist that are still supporting of you turn the health, legislation, they evolve into the anticommunist activist of the mid20th century. We see them working through training organizations, advocacy organizations and receive them in the mccarthy era and receive them again emerge in the 1970s and 80s as the eagle forum. We have conservative women who have learned to harness the political power and i think we still achieve the product of that organization. So yes they did. Pearson felt that she could not after fighting this for so long, vote so she devised a very strange scheme which was, she would tell a man in her hometown how she wanted to vote and he would go and vote for her. Thats how she solved this. So she never voted the rest of her life . Thats how she describes it. I cant tell you if some point she relented but she had strong opinions but she let a man vote for her. Jackie from texas. Go ahead. Hello thank you for taking my call. I was wondering do you see any parallels between the abortion issue in america in the suffrage issue as it played out in the 1900s . Thats a very interesting question. Im not sure i see a direct comparison but again the suffragist, many were also feminine. And they were working, not just for the vote but the vote as a tool to be able to be represented in congress and the state legislators to make sure that women have rights which they had been denied and many of them had to do with agencies and being able to make decisions on their own. You have to understand when the Suffrage Movement begins in the mid19th century, not only women could not vote, they cannot own properties, married women did not have custodial rights to her children if she divorced, she cannot testify in a court of law, she could not serve on a jury and so a lot of the idea of suffrage as being the tool to guarantee womens rights of her own decisionmaking and agency, i think there are some parallels but i think it gets much more complicated as im sure you agree. So i hesitate to make a direct comparison but i think again, women working for their own rights to make decisions about whether it is their bodies or their legislators, it is part of the whole larger idea of suffrage as a tool for reading rights. How controversial was this in 2019. When Congress Finally got around to voting, in the house it passed somewhat comfortably. I think it was about a handful of votes. Again you would think by 1920 it wouldve been okay, women are equal to men in a political sense, lets get this done. But it was not. In the house actually votes on 1918 and the senate refuses to actually voted on twice in the next year end half and finally it passes by two votes. So the idea that this was a time i come in a political it is still very controversial. And Woodward Wilson has come around arguably and slowly to supported the idea of the suffrage amendment and the federal amendment so he does supported but thats an interesting evolution that i put in the book also. It was still tough, it was not an easy road even in 1920, even seven decades after the first asked for the boat. Ruth from maryland. I just have a couple questions. One, in order to pass amendment you need to have two thirds of the vote in women i think voted about 31 in the first election and maybe men were more interested. And mostly that there is more for protection than it was for the National Womens party of a small group in a little bit more average and things like that. Thank you. Okay, to answer the first question, it is true that in the first election in 1920 which the amendment is ratified only ten weeks before the election and so there was a big rush to register women. But it could not evolve or be a bush. Some states like georgia refused to extend their deadlines and the deadline to pass and they refused because they do not want black women to vote. So only again as you said one in three eligible women voted in 1920 and we talked about that. She said, you have fought for all these years, how come only one in three women voted and she says voting is learned. It is something that you learn, you get used to doing and women are not accustomed to doing it yet. They will learn. It takes longer than i think she expected it takes about 40 years and thats until 1962 american Women Participation in a 1980 this passes but the participation of men were significantly more women votes than men. In todays election at the national level. The second question that there were other issues involved in the womens party. I think we are talking about the civil rights amendment. It is true that not all women who were in suffragist supported equal rights amendment. One of the things that has been accomplished in the decades before 1920 was that they had managed to past Protection Laws for women in industry. Women are working in factories at this time in their working in sweatshops and they passed the legislation that says you can only work ten hours or 12 hours not 20 hours. And you cannot lift more than 2. This was protection for womens health. And this was the union which had emerged to predict women. So the equal rights amendment might jeopardize the special protections which they dirty one in congress for women. So there was actually a disagreement among these women about whether be equal rights of moment or be beneficial. That is also a history. In eleanor was about supported. It is a very interesting history of the amendment and you are right that there were issues of protection. But that was not what the Suffrage Movement. From arizona yet 30 seconds. Go ahead. Good morning. My question is, to what degree did men who understood the ability of their wives and sisters and daughters play a role in the Suffrage Movement . Thank you. They played a large role and there was very important and supportive men champions and there is a great book that came out a year or two ago all the suffragist and its about the meal in the league that has been supported and suffered. Only men can make decisions. Men had to be in men could only work in the legislators and only men in congress in 1918 as only women who was a first woman elected to congress and theres only one and when referendum at the state level or adjudication, its only make a decision. So having male allies, we see some very praised male allies step up in nashville. And so, men were important. You have somebody in the series is a new panel. Yes, executive producers secretary hillary clinton, she read the book and really found it a story that we should know. Guest she says lets bring this story to a wide audience, and thats what were doing. Host how do you react when secretary clinton calls and says she wants to be involved in your book . Guest take a deep breath, i was thrilled, and shes been a wonderful, wonderful and supportive partner. Host and the womens hour is now out in paperback, heres the paperback cover, the great fight to win the vote. El