support. our special exhibit, rightfully hers, tells the story of the woman struggle for voting rights. women activists had to win allies among men in influential positions. it was men who sat in state legislatures that would ratify or reject the 19 amendment, whose centennial we celebrate. when rightfully hers opened, guests were offered a yellow rose pin when they entered. that was won by members of the men's league for women's suffrage. for many guests, this not to the role that men played came as a surprise. tonight we will take a look at the suffragists and their contributions to the voting right struggle. it's my pleasure to welcome nancy tate, she has served as the cochair of the women's vote centennial initiative and is also on the board of the turning point suffragists memorial. she served as the executive director of the league of women voters, and previously she served as the chief operating officer at the national academy of public administration and with the department of energy, department of education, and office of economic opportunity. please join me in welcoming ancy tate. [applause] nancy: thank you. it's wonderful to be here, especially at the national archives, since they have opened this lovely exhibit on women and the vote. as she has said, it's called rightfully hers, american women in the vote. i have toured the exhibit twice and i encourage everyone to see it. i am the cochair of the women's vote centennial initiative. i'm also the former executive director of the league of women voters. the league is one of the cofounders of the women's vote centennial initiative, and that group was formed as an information sharing collaborative of the many organizations and scholars working in this area. we want to celebrate the anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment, which will be next year, 2020. we want to shed light on the powerful but little-known stories behind that long and hard struggle to win the vote. the league itself was founded in 1920 by the head of the largest suffrage organization, the national american women's suffrage organization. the league was formed under her guidance six months before the amendment passed. the league is also having its own 100th anniversary next year. there is a league in every state and approximately 700 cities and counties around the country. it has been spending nearly 100 years continuing the fight for full equality for all americans. we do that through education and advocacy. a few more words about the 2020 omen's vote centennial initiative. we work to establish and connect people, networks all around the country, girl scout troops, universities, any organization interested in learning about our suffrage history and how they can be a part of the celebrations, which hey may want to create themselves next year. in the d.c. area, these educational programs that we ut on with other groups as the main thing we undertake. tonight, as deborah said, this particular evening as a part of he series. this is after the fourth we have done at the archives and we hope to do at least one more in 2020. hen we pick a topic, each of these focuses on some of the little told stories about what went on to enable women to finally get that vote. and all the panels will look at how some of these lessons show relevance to the issues of today. as many know, the 72 year fight for women's suffrage is a powerful historical story. it can be used to enhance our understanding of our own kinds and how to navigate it. you can learn more about wvci by visiting our website, instagram, and twitter. i'm pleased to introduce tonight's panel, you have their full biographies in your program. so i will call them up by name. come on up ladies. we have our moderator, betsy fisher martin, the executive director of women in politics institute at american university. [applause] >> brooke kroger, the offer of the suffragists, how women used meant to get the vote. johanna neuman, the author of ilded suffragists. and susan where, the author of why they marched. betsy, i turn it over to you. >> thank you, and welcome. it's nice to be with you today. we have a special treat, three terrific experts. personally, i had a wonderful time reading and learning so much about this issue in preparation for tonight. i'm excited for you. brooke, let me start with you. brooke your story tells about the powerful man in new york who helped women gain the right to vote. what brought these men together for the movement and how did they first come together to form the men's league for women's suffrage? >> it's a good story. starting around that time, ann came in through canada for a lecture tour and she lectured around the country. one of her themes was how pathetic the wealthy women of america were in terms of understanding how to engage in a political process. and further, how the men of england had been supportive of women in their fight for the vote and how nothing of this nature was going on here. this was in the press and in people's consciousness, at least people in certain circles, around the same time that anna howard shaw who wrote to the editor and publisher of he nation magazine in new york vening post. he was also the son of fanny garrison who was an important suffragists, and the grandson of william garrison, the abolitionist and suffragists. she wrote to him, remembering that when he was at harvard in 1904 he made a speech at the massachusetts suffrage organization and wanted him to speak at a convention. he did not think he could commit to anything of that nature, but he thought it was a good idea that a group of men of prominence would come together not to do much more than lend their names and trotted to albany or washington and speak to legislatures and politicians if the need arose. she wrote back and said this was not a new idea, the suffrage organization was very much in the doldrums and had had the idea before. there was a mensa suffrage league that started a men's suffrage league in 1874. it met about 80 times and then fell out of existence. she said the men who have been willing to engage are so full of isms. and so many women are full of isms, it's the last thing we need. the men we really need, you, oswald, never seem to have the time for cause. he wrote back and i'm paraphrasing he said i think i could find a group of men -- he actually said i think a group of men could be found, as long as there's is someone to do the heavy lifting. she writes back, and its imperfect style and she says we will do all of the work. to his enormous credit, he said that's not a good idea, the more strategic plan would be for us to form this ourselves, provided we can find someone to do the work. that would be the way to make this effective. so he summons rabbi stephen wise and john dewey, the philosopher and columbia professor as his triumvirate. nd max eastman was a student at columbia who was starting to have a writing career, obviously short of funds living in the village. he becomes the secretary-treasurer of the organization. his charge was to put together a list, keep this very secret, and put together 100 names that would wow the world, from every rofession, clergy, professors, names that american knew. and announce this as a group that was organized to help the suffrage cause. he gets his mother, anna eastman from ohio. the letters are going everywhere. here were 15 newspapers in new york at the time and it's unimaginable that someone would not get wind of it and the new york times writes a chiding front page article with the headline that was something like men's voices to join the soprano chorus for women's votes. and it names these people whose names they had gotten wind of, there were only 25 at that point. one with the director of bellevue hospital, who resigned n embarrassment. eastman was mortified. but he had recruited george foster peabody who became the inancial mainstay. he said by the time you're really ready to announce everyone will have forgotten this and all will be well. that is what happened. by november he did not have 100 names but 150. they had their first meeting in early november. by january they produce their first booklet with these names and addresses listed. with their charter and constitution. by later in the year they gave their first banquet, 600 p all, to honor ethel snowden, the wife of the british mp. this was very elite in its onstruction. later they invited men of all sorts, what you needed was men who voted. this was the point. having the support was key. i'm sure someone else could tell the story of the parade, they march as a group of 89 men in top hats and bowlers. they are pilloried and mocked, and every insult is hurled. it galvanizes them and they are no longer offering their names, they are ready for work. >> joanna, why was it so controversial to have men? they were ridiculed in a lot of cases. >> i wanted to pick up on brooke's point. there were 89 men in the 1911 parade, in 1912 there were 1000 men. that's how much the movement grew in a short period. >> a year later they were in 35 states and in the tens of thousands. >> i was looking for this quote, one of the men who march was rabbi wise, he was a major progressive who often lectured in the city on causes, those isms you spoke of. it was a time of great ferments, debate among students at columbia and in max eastman's circle in greenwich village. his capitalism the right thing? should we look at socialism? should we explore free love? imagine a time when everything was up for debate. rabbi wise participated in the 1912 parade, where many of the men that he knew from elite circles where in their clubs, looking down on fifth avenue, urling insults as brooks suggested. >> rolling their eyes. on the streets they were hurling insults. >> i dug out his diary and he wrote of the mockery he encountered. for a few moments i was very warm and took off my hat, whereupon somebody shouted look at the long-haired susan's. some of the other delights let's play nation that greeted us were who is taking care of the baby? aren't they cute? ook at the mollycoddles. another suffrage husband, as they were called, was george, who recalled hecklers crying take that handkerchief out of your cost, you gay deceiver, you forgot to shave this morning. we have some suggestion of why this was so controversial, it disrupted this gender role expectation that men have. and throughout the 1910s, what i think happens is that there is a succession of events that help to normalize the idea of women voting. and the great fear among men, after all, the only voters and he only people eligible to vote for women's suffrage, either as voters in their state on referendums, or members of legislative committees, or lawmakers in congress. there was this great fear that politics would harden women and emasculate men. and also hurt the family. a lot of things that the suffrage leaders did in those years was to reassure the public that women could be in political life and still maintain their femininity. it was probably worth saying somewhere that men have always stood, some men, have always stood with women. there was a famous judge in massachusetts in the american revolution who wrote to john dams and said jested that they consider universal suffrage. so here we have the founding from agitation for women to have the vote. after the civil war, when lizabeth stanton and susan b anthony with the movement apart by vowing that they will not support the 15th amendment, which removed the barriers to black men voting, they will not support it unless women are also included. and this horrifies the other women, who started a rival rganization. for 20 years you have these two rival group working at cross purposes. but one black man named robert urvis stood up for elizabeth stanton and susan b anthony in this unexpected decision to fight the 15th amendment. and he said if my daughter cannot have voting rights along with my son, i will not vote for it. because she has a double curse of being a woman, and a black woman. we have to say that there are always some men who have stood with women. and i wanted to throw that into the conversation. >> what's distinct in this era is that they organized. celebrity endorsers have always been back to thomas payne and jon stewart. but this was really a unique happening. >> i agree. >> what else is strange is that few people in their memoirs who write about it at all, right about the 1911 parade or 1912, and the response from the crowds. that seems to be an affecting experience. nobody mentions the league by names. only an obituary mentions it because his wife wrote it and he was a great suffragist. they never talk about it again. i wondered why, was it chivalrous to not take credit? were they consummate allies? or was it insignificant in the history of these active lives, and by the time they died six decades later, it was an important aspect to they were. it's fascinating. george creel, as soon as he becomes the head of the committee of public information, he is not talking about it at all. it's interesting. >> i want to get back to the home wife, if you will, a woman goes off and joined the suffrage movement, what does that mean for the home life and husband at that time? >> it really changes all aspects of it, especially for a woman signs onto the suffrage movement. it's like having a religious conversion. if she is all in, it's like having a full-time job, unpaid about full-time. this is likely something she has not done before. you can see that there would be ripple effect that the kind of wifely or daughter early duty she had done before, like being there when the kids come home or to entertain at dinner, those things are not going to happen anymore. i think what we need to remember is that it's not just as a woman says i will support suffrage, it affects all kinds of other things in her life. her family of origin, who she is partnered with, her colleagues, where she lives or travels, how she dresses. it's a big commitment. one of the places where you see it hitting home, literally, is in marriages. >> you write in your book about a married couple, the browns. >> ray and gertrude foster brown were suffrage couple. she was the head of new york state's women's suffrage organization. he was a journalist. he wrote a pamphlet, published anonymously, he did not put his name on it, called how it feels to be the husband of a suffragette. in the pamphlet you can tell that he is a true feminist and he supports women's economic independence and how having a wife who does things beyond the domestic sphere is more interesting to have around. he says all the right things and he puts on this wonderful cheerful face publicly of its great, this is what it's like being married to a suffragette. in private, things are more complicated. she is off traveling, she goes to conventions, giving speeches, out every night. he is at home, missing her. there is a difference between the cheerful public endorsement, and sometimes on the homefront it's a little harder to make it work and he is the one feeling left behind. this had happened before in their marriage, she was a talented musician and she had gone off on the road and had a successful career, and he felt he was left behind. both times they managed to work their way through and stay married until his death in 944. it's a good reminder that we always need to think about the personal as well as the political when we tell the story. >> i want to ask you about the press, and how the men were depicted in the press at the time. >> as a curiosity, first of all. it made interesting news. and the men initially involved made news because they always made news. these were people who wrote social problems and were followed for their business dealings and everything. so being followed for suffrage drew attention. another thing to be cognizant of is that a huge proportion of the men engaged were editors, publishers, writers, poets, dramatists. they were people with media access. they were also able to guide coverage. we were talking about catherine dewar mackey a few minutes ago. one of the publishers was the publishers of harper's. so there is a four page puff pieces spread about her when she starts her society which is a parallel organization to the men's league which was attracted at directing elite women. and that kind of access to print, to having things published that were positive for the movement that for 70 years had been seen as doughty and dull, it was not a group that was attractive in a celebrity way. there was a wonderful cartoon where it shows two suffered women, one who looks like a scold, and one who is very shapely, and the caption was the tide has changed. ou could hear flattering descriptions of anna sharp's clothes. things had changed. and the elite attraction brought something that was needed. >> brooke is looking at me because my focus about the new york socialites who fought for the vote. and my conclusion on studying was that they were the oprah infrey of their day. when they embraced this cause, it gave a burst of energy to the concept. it popularized the movement. many more recruits came in after they joined. there was an excitement in the wind. i wanted to add, on the question of press, that most of the coverage was not favorable. and especially we mentioned earlier, the new york times. it was a hostile news organization, and the times greeted the men with editorialized virulent editorials against what they ere doing. suggesting that they did not know their own way. you know, that they were a little misguided, perhaps they had been -- well, one editorial in the times suggested that some of the men might have been ying to curry favor with female seem stresses to make their suits. unbelievable stuff. >> there was a great deal of hostility, but then there were other papers who were very, very pro, and the herald, others that were -- but previously they were all like that, so that was the big change that you had this wave of positive response that started to >> i think there is something else that is kind of a general context for what your books are about, which is, your organization starts in 1909, 1908. the phrase i use is a kind of quickening of suffrage activism right around that time, 1908 to 1910, where things really burst into public in a way that for the first 70 years of the movement, it really was taking place in church parlors and lecture halls. it was not engaging the public. and for a variety of reasons, things really began to pop. there is a sort of self-fulfilling. then you have this escalation for the next 10 years. >> i think the reason for that is that, as you said, until this period, basically suffrage people were talking to each other. it was preaching to the converted. i think there was a dawning realization that you have to reach the public. in the 1910s, they start to use all the new science of public relations, weapons of spectacle, the public parade, all kinds of things. they had suffrage days at the polo grounds. they had women pilots dropping flyers from airplanes. they had marchers. >> calling people at the baseball field. they would have bands that would say be a suffrage band. they tried all kinds of things. >> they just got savvy about public relations. >> where does the term suffragette come from? >> from england, it was one of the pejoratives. not an official term. there were a lot of diminutives. >> suffragette is also a from fraught word in the u.s. context. that is one of the things i noticed when ray brown uses it in the title of his pamphlet. i think he was maybe making a subtle jab at his wife, i don't know. most american suffragists tried to distance themselves from the term because it was associated with the british movement, which was more willing to embrace violence against property, which is something the u.s. movement never did and very much wanted to draw those lines. i cannot really think of hardly any instance where women in this country would call themselves suffragettes. you find that the term is very often used to describe them, and it has a somewhat pejorative cast to it. we are finding that again today as we are looking forward to the centennial, the term suffragette is coming back. i find myself often waging battles and saying no, that is not the right term. even hillary clinton used it in her book. i wrote her a letter and explained to her as a fellow wellesley grad, why she should not use it. she never responded. >> i think people just don't know the difference. >> maybe she didn't get the letter. [laughter] >> i want to ask you about the financial support that was significant in terms of funding the suffrage fight. behind the scenes or even in some cases from the grave, some of these men, titans of industry were funding the suffrage movement, or their widows. lesliesses frank actually made the money back that her husband lost. wesley's illustrated, the precursor to life magazine. she made the money, and when she died gave $2 million to the movement. she wasn't even really a big activist, but was obviously very supportive. >> and that made a huge difference, that money. >> huge. all the headquarters were built by those funds. dlaws, other the lai wealthy new york couples who were engaged with the movement and were financially supportive. they would do a challenge grant during a convention. most of these men served on the finance committee. they were very involved. defeat in new york there was a huge gearing up for the 1917 battle, which actually succeeded and was extremely important, because when the suffrage amendment passed in new york in 1917, that brought 44 congressmen who were pro-suffrage, which gave wilson a way to counter the opposition from the south. so all of these things fed into creating that burst of activity through the decades. >> what role did african-american men play? >> we can all talk about that. >> it is important as we think back about the history to pay attention to the large roles that african-american men and women played on this movement. go back to seneca with, frederick douglass elizabeth cady stanton supporting the women's right to the boat. he splits with her in the aftermath of the civil war over the priority about voting, but never loses faith in the importance for votes for women and universal suffrage. then, if you think about someone as thee.b. dubois, editor of "the crisis. " when you read that magazine, founded in 1908 or 1909, it practically reads like a suffrage magazine. there are so many editorials he is writing. and there's reason for that. it is because african-american men who fought so hard in the civil war, and received the vote after the war only to have it taken away in the south by jim crow restrictions, they knew how important the vote was. they could see why it was important for women as well, because all the arguments that were given against giving women the vote had also been used. du bois makes another point, many in the community do. he makes another point which is kind of obvious, if women get the vote, black women get the vote, too. i think it is very important as we tell these stories and think about a movement which has a reputation, rightly, for being predominantly white and middle-class, we cannot let the racism of that movement keep us from acknowledging and making really front and center the contributions of both african-american women, which are so important, but here is a perfect case where putting the men in the story adds so much. so i am glad for that question. >> joanna, i read in one of your papers a quote from frederick douglass. he said "when i ran away from slavery, it was for myself. when i advocated emancipation, it was for my people. but when i sit up for the rights of women, self was out of the question, and i found a little nobility in that act." >> one of the more interesting questions about the discussion for me is the motive. for frederick douglass, and i love that quote, so thank you for digging it up. for frederick douglass and for many other people early in the there was a certain nobility in their acts. when we get to the modern league, ithe men's see a couple of groups of people. the first are what are called the bohemian sexual radical. max friedman and his friends in the village. max believes that women should have the vote because it will make them better lovers. there will be an equalizing of gender roles, and women will stop being silly, and men can stop being profligate. betterht get to a relation. of hisell was another thought thee, who really theement, feminist cause, would liberate men, because they wouldn't have anwork, there would not be obligation on their shoulders to support women and children. and they are quite enthusiastic. max called suffrage the great fight for freedom in my lifetime. this is at a time of all these is the he says suffrage main cause here. but they soon lose, i don't want to say they lose interest, but they leave the league. start to leave the league by around 1912. prefers the cause where you can suffer a little for the good. it's getting very mainstream and they sort of peel away. most of the members of the league are now good government reformers. join any people who movement to reform the public space. they join all kinds of causes. causes to rid city hall of corruption, to improve sanitation for immigrants, to improve working conditions for factory workers, to end racial lynching in the south. they have myriad causes, but i think they welcome women because it doubles their numbers. it makes their progressivism even stronger if women get the vote and can help. i think there are -- people come to the cause for different reasons, and i think one of the great lessons of the suffrage movement is that what finally succeeds is a huge, broad umbrella that takes in everyone from working-class to celebrity socialites, librarians, actresses, professionals, housewives, men, it is just -- it conveys in its breadth public acceptance. if i can just take one more minute, i think one of the least -studied aspects of the women's suffrage movement is the role of the states. you know, it is a great lesson that social change begins at the grassroots level. and the states start rolling from the west. wyoming is the first state in 1890. you have colorado in 1893. by 1911, california becomes the fifth state. and it is an extremely close election in california. the suffrage initiative passes by one vote per precinct. huge, because is 1912 election, there are 1.2 million women eligible to vote for president. and by 1916, 4 years later, analysts say woodrow wilson would not have been reelected but for the votes of people in the women's suffrage states. so, there is this groundswell. and what happens when we get to the 19th amendment, i believe, is that women are no longer petitioning congress, please, can we have the vote? they are coming as constituents. and they are saying, we have the power to vote you out of office. [laughter] >> and there's another point, if you are having a cocktail conversation about the 19th amendment and someone says women got the vote or were granted the vote, i always hate that. [laughter] but you can say, actually, quite vot wereen already voting. it really does start in the west and move eastward. but again, it is the role of the state. the flip side of that is that very few african-american women were enfranchised by the 19th amendment. and that was because most of them still lived in the american south, where they were restricted from voting by the same tools that kept black men from voting. literacy tests and poll taxes and things like that. so, we always need to sort of keep both perspectives in mind when people just say very easily, yes, women got the vote. it is a little more complicated than that. >> you spend a lot of your book talking about new york and the significance of that. was that 1917? >> 1917. >> and why was that so significant? >> it was the first really big delegation coming to congress and creating change. and it was the first state east of the mississippi. [laughter] not geographers. >> something like that. i think east of the missouri, to come in, which created this avalanche of change. and it was understood that if it had failed in new york, that would have been the end. and it gave wilson cover in a sense, to start changing his mind. he always used the states argument, this is a states' issue. >> we still hear that. [laughter] that avoided the question of the south for him. this gave him a way to come forward and actually help change some minds, make this happen. toso fast forward ratification in the state of tennessee. yrne, who wants to tell us that story? it is a great story. >> harry was a young legislator in the tennessee senate. the setup for this, of course, is that to get an amendment, a constitutional amendment through congress took the votes of two thirds of the house and two thirds of the senate. >> to ratify it. it throughet congress. that was the congress' role, and that happened in 1919. but to get it ratified by the sotes took three fourths, suffrage leaders spent about a year and a half going from legislature to legislature, trying o get ratification. at first, it was going along swimmingly. a drumroll of approval from i think three states that rushed to be the first to ratify. they now stand in history together because nobody made it in ahead of others. >> the same thing happened with the e.r.a. >> and then they parade through the states, and by then there is groundswell of what we call the anti-suffrage forces that also see this as the big battle of their lifetime. they marshal for it, and none more powerful than of course the lobby, that fears that the prohibition, the temperance movement which was fueled really by women, that women have other things up their sleeves, and they will come with all this social legislation that will be their businesses. everyone is marching, to sending these state capitals, and they get the 35. but they need 36. and everyone understands that tennessee is going to be the last state. they either make it in tennessee, or they don't. there.eryone goes many of the key players take inms at the ermitage hotel nashville. the liquor lobby takes the eighth floor. they call it the jack daniels suite, where they are offering if not bribes, at least a lot of liquor. and the vote is extremely close. harry is one of those who is down as an anti. this is signified by wearing antis, roses for the and i think the pros wore yellow. all of a sudden on a procedural vote, he changes his mind and votes yes and tips the thing. and he pulls out a letter from his pocket, that basically says my mother asked me to vote. [laughter] he said he was sympathetic to the cause, but was going to vote no because that is how his constituents had made very clear, how they wanted him to vote. but he got this letter from his mother, and it touched his heart, and he voted the way that he did. he was then hounded. he was accused of taking bribes. the antis were very powerful in tennessee. they actually filed a lawsuit. this is a little-known story, and i hope someone is looking at it more closely, but they filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the 19th was finally,d that it ran through the courts and was rejected. >> 1922. said it tickles him to contribute to history and make his party look good. >> so, we all have the right to vote because a young man listened to his mom. it's a great story. do either of you have another you thoughtight who was one of the most important people we maybe don't know about? >> i do. i think laidlaw, the national president of the men's league. he could trace his lineage back through colonial days. 350 different lines. he was on the board of what became standard and poors. he was a real player. his wife was involved in new york suffrage. if i can read the mission statement of the league, and if i can see it, which would be a trick. >> while brooke is looking for that, i can add that laidlaw, when he led men at the 1912 parade, he was asked why they wee marching, and he said, are here to give moral support to the women and courage to the men. i always thought that was quite poignant. >>. the statement in full. "there are many men who inwardly feel the justice of equal suffrage," this was written around 1913, "but are not ready to acknowledge it publicly unless they are backed by numbers. there are other men who are not even ready to give the subject consideration until they see that a large number of men are willing to be counted in favor of it. the man who is so prejudiced that he will not consider it at all will pass away with this generation, if not sooner. he usefulness of the men's leagues politically to women constitutes one of the unanswerable arguments for women's suffrage. legislators are mainly responsible to voters and voters only. in the majority of states in this country, earnest, determined women are besieging the legislatures, endeavoring to bring about the submission of a women's suffrage amendment to the people. how long and how burdensome is this effort on the part of nonvoters everyone knows, but if a well-organized minority of men voters demand equal suffrage legislation from the legislators, they will get it. after that, it is only a question of propaganda, and the men's leagues come in again on the first proposition of moral support." that's pretty great. you?yone come to mind for >> i would give a shout-out to a man named fred nathan. i think it is partly because he is married to one of the characters in my book, maude nathan, who is a prominent suffragist. and she is in my book because i use her relationship with her n mayer, whoe natha is an anti-suffragist and the was also the founder of barnard college. it is this interesting sibling rivalry and reminds us that not all women wanted to support women getting the vote. but maude and frederick had another one of those suffrage marriages and did things like a cross-country automobile trip in 1912, at a time when there were no cross country roads. he turns up at one of the international men's leagues, the international dimension of the suffrage movement is very important. and when we finally get to this critical turning point that we have all talked about of the november 1917 referendum in new york state, he is quite ill, and he is pushed in a wheelchair so he can cast his vote for the suffrage amendment. >> definitely, he was one of the original figures, also important. >> as you alluded to, there is not a lot known about some of these folks. as you were writing your book, how did you go about finding a lot of the information and stories you have about the men? because you mentioned they did not boast about it. it was not in their obits. >> nowhere. and interestingly, historians have not picked up on this. when i started, there was a page, a paragraph, not even academic papers that did much more than mention it in passing. i went into fulltonhistory.com, this incredible resource of small-town newspapers. to find speeches, what they were doing. chronology of the 10 years to figure out that it was really a movement and there was more to it than celebrity endorsement, which is what they set out to do, but clearly became deeply engaged but quietly. quietly. i think we also have to say that as i got the idea to write this and put out a proposal, most of the response was, who cares what the men did? that was a very typical response. >> what was your response to that? >> what was there to say? [laughter] find somebody else who didn't have that response. >> it took a while. >> it took a while. >> when you were talking about the men who should be included in this conversation, my mind went to teddy roosevelt. >> why? >> he was the disciple of manliness, vigor. some would argue that we went to war in 1898 because he thought it was going to help the vigor of the male population amid a period of feminization of politics. of course, at the beginning he's not very interested in women's suffrage when he first asked about it. around the turn-of-the-century. voteys, women will get the when they ask for it, and until then, the whole thing bores me. let's move on to something interesting. only in 1912, when he is running to recapture the presidency and needs the votes of women does he embrace the cause. what i love about him, after women get the vote in new york in 1917, in 1918, theodore roosevelt is setting off for the polls, and he gets in the car, and he finds his wife is already there. he says in that wonderful teddy roosevelt accent, what are you doing here? and she said, i'm going to vote. the enormity -- it was one thing for this man to embrace suffrage as a political endorsement, but for him to understand the enormity of the social change that he had reluctantly and belatedly endorsed, to me it was like witnessing the human toll of social change. it was a generation of men who had to decide -- and i don't suffragentshe were ever a majority, but they were the activists among them. >> they also understood as laidlaw once said that they easier, happier work, things that were very difficult for women to accomplish, they could just do. something as simple as a meeting at the lotus club, one of the exclusive men's clubs in new york where women reporters were coming to report and could not get in the door. laidlaw could immediately open his offices and his cafeteria so the meetings could be held. there was just an ease of being able to fix things. that women didn't have. >> i think that the role at the end of the day was to normalize the idea, to make it a natural part of everyday life. >> to make what, voting? >> yes, women voting. >> i think what has always endeared me to those men's leagues, and this comes out of my training as a women's historian, you see all the organizations founded in the 19th century, religious and political organizations, and they were men's organizations. and then there were women's auxiliaries that often do all the work and raise all the money and are absolutely central but they don't get the credit. and what has always tickled me about the men's leagues is that they really were the auxiliaries. and they embraced that role. so it is a model of role reversal. >> they actually took direction. they actually used the term when they get thanked after the 1917 victory, laidlaw says we have learned to become auxiliaries. >> that's pretty good. doesn't happen all that often. give them some credit. >> the governor of new york at the time was asked after the 1917 about, who won women's suffrage? he said, i thought that the men of new york had a lot to do with that. there were all these newspaper and magazine articles at the time saying that this faction or that faction of women had actually won the thing, and whitman is reminding us that the voters were men. >> so, we have some time for questions. we have microphones on either side. if anyone has a question, please make your way to the microphones. i see a gentleman here with a question, who happens to be my husband. [laughter] >> and auxiliary. >> thank you for taking the questions and for the great presentation. the question i have, and the moderator was not bad either, by the way. the question i have, you touched on this at the outset, but why the west? why is it that this first came out of wyoming and then california and colorado? was it the pioneer spirit, the fact that the genders were more equal in the west whereas more stratified in the traditional east? what was it that took prairie fire on west? thank you. >> i think in a lot of cases, rather than generalizing about the west, we need to look at specific states. and there very often are stories within those states, that have to do with political an politicl alignments, whether there are third parties, and whether someone believes that giving women the right to vote is going to help them. you, oneaid that, if of the things that's most instructive if you are trying to get a handle on suffrage history is to look at a map of the united states and see that the west, where you have these victories, and then this black hole of the south where there are no victories. in the industrial northeast, where there are very few until new york. so the geography is really important. i'm aistorian, i find little uncomfortable using phrases like pioneering spirit of the west, but something is going on out, and i just think thank goodness for that. once you have all these women voting in the west, number one, the world hasn't come to an end, so that is something to show people, because he really didn't know that. but it also gets people used to the idea of women voting, and you have increasing numbers of women who actually vote, and they can be a political force in their own state and in this national movement. womenthout the west, we, might still be -- thinkust want to add, i some political motives by men who saw adding with into the rolls in the west as an opportunity to double their influence with more representation in congress. but i also think that they ate veryomen to popul sparsely-populated states. >> that makes sense. >> they also say, the strategies in the west were stronger. they were very good at giving arguments that both appealed to the converted and could still appeal to those who had not made the change. there were several papers that try to deal with why that was possible. >> [inaudible] >> not until 1917. took a while. but it is a western state that elects the first woman to congress. and that is not a fluke. >> i also had something about the west. wereyou were talking, you talking a lot about wealthy men in new york. things happened out west. did you have anything comparable, places out like san francisco or los angeles? i wanted to ask, you were talking about the fact that these men did things behind the scenes, yet you also said this became more popular because you have these celebrities and people of influence endorsing it, and that helped. i didn't understand. it sounds kind of contradictory. >> i am saying that they were people who were in the news aready, so that became vehicle for more attention to the suffrage movement, in a way that was palatable. >> i see. >> but california had an important league run by a man named john braley. he founded it. it was coeducational. he felt it was the most important work of his life. massachusetts had an important league. chicago had an important league. 35 states had men's leagues. through the women's journal vehicles, this was heavily promoted, women were asked to encourage the men in their lives to become a part of this. >> hi. going to ask, how do you think the man i average american household would have reacted to the idea of women voting? >> not well. [laughter] what do you think? >> i'm not really sure. i would have hoped it wouldn't have been like, that's a terrible idea. but i also don't think everybody would have been like, let's do that right now. >> i think that if you want to take a broader look at the q uestion of why this bias exists, in my new book, i go back to the american revolution. because i don't think suffrage begins in 1848 at seneca falls. in thatit begins revolutionary moment when some women are agitating for the vote, where new jersey gives the vote,free blacks if they have the same amount of property that men voters have. what one historian has called a revolutionary where all of that gets taken off the table and women are asked to become the tordians of patriotism, teach the new generation of patriots about this new republic. thisany of them do willingly. many of them use it as a wedge, to suggest that they get a better education. they stick their toe back into politics slowly. instrumental in the drive to oppose andrew jackson's indian removal policy. they are instrumental in the abolitionist cause to end slavery. but i think that by the time you get to this period we are talking about of the 1910's, there is this gender construction, this paradigm of gender roles. where women are to be the moral the ones, and men are who are supposed to get down into the dirty, smoke-filled cigar rooms where politics takes place. and there is, as i mentioned, this fear about what will happen if women go into that room. and i think it just takes a public reassurance that we have been talking about, to convince the public. movementsyou look at for social change in our howtimes, if you look at gay marital equality happened, it starts at the grassroots. it starts at the states. and people have to be, the public has to be convinced. and there are campaigns. there are losing campaign after oftens publicgn, s opposition. and that's what i think happened here with the men. >> one thing i would add, i think we need to remember that even though the vote doesn't seem like that scary of a thing, polls once go to the a year. but it was enough and as kind of an opening wedge. if that changes, all kinds of other things about women's roles could change. for many people that can be seen as a positive thing, but for many others, that would be seen as not positive. we see that playing out through the rest of the 20th century. we see similar ideas on both sides to the equal rights battle. i think we need to always remember that something that seems like a fairly minor reform, like giving women the vote, although it is not minor, as we all know, please go vote in 2020, it often stands for something much bigger. and in this case, it is really women's equality in the modern world. >> yes, sir? >> one of you mentioned that there was a constitutional challenge to the amendment. in general, i thought once an amendment is approved, it is basically instant. what surprised me as i was googling harry during your talk, he barely survived his reelection campaign. and i would have thought he would have been a shoo-in with say 50% of the voters in tennessee. [laughter] so why did he barely pass? >> well, it's tennessee. you need to look at the political situation to see how it would have been hard for him. in terms of the constitutional challenges, it is possible to challenge. there were two that were filed , very quickly, besides the one that was in tennessee that almost held it up. theily, within two years, supreme court ruled that the 19th amendment was valid, and there could not be any challenges to it. that would have been a very poor start to women's political itncipation and equality if happened under the shadow of being knocked down by the supreme court. so they moved very quickly. thosew that i have read court cases. they will be in the library of america anthology on women's suffrage that will be out next summer that i edited. me i cannot for the life of remember the details of those cases. >> one of those things, and thank you for having read them, i have not done that. but, it's a sad note, really, and i don't know if this is partly why harry byrne had trouble subsequently. but the 1920 election is the first one where women, nationa lly, black and white in the andh, are eligible to vote, the showing is not good. very few of them percentage-wise come to the polls. and there are a lot of reasons for that. but the magazines of the day, there are all sorts of headlines about apathy and the apathy of women. it is possible that played a role in tennessee. >> unfortunately, there is a perception that once women got the vote, it really didn't matter. there are articles with names like women's suffrage is a failure. one of the ones i found most interesting was by ida tarbell, in 1924, a very prominent anti-suffragist. the ladies home journal sent her out around the country to see what women were doing with the vote. and she came back quite impressed by what women were doing with the vote. they were not voting at the same levels as men. but this is something that most women have not done. it takes a while to learn how to be a voter. which is why the league of women voters is so important. but i think, one of the things i hope the centennial celebration thiselp us see is continuum of women's political retivism that starts well befo the passage of the 19th amendment and doesn't end in 1920. women don't just go home. you see it continuing through groups like the league of women voters, in the new deal with women like eleanor roosevelt. you see it in the 1950's with the civil rights movement. it is an ongoing continuum. what i try to remind myself sometimes, to think, because they have done that without the vote? try to imagine the 20th century without the vote. it has been less than 100 years that women have had it. so i try and take the long view. think of it as the long 19th amendment, stretching beyond 1920, and starting, like you do, before 1848. the roots of it are much broader. >> so no one should feel bad about the e.r.a. not having passed, because it's only just begun. [laughter] 100 years. >> you think -- do you think that men are becoming more interested in the role they played in women's suffrage? >> we could take a poll. [laughter] did?arning what they i don't know. you give lectures, that the audience would be like this, a good selection of men who have been interested. i have had one or two hostile comments but not many, and usually from women, not men. but the concern about bringing up any credit to the men, people sometimes find that offensive. and of course the suggestion is never to say that this is a men's victory, just to recognize that social change requires everyone. and i think what's interesting about this movement as opposed to some other movements for social changes that it is -- change is that it is a one-issue thing. it is not a complicated question. it is not like bringing up abortion or bringing up birth control, issues that become complicated on numerous grounds. this is simple and straightforward and a moral wrong. how can a citizen who has to pay taxes, has to go to jail for wrongs, has to abide by contracts, has to do every single other thing any other citizen has to do and has no say in determining what happens? it is just a moral wrong. so that is easy to get on board from, in a way. long. then it took so >> it was really susan b. anthony who narrowed it. elizabeth cady stanton wanted a broader standard. shewanted divorce reform, had a broad agenda, property rights, educational opportunities. b. anthony who said, no, we are just going to focus on the vote, and this sort of validates her. >> you also notice that because there are so many horrific things going on, women's issues tend to always get subordinated even by women. horrible, buts is not as horrible as fill in the blank. and that seems to happen over and over again, still. >> but i do think that one of the things i've noticed as i go the suffrage centennial, maybe 10 years ago since we were doing this, we would think about voting or women getting the vote notind of an important, such a big deal. but i think recent events have opened our eyes to the importance of voting, and voting rights, and voting suppression, in a way that makes what could have been a quaint centennial celebration much more relevant and timely. >> hear hear. >> than i think we would have expected. >> i think we have time for one more question. >> i was wondering, if you knew when women got the right to keep salaries if they were working? was that part of the movement, before the right? i know at some point, we got the right to own property and keep your salary, if you worked. when was that? yorkll, one important, new is a very important state in a lot of these legal reforms. passed a48, they married women's property act, which meant married women could hold property. in 1860, the legislature passed a law that said women could control their own earnings. >> and this is new york. >> this is new york. >> what about federal? is there ever a federal law that said women have the right been's their has permission to earn money and keep their own money? an incredibly important thing, and i can't believe it got subordinated to being able to vote. or before with it, it, doesn't it? to not have the right to keep your money. >> i think most states, by the time women suffrage passed in 1920, in most states women would have been able to control their own earnings. >> but you don't know. in new york,ked your husband got everything. you had no entitlement. >> we can do one more quick question here. >> we are so fortunate to have six wonderful exhibits going on in d.c. about women's suffrage and women's accomplishments. we can feel the momentum. is that happening in other places around the country? >> oh god, yes. [laughter] >> it is. absolutely. >> do you have a favorite exhibit that you have seen? to me, the most exciting thing is that they are happening in all of the states. i just have to give a shout out to the league of women voters, who are playing such a central role. many of the states have set up commissions. and this is a wonderful networking opportunity for people to find each other and also doing what we all try to do as historians, which is to take a very inspiring but complicated historical story to a broader public who really doesn't know much about suffrage history. and i think it is a story that needs to be more widely known. i think a lot of the state efforts that are going on are going to get the word out there. and i hope it will just encourage all kinds of interest in learning more about it, and they can start by reading all of our books. right? [laughter] >> the one i heard about that charmed me the most was on new year's day at the rose parade, there will be a float about women's suffrage. they have invited people to dress as suffragists and walked behind the float and sort of re-create the moment we have been talking about tonight. wonderful coming together of our history with a our present. of >> we run a website called suffrage in the media at nyu, where anything that has a media aspect to it, which is everything, that really rises to the surface, we put up. weekly, sot almost there's always new material, and it has one of the best search elements ever. you can search by suffrage era, academic, nonacademic, movies, it set her -- etc. it is all free. >> please join me in thanking our panel. [applause] coming.k you all for [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] @ >> you are watching american history tv. follow us on twitter for information on our schedule and to keep up with the latest history news. >> this weekend on american history tv, pulitzer prize discussesoline fraser the life of laura ingalls wilder, the author of the "little house on the prairie" books. here is a preview. >> i often say, i don't think we would have the "little house" books if it were not for rose. rose had a lot of experience as a writer, had a lot of polish and professionalism. she knew publishing people. knew a lot of editors in new york, editors at magazines. so she was really kind of the driving force, pushing her mother to take advantage of these memories. she had been hearing about these stories about the pioneering days all her life, and knew there was money to be made off of that. >> and possibly, i don't know, the fact that the country was becoming more modern, made people nostalgic or interested in the older stories, i assume? >> oh, definitely. you really see that kick in during the depression. "farmer boy," for example, were obviously really that doesto a public not know when their next meal is comign. -- coming. and these are stories about wonderful farms, these amazing meals they would prepare, it is full of accounts of eating pie for breakfast. [laughter] it was just kind of this wonderful nostalgia for a time of plenty, during a time when people were desperate. >> learn more about the life of author laura ingalls wilder, sunday at 6:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. eastern. this is american history tv, only on c-span3. >> > 50 years ago the director of the national institute of mental health estimated 150 million were addicted. 1 10 million misused opioids in 2018. next on reel america, a look at the drug problem in 1969. the film "distant drummer", bridge from no place surveys the problems from narcotics to marijuana. narrated by rod steiger, the national institute of health partis one in a four treatment that argues for treatment and research rather than criminalization of drug use and possession. >> ♪ london bridge is falling down falling down london bridge is falling down my fair lady ? ♪ >> i moved into this house, we thought it was a normal house where people were using some grass. maybe some speed.

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