current special exhibit, rightfully hers, american women and the vote. our partners are here tonight and we thank them for their 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 suffragents 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 nancy tate. [applause] >> 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 ending -- 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 women'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 they may want to create themselves next year. in the d.c. area, these educational programs that we put on with other groups is the main thing we undertake. tonight, as deborah said, this particular evening is a part of the women and the vote symposia series. this is after the fourth we have done at the archives and we hope to do at least one more in 2020. when 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, facebook 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 sufferer just -- the suffragists, how women used meant to get the boat. -- the vote. johanna neuman, the author of gilded 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 leading and learning -- 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 sign -- 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 and howard shaw -- anna howard shaw who wrote to the editor and publisher of the nation magazine in new york evening 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 us each -- a speech at the massachusetts suffrage organization and wanted him to the kata convention -- 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 men's suffrage league that started in 1874, 1875 that started in the east village in new york. 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 we have so many women full of isms, it's the last thing we need. the men we really need, you, oswald was what she was suggesting, never seem to have the time for cause. so 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 to do this work as long as there's is someone to do the heavy lifting. so time passes she writes back, and it's in perfect women's 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 do 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. and dewey's student, max eastman was a student at columbia who was starting to have a writing career, obviously short of funds living down in the village. and 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 profession, clergy, professors, names that america knew. and then announce this as a group that was organized to promote the suffrage cause. he gets the help of his mother, anna eastman from ohio. the letters are going everywhere so it's unimagineable that with 10, 15 newspapers in the new york that someone wouldn't get hold of this 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, and of course there were only 25 at that point. one, the director of bellevue hospital, resigned in embarrassment. eastman was mortified. but he had recruited george foster peabody who became the financial mainstay of the league. peabody said by the time you're really ready to announce everyone will have forgotten this and all will be well. and that is what happened. by november he didn't have 100 names, but 150. they had their first meeting in early november. by january they had produced 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 people to honor ethel snowden, the wife of the british mp. this was very elite in its construction in the beginnign. later they invited men of all sorts, because it was understood 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 in the second annual new york suffrage parade of 1911 where they are pilloried and mocked, and every insult is hurled. they embrace this. it galvanizes them and they are no longer offering their names, they are really ready for work. >> johanna, why was it so controversial to have men? and what did they -- they were ridiculed in a lot of cases. >> i did want to pick up on brooke's point. so there were 89 men in the 1911 parade. one year later in 1912 there were 1000 men. so that's how much the movement grew in a very short period. >> a year later they were in 35 states and in the tens of thousands. >> one of the men who marched, and i was looking for this quote, one of the men who march was rabbi wise. rabbi wise was a major progressive who often lectured in the city on causes, those isms you spoke of. that 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, hurling insults as brooks suggested. >> rolling their eyes. on the streets they were hurling insults. i jog -- >> 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 delightful explanations that greeted us were who is taking care of the baby? aren't they cute? look at the mollie coddle's. another male suffragist and suffrage husband, as they were called, was george middleton, who recalled hecklers crying, take that handkerchief out of your cuff, you gay deceiver, you forgot to shave this morning. we have there some suggestion of why this was so controversial, because 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 the 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. the 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. khoury it is 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 adams and suggested that they consider universal suffrage. so here we have at the founding some agitation for women to have the vote. after the civil war, when elizabeth stanton and susan b anthony split the women's 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 organization. for 20 years you have these two rival groups working at cross purposes. but one black man named robert purvis stood up for elizabeth cady 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 just wanted to throw that into the conversation. >> what's distinct in this particular 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 about it is that few people in their memoirs who write about it at all, write about the 1911 parade or 1912, and the response from the crowds. that seems to be a very affecting experience. nobody mentions the league by names. only an obituary mentions it because his wife wrote it and she was a great suffragist. they never talk about it again. i wondered why, was it chivalrous to not ever 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 wasn't an important aspect to they were. only laidlaws and eastman m ake any mention of it, 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 life, if you will, a woman goes off and joins the suffrage movement, what does that mean for the home life and husband at that time? >> it really changes all aspects of it, especially if 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, an unpaid job but it's full-time. this is likely something she has not done before. you can see that there would be a ripple effect that the kind of wifely or daughterly 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 if a woman says, ok, i will support suffrage, it affects all kinds of other things in her life. it can affect 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 really hitting home, literally, is in sufferage marriages. >> you right in your book about a married couple -- write in your book about a married couple, ray and gertrude foster-brown. >> ray and gertrude foster browne 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 he taslks about how having a wife who does things beyond the domestic sphere is more interesting to have around than someone who just stays home. 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. and yet in private, things are a little 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 asinger and musician and she had gone off on the road and had a successful career, and he felt he was left behind. i think what is interesting is both times they managed to work their way through it and stay married until his death in 1944. 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 was interesting so it made news. and the men initially involved made news because they always made news. these were people who wrote social columns and were followed for their business dealings and everything. so being followed for suffrage was an extra for the movement because it just drew attention. another thing to because ms. and of -- to be cognizant of is that a huge proportion of the men engaged were editors, publishers, writers, poets, dramatists. they were people who had media access. so 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 piece puff piece spread about her when she starts her society which is a parallel organization to the men's league which was also attracted at directing elite women, which johanna can certainly talk about more than i can. 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 down and doughty and dull with a lot of viragos, 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 ace gold and one who is very shapely -- looks like a scold, and one who is very shapely, and the caption was the tide has changed. you could hear flattering descriptions of anna shaw's clothes. things had changed. and the elite attraction brought something that was needed. >> broke -- brooke is looking at me because my focus about the new york socialites who fought for the vote. and my conclusion on studying them was that they were the oprah winfrey 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 just 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, then, the times, who greeted the men with really virulent editorials against what they didn't know their own way, were doingsuggestive that they did not know their own way, that they were a little misguided, perhaps they had been. one editorial in the times suggested that some of the men might have been trying to curry favor with female seamstresses to make their suits. unbelievable stuff. >> there was a great deal of hostility. there were other papers that were very pro. previously they were all like that. that was the big change, that you had this wave of positive response that started to create that turn. >> there is something else that is a general context for what your twobooks are about, which is your organization oh yeah starts in 1909, 1908. okay tammy 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. 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 suffered 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 save 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. it was not official. there were a lot of diminutive's. >> suffragette is also a from 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 a 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 suffragettes 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 it to her, a wellesley grads, why she should not use it. she never responded. >> i think people just don't know the difference. [laughter] >> i want to ask you about the financial support that was significant in terms of funding the suffrage fight. in some cases from the and grave, some of these men, titans of industry were funding the suffrage movement. >> miss wesley one back the money that her husband lost. she made the money, and when she died gave $2 million to the movement. she was not a big activist, >> that made a huge difference, that money. >> huge. all the headquarters were built by those funds. couples like delayed laws and other wealthy new york couples who are engaged with the movement were financially supportive. they would do a challenge grant during a convention. most of these men served on the finance committee. after the 1915 feet in new york, 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. 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. there is some falls, frederick douglass, with katie stanton supporting the women's right to vote. he splits with her, but he never loses his faith in the importance for votes for women and universal suffrage. if you think about someone like w.e.b. du bois, when you read the national association of colored people that was founded in 1908 or 1909, it practically reads like a suffrage magazine. there are so many editorials he is writing. there are reasons for that. it is because african-american men who fought so hard in the civil war only to have it taken away in the south by jim crow restrictions, they knew how important the vote was. du bois makes another point, which is kind of obvious, which if women get the vote, black women get the vote too. i think it is important as we think about a movement that has a reputation for being predominantly white and middle-class, we cannot let the racism of that movement keep us from acknowledging and making 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. 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 have indicated, it was for my people. when i sit up for the rights of women, itself was out of the question. i found nobility in that act. >> i love that quote, so thank you for digging it up. for frederick douglass and for many other people early in the movement, there was a certain ability in their acts. when we get to the modern movement, i see a couple of groups of people. the first are the bohemian sexual radical. 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. the women's movement, the feminist cause would liberate men because they would not have to work, that there would not be an obligation on their shoulders to support women and children. they are quite enthusiastic. max weman called suffrage the great fight for liberation in my lifetime. they soon lose -- i don't want to say they lose interest, but they lose belief. they start to lose belief by about 1912. max says that he prefers the cause where you can suffer a little for the good. by 1912, it is getting very mainstream. they sort of peel away. most of the members of the league are now good government reformers. these are people who join any movement to reform the public space. they join all kinds of causes. they join the causes to read 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. it is a great lesson that social change begins at the grassroots level. 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. it is an extremely close election in california. the suffrage initiative passes by one vote per precinct. the impact is huge because in the 1912 election, there are 1.2 million women eligible to vote for president. 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. there is this groundswell. what happens when we get to the 19th amendment is that women are no longer petitioning congress, please, can we have the vote? they are coming as constituents. they are saying we have the power to vote you out of office. >> if you are having a cocktail conversation about the 19th amendment and someone says women were granted the vote, i always hate that, but you can say, actually quite a few women were already voted, and it really does start in the west and moved east. it is the role of the state. the flipside of that is very few african-american women were enfranchised by the 19th amendment. 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 test and poll taxes and things like that. we always need to keep both of these perspectives in mind when people say 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? why is that significant? >> it was the first really big delegation coming to congress and creating change. it was the first state east of the mississippi. we are not job first. -- geographers. it was understood that if it had failed in new york, that would have been the end. it gave wilson cover in a sense to start changing his mind. he always used the state's argument. this is a state issue. >> we still hear that. >> it avoided the question of the south for him. this gave him away to come forward and actually help change some minds and make this happen. >> fast forwarding to ratification and the state of tennessee, harry burn, 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. >> know, to get it through congress. that was the congress role. that happened in 1919. to get it ratified by the states took three fourths, so suffrage leaders spent about a year and a half going from legislature to legislature trying to get ratification. at first it was going along swimmingly. a drumroll of approval from 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 with the e.r.a. took the votes of two thirds of the house and two thirds of the senate. >> to ratify it. >> no, to get it through congress. that was the congress role. that happened in 1919. to get it ratified by the states took three fourths, so suffrage leaders spent about a year and a half going from legislature to legislature trying to get ratification. at first it was going along swimmingly. a drumroll of approval some five, i think three states rushed to be the first to ratify. they now stand in history together because nobody made it in ahead of others. >> the same thing with the e.r.a. >> they parade through the states and by then there is a 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 the liquor locker that -- lobby that fears the temperance movement that was fueled by women, that women have other things up their sleeves, and they are going to come with all the social legislation that is going to be costly to their business and other businesses. everyone is descending on these state capitals. they get to 35. they need 36. everyone understands that tennessee is going to be the last state. they either make it in tennessee, or they don't. everyone goes there. many of the key players take rooms at the hermitage hotel in 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. the vote is extremely close. harry is one of those who is down as an anti. this is signified by wearing colored roses for the antis, 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. 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 he was going to vote no because that is how his constituents had made very clear to him that they wanted him to vote, but he got this letter from his mother, and it touched his heart, and he voted the way 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 too. i hope somebody is looking at it more closely. they actually filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the 19th amendment, and that was finally -- ran through the courts and rejected. >> 1922. >> but harry said it tickled 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. susan, do either of you have another man the highlight who you thought was one of the most important people that maybe we don't know about? >> i do. i think laidlaw, the national president of the men's league. he could count his lineage back to colonial days through fifty 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 -- let me see if it's here -- and if i can see it, which would be a trick. >> while brooke is looking, i can add that laidlaw, when he led men at the 1912 parade, he was asked why they were marching, and he said we are here to give moral support to the women and courage to the men. i always thought that was quite poignant. >> so here is the statement in full, he says there are many men who inwardly feel the justice of equal suffrage -- this was written in 1913 -- but who 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. the 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. (*legislatures) after that, it is only a question of proposition, and the men's leagues come in again on the issue of moral support. that's pretty great. >> does anyone come to mind for you? >> 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. she is in my book because i used her relationship with her sister, annie nathan meyer, who is an anti-suffragist and the founder of bernard college. it is this interesting sibling rivalry and reminds us that not all women wanted to support women getting the vote. maude and frederick had another one of those suffrage marriages and did things like a cross-country automobile trip in 1912 when there were no cross country roads. i remember he turns up at one of the international men's leagues, the international dimension of the suffrage movement is very important. 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 or something equivalent so he can cast his vote for the suffrage amendment so i think he belongs in there. >> definitely, he was one of the original figures, also important. >> brooke, as you alluded to earlier, 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? they did not boast about it. it was not in their obits. >> interesting that historians have not picked up about 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. i almost did it for 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 we 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? >> 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. at the beginning he is not very interested when he is asked about it. at the turn-of-the-century, he says women will get the vote 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

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