Beautiful, thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen. It just lifts the spirits and prepares us for the learning ahead. We are so grateful and honored that you came tonight and grateful to cspan for covering this important discussion about womens suffrage and elizabeth stantons role in it. During these anxious times, as many people are avoiding leaving the home in large public gatherings, its so important to engage in Lifelong Learning and that is why watching cspan is so important. Please also, and friends here as well, use the National Constitution centers virtual online resources to learn about the constitution. We have this spectacular new program called classroom exchanges where we unite classrooms across the country for live discussions about the constitution moderated by judges and master teachers with classes around the country as you look for ways to continue your learning from home. Check out the interactive constitution, pick up provisions of the constitution you dont know about. Let the learning continue. We are going to begin tonights discussion, which is devoted to Lori Ginsburg and her wonderful book, by discussing this exciting new exhibit at the National Constitution center that will open on june 10. Its called 19th amendment, women win the vote. It is about the history of the 19th amendment and how women won the vote. Joining me to describe and discuss it is my wonderful colleague, elena, who heads the exhibits department here. I just wanted to have a brief conversation with her about what she and her great team are trying to achieve in the exhibit and the story they are trying to tell, trying to excite all of you about the exhibit and to set up the great discussion to follow. Elena, first of all, welcome. Thank you for being here. Thank you to you in your team for the amazing job you have done. At seneca falls, Elizabeth Cady stanton and other great advocates of womens equality passed the declaration of sentiments, which set among other things that we hold these truths to be selfevident that all men and women are created equal. They were using the declaration of independence as a model but trying to extend it to include womens equality. What were the authors trying to achieve and why did they gather in seneca falls to write it . Na elizabethe was the primary author and it is amazing to look at the document itself. We will be featuring a copy in the upcoming exhibit. We wanted to not only feature the artifact, but the inspiration that came from the declaration. You can read the different grievances that she wrote against men instead of the king. We have featured those in the exhibit. Interesting in general, in the time the use of the declaration of independence in argument for womens suffrage, i have been culling for a lot of quotes with speeches, congressional debates, rating how women were fighting for the right to vote. They are frequently going back to those founding ideals in the declaration and saying no taxation without representation. They are central arguments were they say wait a minute, we were kind of left out from the founding era and we are going to rewrite that and say that all men and women are created equal. Between the relation the declaration and constitution is so central to the exhibit. You and your team did such a wonderful job telling the story about civil war, reconstruction, and the promise of the declaration extended to africanamericans and how lincolns lincoln stood before the hall in 1861, pledging that he didnt have an idea politically that didnt come from the declaration but in this exhibit you tell the story of the poignant fissure between africanamericans and advocates for womens suffrage who started off precivil war united. Frederick douglass was a great advocate for womens suffrage but after the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, the last of which extended the right to vote to africanamerican men but not women, the movements split. Tell us about the split and the consequences. Elena its a significant story that we have started in the civil war reconstruction exhibit that is permanent here at the constitution center. We continue the story into the 19th amendment gallery, where you can see the roots of these arguments and how there was unification after the civil war towards a common cause. Before that, it really being slavery, with slavery abolished we gote 13th amendment, to the 14th amendment and are very critical word, male, is inserted into the constitution for the first time, upsetting many white women, particularly those that were fighting for a those that were fighting for suffrage. They ultimately end up starting to split over the 14th amendment and ultimately with the 15th amendment, as jeff said, that guaranteed Voting Rights for africanamerican men, that was the final break. That there were women like stanton and anthony who were going to exclusively push for womens suffrage first, exclusively. They would not allow africanamericans to get the vote before them. So, you see a lot of the racism that started to creep into the movement here and really become the forefront of the debate and really end up continuing through and i would be interested to hear what Lori Ginsburg has to say on this topic because it is really central to the narrative, how to address the racism. Historian and me have different ways of approaching the narrative and for me it is helping visitors to understand the story. For her, through books, talks, and lectures, she is able to show the narrative. I want to make sure we have that conversation about the different sure we tell make the truest narrative of the story. Jeffrey it so great, youre working crafting this script. The insertion of the word male was so central. It showed that for the framers of the 14th amendment, they did not expect it would grant the right to vote because if Southern States denied it to any male citizen, then the apportionment in congress would be correspondingly reduced. That made it harder for womens suffrage advocates to argue as they did in the 1870s and 80s that the 14th amendment should be extended to women. You tell the story of people like victoria woodhull, who argued before john bingham, the man who framed the amendment, as having rejected the claim. A very big and important part of the exhibit, you tell about how the right for vote the right statebystate. There were surprisingly a few the granted it, but it really picked up in the 1870s and 1880s. Why . Elena at that point particularly in western territories they wanted to encourage women to come. It was a practical reason to attract more people who would be able to give them cause to apply for statehood. Wyoming was the first. There are a lot of great illustrations from the time showing progress sweeping from the west to east. And then you start having people pushing for a constitutional amendment, a 16th amendment, the next in line. Then you have a lot of women pushing at the state level for change, hoping that it stays hoping that if enough states fall ultimately there will be , national change. It really propels the story into the 20th century where we look at this continuation of different tactics. Towards the end there are these final few years where it gets dramatic and you are seeing a lot more of the photography that we are familiar with, picketing in front of the white house, parades, processions, all of these public is happening. Ultimately with world war i you have this push to ultimately grant women the right to vote and really fulfill a true democracy. Jeffrey that leads to the final part of the exhibit, where you tell that incredibly dramatic story of how president wilson changes his position on the 19th amendment and the states are ratifying it and it all comes down to a very dramatic story in tennessee. Give us a sense of what happened. Elena the youngest state legislator in tennessee planned on voting no on ratification. This was the final state that was needed for it to become a part of the u. S. Constitution. He received a letter from his mother that said you really should vote yes on this ratification. What does he do . He switches his vote at the last minute. Nobody expected it. It pushes it over the edge and ultimately tennessee ratifies. It took one final vote to add it to the u. S. Constitution. Jeffrey amazing. It shows how close politics are and how one vote can make all the difference. As it happens, in a great panel that we did in grand rapids on monday, it was about the Electoral College. Turns out that burch by proposed an amendment that would have eliminated the Electoral College and had a popular vote for president. It passed the house with overwhelming bipartisan support and president nixon, with george h w bush, and it failed in the senate. Constitutional politics can indeed turn on one or two decisions. What are you most excited about displaying in the exhibit . There are so many great artifacts that you have. Whet ouretites appetites with what you will be showing. Elena we will be getting the pennsylvania copy of the amendment. Those of you from pennsylvania, it is kind of cool. We will be featuring an array of ephemera from the era, just women in various ways trying to get the right to vote and convince other people that they should have the right. There is a lot of cool imagery, a lot of posters. Different buttons with pants on them or rolling pins. A lot of visual cues there. One of my personal favorites will be featuring a ballot box from the reconstruction era, when some women were able to vote. This one i believe is from utah. There is a county printed on it. I tried to track down exactly where it is, utah allowed women to vote early on. It has printed on it womens ballot. Those are some of the highlights. Jeff that is wonderful. Im so grateful to you and your team for doing such a great job creating this exhibit and i cant rate to share it with all of you on june 10. Please join me in thanking elena. [applause] now, friends, we are so honored to hear from americas leading biographer for elizabeth caddy stanton, Lori Ginsburg. You will be hearing all about her remarkable life, lori will be interviewed by the head of constitutional content, so please join me in welcoming lana , my colleague, and Lori Ginsburg. [applause] good evening. Thank you, jeff. Thank you, elana. Im excited to continue the conversation with you about the exhibit and the conversation with lori. Lori, thank you for being here to discuss your book on stanton and thank you for being a member of the National Constitution center. Thank you to the members out there for your support and coming to the program as well. Your support makes it possible, welcome. Lori, i want to start by asking you a little bit about stanton and her life. Before we do, i will introduce you a bit more, telling about your background. You are a professor of history in womens studies at Pennsylvania State university and you have written several books on womens history, including recently untidy origins. The book that we are discussing tonight, elizabeth caddy stanton. Mi pronouncing it right . Lori i think the correct pronunciation is caddy, but almost everyone says katie and i dont know why. Lana well, tell us a little bit about her life. Born in upstate new york, her relationship with her father i found really interesting is detailed in your book. Lori first, thank you for having me here. Its a pleasure to come to the constitution center, always, and meet the people that make the extraordinary exhibits here. I have always loved them. Elizabeth cady stanton is something i have always argued with. I have written a number of books and she is always in the room. She takes up a lot of space. She is a fascinating character. Charismatic, bossy, elitist. Brilliant. She is quite amazing. I think that people who study u. S. Womens history cannot help but grapple with her in some ways. I believe that for all of her flaws there is no one like her in the 19th century. Born in johnstown, new york, her father was a judge and her mother was a descendent of a revolutionary war hero. They were quite conservative. Wealthy, property owning, slaveowning. People often forget that that was still the case in upstate new york. Much of the north. Traditional, as stanton remembered it, on matters of gender. The famous story that she told was that when she was 11, her last brother died, she crawled into her fathers lap seeking to give and receive comfort and he put his arm around her and said my daughter, i wish you were a boy. Everybody groans at that, and the sting of the remark is certainly something many women feel. But its not actually an irrational comment for a father of a brilliant daughter who recognized her life was going to be quite limited by the time and place in which she lived. There were not very many options for a wealthy young woman born in 1915. She got the best education she could for girls, but she was always resentful that she didnt get to go to college with the boys after handily beating them in all subjects in grade school. She took that resentment with her in making a life that was devoted to challenging all the many ways, and you will hear this said many times tonight, not really suffrage, although many ways she felt womens lives were restricted and spirits crushed by virtue of being girls. Lana its interesting that her father was very much opposed to suffrage and she rebelled against that throughout her life. You hint that this may have been part of her motivation behind the work that she did. One thing that he did do was, being conscious of the laws that regulated women, he put a lot of property in her name because he was maybe distrustful of husbands and the ways they would treat their wives as property. I thought that was interesting. Lori in 1848, april, the married womans property act passed in new york, giving married women the right to own and inherit property. It was fathers like judge cady who supported this because they wanted their inherited wealth not to go to sonsinlaw. Not necessarily profligate ones, but just unknown quantities. Elizabeth cady stantons husband, Henry Brewster stanton, although he became a lawyer and was in the state senate for a while, he was not well off or a suitable beau when they met. Elizabeths father was clear that he was going to leave property separately for her. Only for her. Cleaning house that they owned. For a conservative family to have their lively, brilliant daughter fall in love with a 35yearold abolitionist lecturer, that was not the choice. At first the father forbade the marriage. They got married and went on their honeymoon, they went to the World Antislavery Convention in london. Lana a very momentous event in her life, her first time out of the country, interacting with british women, very advanced in the tactics that they were using of suffrage over the u. K. , that was a powerful experience for her. Lori at issue is mostly impressed with the american women that she met there. She met with a bunch of the Antislavery Society women who were elected by their local chapters of the Antislavery Society as delegates to london, but when they got to the convention, the british quakers who were much more conservative on matters of gender, much more mainstream in british life, they barred the women from participating and put them behind the bar, which outraged the young Elizabeth Cady stanton to no end and outraged others, too. William lloyd garrison among others sat behind the bar with them and refused to participate because of the exclusion of groups. For stanton, she described it as a political turning point in her life, meeting Lucretia Mont and these other women who had for years already in the 1840s been already struggling about these issues. Lana you and jeff were just talking about the exhibit. We were talking about preseneca falls. Just as important to the movement, the main focus of the exhibit drops you in at 1848 at the convention. So, you know, whats the approach to telling the story of, you know, stanton, her work prior to seneca falls and incorporating the work of the Antislavery Movement and the importance of that to suffrage . Elena is interesting when you go to start an exhibit, you have a limited space. Never an infinite amount of space. You have to make important decisions at the getgo. Where will we start in time . Where will we end in time . Its not always clearcut. We decided to go with 1848. That doesnt mean that we dont acknowledge whats happening before. Historical events occurring before that, what was voting like at the founding is really important. We include the story of new jersey, their first state constitution allowed some women to vote, particularly if they held property. Primarily widows. Its that early point where you understand where we are in time. What do i need to know for when we get to 1848, what was life like for women . We tread the ground from the original constitution being written through 1848, reaching a peak in 1848 where we tell the story of stanton and we feature a lot of other women and men who were fighting for womens suffrage. You will be able to meet some of these women and men in an interactive element in the exhibit where we will feature bios for each of these individuals. Stanton is one of them. You will get a little bit of her background and her influential role. Its interesting for a writing exhibit. Theres only so much you can include. If you envision for any one person, there must be about 50 words, which is about three sentences. It can be a Herculean Task just to get it down to that important nugget information. Its always interesting to think of how like lori is able to write a whole book on one person and i have maybe two or three spots in the exhibit if we are talking about the declaration of sentiment or stanton in particular. Lori i would say that although this book is about one person, i have written books about large groups of people, historians writing one book, we are always in conversation with each other. Its important to note that we disagree with each other. Sitting at large tables, there are archivists doing different kinds of work. We are always in conversation about some of the same question. Where do we start and end of the story . What is the framework, what is the interpretation . The main difference to me is not so much between what we do as it is the temporal focus or the topical focus as the ways that we interpret stuff. For me, there is no Womens Suffrage Mo