Can argue every year should be. This is incredibly special for all of us in america, especially at the smithsonian. We are bound together in celebrating the american womens History Initiative throughout the Smithsonian History Museum and online, and all of the activities, and here at the American History museum, we are particularly grateful to have three exhibitions opening. Spurring really from this one. This is democracy in america, the great leap of faith that opened a few years ago. Im in the gallery that takes us through the long and arduous and continuing effort to expand democracy to enfranchise more and more americans. As you might know, early on, only white men with property were able to vote. Throughout the 19th century, the long battle expanding that suffrage to slaves, previous slaves, and women, culminating finally in 1920 with the ratification of the 19th amendment. Not guaranteeing women the right to vote, but barring the federal government and states against voters because. So suffrage wagons like the one behind me were taken out in the field during the ratification andess to encourage states their state legislators, almost all men, the vast majority, i think there were only one or two sitting women in any of those states, to vote for the 19th amendment. Slogans, brightly colored, the colors of suffrage are black and gold originally. That changed into purple, gold, and white. Thats why im trying to represent that here. , icons, howill open we remember womens suffrage on march 6. We will take you through the both therts to craft Regulatory Framework for how women can vote, and the incredible activism of women who throughout thely century and a half to get the vote to happen. The 19thfocus on amendment and womens suffrage, phone lines split up a bit differently this morning regionally. If you want to join the 2027 488n, thousand. In the eastern and central time zones, mounir pacific, 2027488000. You can start calling in. As folks are calling in, i want to focus in on the ratification process. A 14 month process after the 19th amendment was passed by congress. Was it a sure thing . How touch and go was it during those 14 months . Why did it take 14 months . The ratification of the amendments is probably never a sure thing. Its easy us for us to look back on track that. But all of the amendments, the expansion amendments, reconstruction amendments after the civil war, ending slavery, thetrying to work towards abolishment of slavery and equalization of rights for africanamericans. The Womens Movement that had worked actively since 1848. The original sentiments, the declaration of sentiments, pinned by elizabeth caddy stanton, and we have her table on which she wrote that, was ratified at the convention of 1848 by 68 women and 32 men, including Frederick Douglass, the remarkable and powerful abolitionist who believed in the quality and expansion of the declaration of independence. Imagine 16 sentiments modeled after the declaration that said we hold these truths to be these are fabulous. I want to read you one. In terms of the original declaration saying that the king had done this to men, elizabeth and others are saying men have done this to women. He has not ever permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise, and it ended with 16, the powerful he has endeavored in every way that he could to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her selfrespect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life. Those are pretty harsh words in 1848. By the time the amendment gets introduced in 1878 and voted on, sent out by an allmale congress to the states, there was really nothing insured about the passage of the 19th amendment. And remember that in order to get this passed, the coalitions that white women built excluded women of color. You have extraordinary women born into slavery, fighting against slavery, and forcibly joining, saying, these are our rights too. Can you imagine how powerful it was for africanamerican women to get the vote . The great thing for me and all of us at the museum, nothing is preordained. It is all of the choices we make and it is those men who walked into their state houses and chose to vote for the 19th itndment that hold pulled through. Host which states lead the way in that process, during the ratification process . Guest it varied. The big states were in favor of it. A lot of it became, if women got the vote and could vote in the 1920 election, became part of the chess game for that, there who granted states the right to vote to women before that. There were already women and men who were used to having women vote. The big states who wanted to swing the election of 2020 to the republicans were among the most ardent supporters. Host you talked about the declaration of sentiments earlier and we showed viewers a picture of that table that you have. Guest wonderful. Host i wondered how you got that table to the smithsonian, and what happened to the original declaration . Guest great story. The way in which the smithsonian acquired this original core collection that we will be displaying as the women wanted it to be displayed in 1919 is fabulous. They knew they were making history, so they had been petitioning the Smithsonian Institution to accept this collection that they had very carefully curated, and they had kind of modeled it off of what they thought to be an appropriate Museum Display of an important american man. So it looks kind of very genteel. There is the tea set and the is fascinating is the smithsonian, led by all men said, no, thank you. You do not turn people like Lucretia Mott and Susan B Anthony away. They persisted. It is a wonderful story. It will be grouped together when we open on march 6, and the declaration next to it. Who has the declaration of sentiments . I believe it is at the library of congress, but we should check on that before the show and we will get that to you. Host i appreciate the realtime fact checking. Phone numbers to join this segment, eastern or central time zone, 202 7488000, mountain or pacific time zones, 202 7488001. Today our third stop in our washington journal american series visiting d. C. Area museums. Our guest is the director of the American History museum. The table was brought to the smithsonian that was led by only men. That is not the case anymore. You are the first woman to serve as the director of the museum of American History. What does that mean to you and your vision for the museum . You for asking. It is a true honor to lead this museum. I joke that one of the great things about being the first woman is no other woman will have to say that. It is incredibly important as a wife and a mother and a sister and a daughter, my roles as a woman in society, i think enable me and reinforce the way in which i have seen the world as a historian, as a nonprofit leader, and certainly here is a here as a public historian and public servant, there is no higher calling than to be at the smithsonian at this time in our history, and especially with the exemplary leadership of our new secretary, he himself a historian, creating the africanamerican museum of history and culture. It is a special time, and i am joined and embraced by other incredible women and men directors. Host do you remember when you first visited the National Museum of American History and how the 19th amendment, the Womens Suffrage Movement was then . Guest that is a great question. We came here shortly after the and mynnial as a family mom took us all. We were dressed up, and came here. I will never forget that first time in washington. The museum, which my father had seen in the 1950s when he was here before this museum was built, it opened in 1964, told a pretty traditional story of American History, although it was the 1970s. Of the times, they were certainly influenced by the remarkable energies of the Civil Rights Movement, so i dont remember a lot about how womens stories were told. I do remember being in awe of both this museum, air and space, which was very new at the time, and that feeling that i feel every day i get off the metro and walk across the National Mall, one of awe and respect and participation in this incredible experiment that we call the united states. Host joining us from inside the democracy exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Lets get to a few callers. Linda out of mount laurel, new jersey. Good morning. Guest nice. Goodter caller morning. I am so fortunate to live on the land where alice paul lived and grew up. Guest be still my beating heart. That is wonderful. That was at the National Constitution center in philadelphia on january 16. I just wanted to know if anybody has worked with you at this smithsonian . Guest i am so grateful for your call, and if you had not brought up alice paul, i would have. One of the things that we have, and maybe you can show it to our viewers, is a remarkable pin that alice paul and others who were imprisoned for their advocacy literally trying just to get the vote, sent to prison you know alices story is so powerful but brought attention to the incredible lengths to which women would go. Host you are seeing that on your screen now. Guest isnt that amazing . We have an amazing collection from alice pauls family, including her suffrage bracelet. She lived a long life, so every time a state would ratify the 19th amendment, she would add it to her charm bracelet. It is one of my favorite things here. Thank you. You live on Hallowed Ground for the Suffrage Movement. Host i want to talk about the suffragettes serving in prison, showing a new story from san francisco, touring country in campaign for universal suffrage, 24 suffragettes who served terms in prison and they are getting off the prison train. Explain the story behind that. Guest it was an amazing moment, and the tactics used by suffragists and in the u. S. They called them suffragists and in the u. K. They called them suffragettes, maybe a little more french, who knows. But the tactics were remarkable and powerful, and the Lessons Learned from the Suffrage Movement, you can trace throughout the 20th and 21st century. The Movement Like many movements broke into two different factions. Some were conservative and some were radical and activist. Some like alice paul felt if not then then when would women finally achieve the right to vote . They saw this as a long trajectory lasting throughout the 19th century, and even into the 18th century. They took to the streets. They took to the white house, where they were first of all kind of seen as an oddity. Imagine the silent sentinels standing there day after day throughout 1913. President Woodrow Wilson decided enough was enough, they were getting way too much attention and distracting from the work of the presidency. As they were imprisoned, in a way, they worked against wilson and those who wanted to defeat the amendment and their spirit of advocacy, so they became even more famous. These were very educated, brilliant women, so as more and more were arrested, adding to their ranks, and finally when they were released they realized they had survived prison, which was heroic, and they had a special story to tell. So they went around the nation making sure everyone knew they had just and been released from prison just been released from prison and giving it a sense of urgency, a huge sense of sacrifice that they were willing to give literally, to let themselves after a while they knew they would be arrested so you can imagine what that took. To walk up to the white house knowing you would be arrested. Host taking your calls, asking for your stories and your questions. Eastern and Central United states, 202 7488000. Mountain and pacific regions, 202 7488001. This is anne out of cape canaveral, florida. You are on. You with us . Caller good morning. Host go ahead. Caller two things. Perhaps your engineers could put up a picture of someone in a hobble skirt. My mother paraded for the e. R. A. I am 97 and she was wearing one of those hobble skirts. Guest fantastic, that is great. The a question e. R. A. , please get it through. Guest thank you, maam. Thank you for your long life, i am sure well lived, and for your mothers advocacy as well. The equal rights amendment, technically the last state virginia just ratified it and we are waiting for the legal rulings as to whether that ratification process will be complete, but the long fight continues for equal rights for women, both with the Big Convention in 1977, and as you will see in our exhibition, the womens march of 2017. The long arc continues. I will see what i can do for you, anne indicate natural. In cape canaveral. Host take us back a little bit to the beginning of the equal rights amendment, why it was why the supporters of it felt like it was needed in the decades after the 19th amendment, and that history, when the momentum happened for it. Guest sure, absolutely. Thank you for that question. The reconstruction amendments that were passed in the 19th century and then the 19th amendment are not necessarily enabling amendments that lay out a series of rights that people are assured, so the promise of the e. R. A. For many women and men, many activists, was trying to reach an equality that would be present in the workplace, in the home, and that veered more into reproductive rights and the bundle of rights that its framers believed would ensure an equal place for women. The long battle ensued over the e. R. A. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s and even into the 1990s. You can see that stemming from the advocacy of so many people in the 1950s and 1960s through the Civil Rights Movement, and you can picture it within its context really of the American Indian campaign, civil rights advocates throughout the nation. That is its context. It was always kind of conflict ed, like all of these were, because you are challenging the governing paradigm of how relationships between genders work, the power of women, women in the workplace, and so those are still conversations we have today. Women have not given up as evident by the state of virginia literally within the last four weeks ratifying the e. R. A. Host in terms of conversations we have today, you and i were having this conversation, and callers,s, and the this is a comment from twitter the history of women having to fight so hard to obtain and keep the right to vote is so often ignored. Republicans love to focus only on abortion so they can keep women trapped. It is the only time you will hear comments about women from republican men. I wonder how you and your museum deal with the contentious issue of abortion. Is it talked about in the American History experience . Guest that is a great question, and you are right in that and i love uncle sam too, by the way but the importance of the ways in which history helps us contextualize the modern, ongoing modern battles over a womans right to choose is very helpful. Collectionemarkable in the history of medicine and science which will go on the floor in the next year and a half or so, which takes people through the long conversations about the ways in which womens bodies and mens bodies and bodies of color have been both treated, exonerated, demonized, cured. So we see certainly as historians, we see that in a long history of medicine, the history of reproductive rights, history of family life and of course womens rights. Our jobs in essence are to help people understand themselves, where they have come from, so they can be empowered to make the best decisions they can for themselves, their family, and the nation, using history as their guide. Host about a halfhour to go in our conversation with anthea hartig. Cody is on the phone from galesburg, illinois. Good morning. Caller hello. Guest how are you . Caller very good. In my history class, it is so often forgotten that these women got arrested just for picketing for the right to vote. It is very well said that liberty is not equality. Equality is not freedom, and we need to remember that. Often we take life for granted. People are more proactive, we would make more progress. A lot can be learned from the past. Host thanks for those sentiments. Guest thank you for that. Thank you, cody. Your beliefs are very aligned with ours here, that the past can be put to utility and that it is you said it well that liberty and freedom are something we would like to believe our unalienable rights but we have learned we need to keep fighting for. Thank you for your call. Host i want to talk more about some of your exhibits, some of the items you feature and how you make this history come alive in this centennial year of the ratification of the 19th amendment, and how you do that from Something Like a votes for women umbrella. Guest oh yes, the votes for women umbrella. What could be more fabulously feminine than a parasol . We have a number of those, as you might guess. By now, 110 or 120 years later, they are pretty fragile, but we have amazing conservators who have helped us conserve these beautiful parasols. The animation of thinking about popping open your umbrella, twirling it around and votes for women, it had a great element of surprise, but also when women were marching, if you were looking at the parades from a window up a couple of stories, it was a great way to show off your colors, if you will, and what you advocated for. Host all of these items we are talking about you can see in the democracy exhibit at the National Museum of American History, and you can call in and ask your questions. Steven from huntsville, texas, good morning. Caller good morning. Guest how are you . Caller i am great. I am excited to talk to you. Guest thanks so much for your call. Caller my grandmother