Next on american history, the reasons men supported the 19th amendment, this National Archives event is one of a series associated with an exhibit, wifely hers, american women and the vote. Good evening, welcome to the theater at the National Archives. Im deborah, deputy archivist of the united states. Im pleased you could join us. Whether you are here at the theater or joining us through facebook, youtube, or cspan. Tonights discussion of women suffragists and the men who supported them as part of a series of events related to our 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 the museum. That was worn by members of the mens league for womens suffrage. For many guests, this nod 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. Its my pleasure to welcome nancy tate, she has served as the cochair of the womens 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. Its 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, its 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 womens Vote Centennial Initiative. Im also the former executive director of the league of women voters. The league is one of the cofounders of the womens 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 littleknown 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 womens 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. The league 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 womens 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. Here in the d. C. Area, these Educational Programs that we put on with other groups as the main thing we undertake. Tonight, as deborah said, this particular evening as a part of the 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 womens suffrage is a powerful historical story. It can be used to enhance our understanding of our own times and how to navigate it. You can learn more about wvcii by visiting our website, instagram, and twitter. Im pleased to introduce tonights 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 author of the suffragists, how women used mento get 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. Its 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. Im 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 mens league for womens suffrage . Its 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 peoples consciousness, at least people in certain circles, around the same time Anna Howard Shaw 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 a wonderful 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 mens 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, its the last thing we need. The men we really need, you, oswald, never seem to have the time for cause. He wrote back and im 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 theres is someone to do the heavy lifting. She writes back, and its in perfect style and she says we will do all of the work. To his enormous credit, he said thats 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. And 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 secretarytreasurer 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 american knew. And announce this as a group that was organized to support the suffrage cause. He gets his mother, anna eastman from ohio. The letters are going everywhere. There were 15 newspapers in the new york in new york at the time and its 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 mens voices to join the soprano chorus for womens 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 in embarrassment. Eastman was mortified. But he had recruited George Foster peabody who became the financial mainstay. He said by the time youre 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 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. Later they invited men of all sorts, what you needed was men who voted area this was the point. Men who voted. This was the point. Having the support was key. Im 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 brookes point. There were 89 men in the 1911 parade, in 1912 there were 1000 men. Thats 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 marched 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 eastmans circle in greenwich village. Is 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 were in their clubs, looking down on fifth avenue, hurling insults as brooks suggested. Those guys were 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 longhaired susan. Some of the other delights that greeted us were who is taking care of the baby . Arent they cute . Look at the mollie cottles. Another suffrage husband, as they were called, was george, who recalled hecklers crying take that handkerchief out of your coat, 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 the only people eligible to vote for womens 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 adams and suggested that they consider universal suffrage. So here we have the founding from agitation for women to have the vote. After the civil war, when Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B Anthony split 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 organization. For 20 years you have these two rival group working at cross purposes. But one black man named Robert Purvis 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. Whats 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 name. 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 take credit . Were they consummate allies . Or was it significant in the history of these active lives, and by the time they died six decades later, it was an important aspect to they were. Its fascinating. George creel, as soon as he becomes the head of the committee of public information, he is not talking about it at all. Its interesting. That seems to be affecting his experience and affecting an affecting 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. Its like having a religious conversion. If she is all in, its like having a fulltime job, unpaid but fulltime. 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 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 its not just as a woman saying, 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. Its 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 browne were a suffrage couple. She was the head of new york States Womens 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 womens economic independence and talks about 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 its 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 its 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 1944. Its 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 followed for everything. So being followed for suffrage drew attention. Another thing to because 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 publisher of harpers. So there is a four page puff piece spread about her when she starts her society which is a parallel organization to the mens 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 dull, it was not a group that was attractive in a celebrity way. There was a wonderful cartoon from 1911 where it shows two 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 sharps 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 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 rec