mcgowin theater at the national archives. i'm debra wall, deputy archivist for the united states and i'm pleased you can join us whether you're here in the theater or joining us through facebook, youtube, or c-span. tonight's discussion of women suffragists and the men who supported them, the suffragents is part of our series "rightfully hers: american women and the vote." our partners are the 2020 women's vote seicentennial initiative and the one woman one vote initiative. our story tells the story of women's struggle for voting rights. to secure these rights, women activists had to win allies in men in influential positions. it was men who sat in the state legislatures that would ratify or reject the amendment. when rightfully hers opened in our lawrence o'brien gallery last may, guests at the opening reception were offered a yellow rose pin as they entered the museum. that evoked the badges worn by men. this nod to the role that men played came as something of a surprise. so, tonight we're going to take a look at those suffragents and their contributions to the voting rights struggle. and it's my pleasure to welcome nancy tate to the stage. since 2015, nancy has served as the co-chair of the 2020 women's vote centennial initiative and is also on the board of the turning point suffragist memorial. from 2000 to 2015, she served as the executive director of the league of women voters. previously, she served as the chief operating officer of the national academy of public administration and in the department of energy, the department of education, and the office of economic opportunity. please join me in welcoming nancy tate. [ applause ] >> well, thank you. it's wonderful to be here, especially at the national archives, since they have opened this really lovely exhibit on women and the vote. and as she said, it's called "rightfully hers: american women and the vote." i myself have toured the exhibit twice. it's great, and i encourage everybody else to come and see it too. so, as she mentioned, i'm the co-chair of the women's vote centennial initiative, and i'm also the former executive director of the league of women voters of the united states. the league is one of the co-founders of the women's vote centennial initiative, and that group which in shorthand is wbci, was formed as an information sharing collaborative of the many organizations and scholars who are working in this area. we want to celebrate the anniversary of the 9th passage of the 19th amendment which will be of course officially next year, 2020. and in doing that, we want to shed light on the powerful but little-known stories behind that very long and hard struggle to win the vote. the league itself was founded in 1920 by carrie chapman cat who was the head of the largest suffrage organization, the national american women's suffrage organization. and the league, under her guidance, was formed six months before the amendment actually passed. the league -- so, therefore, the league is also having its own 100 anniversary next year. so, there is a league in every state, and approximately 700 cities and counties around the country. and the league has been spending nearly 100 years now continuing the fight for full equality for all americans, and we do that through both education and advocacy. but let me just say a few more words about the 2020 women's vote centennial women's vote initiative. we work to establish networks all across the country, girl scout troops, universities, any kind of organization who is interesting in learning about our suffrage history and how they can be part of these celebrations that they may even want to create themselves next year. here in the d.c. area, these educational programs that we put on with the archives and other groups is the main thing that we undertake. so, tonight, as debra said, this particular evening is part of wbci's women and the vote symposium series. this is the fourth one we have done here at the archives, and we hope to do at least one more in 2020. but when we picked the topics, each one of these focuses on some of the little-told stories about what went on to enable women to finally get that vote. and all of the panels including this one will look at how some of these lessons show relevance to the issues of today. as many of you know, the 72-year fight for women's suffrage is a powerful historical story, and it can be used to enhance our understanding of our own times and how to navigate it. you can learn more about wbci by visiting our website, facebook, instagram and twitter, using the hash tag @2020 centennial. i'm pleased to introduce tonight's panel. you have their full biographies in their program, so i'm just going to call them up by name. come on up, ladies. we have our moderator betsy fischer martin who is the executive director of women in politics institute in american university. [ applause ] brooke kroeger who was the author of "the suffragents: how women used men to get the vote." johanna neuman who is the author of "guilded suffragists." and susan ware, who is the author of "why they marched." [ applause ] so, betsy, i turn it over to you. >> thank you, very much, nancy. and welcome everyone. it was really nice to be here with you today. so, we have a special treat. three terrific experts, and i will tell you just personally i had a wonderful time reading and learning so much about this issue in preparation for tonight. so, i'm excited for you all to hear it as well. brooke, let me start with you. your book tells the story of rich and powerful men, mainly in new york, that came together to help women earn the right to vote. take us back to 1908 and tell us 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 actually a pretty good story. starting around that time ann compton sanderson, who had been imprisoned in britain, came to the united states on a lecture tour. because she had been in jail, she could not come in through a normal port, so she snuck in through canada. 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 very supportive of women in their fight for the vote. and how nothing of this nature was going on here. so, this was in the press and very much in people's consciousness, at least people in certain circles. around the same time, anna howard shaw wrote to the editor and publisher of both "the nation" magazine and "the new york evening post." he was also the son of fanny garrison who was an important suffragist and the grandson of william garrison, of course the abolitionist and suffragist. and she wrote to him remembering that when she was in harvard in 1904, he had made a wonderful speech at the massachusetts suffrage organization and wanted him to speak at a convention. and so he wrote back saying he was taxed to the limit, his strength didn't think he could commit to anything like that nature. but he was thinking it would be a very good idea, and i think this was in the zeitgeist, that a group of men of prominence would come together not to do much more than lend their names and trot up to albany or to washington to speak to legislatures and politicians if the need arose. she wrote back and said that this was not a new idea, that the suffrage organization, which at this point was very much in the doldrums, had had the idea before and in fact, there actually was a men's suffrage league that started in 1874, 1875 in the east village of new york. it met about 80 times and fell out of existence and memory. i think this must have been what she was referred to, because she said, the men who were willing to engage are so full of isms and that's the last thing we need. the men we really need, you oswald, is basically what she was suggesting, never seem to is are the time for our cause. so, she wrote back, and he said -- of course i'm paraphrasing -- he said i think i can find a group of -- he didn't say i can find. he said a group of men can be found to do this work as long as they're willing to do the heavy lifting. she writes back again in perfect women's style and says and we'll do all the work to get this organized. to his enormous credit, he said that is not a good idea. the more strategic plan would be for us to form this ourselves, providing we can find someone to do the work. and that would be the way to make this really effective. so, he summons rabbi steven wise and john dewey, the philosopher and column bee i donbia profess dewey's student at columbia was max eastman, short of funds living down in the village. he becomes the secretary treasurer of the organization. his charge was to put together a list to keep this very secret and put together a list of 100 names that would just wow the world from every profession, clergy, professors and names that america knew. and then announce this as a group that was organized to promote the suffrage cause. and so he gets to work. he gets the help of his mother, reverend annis ford eastman from upstate elmira. the letters are going everywhere. so, it's unimaginable with 10 or 15 newspapers in new york at the time that someone would not get wind of this. and of course "the new york times" did and runs a very, very chiding front page article with the headline that was something like "men's voices to join the soprano chorus for women's votes" and then it names all these people whose names they had gotten wind of. and of course there were only 25 at that point. one exact one -- actually the director of bell view hospital resigned he was so embarrassed. most were okay. eastman was mortified. but he had recruited george foster pea body and he said don't worry about it, by the time we're really ready to announce everyone will have forgotten this and all will be well. that is what happened. by november, he didn't have 100 names, he had 150 names. they had their first meeting in early november. by january, they had produced their first booklet with all these names and addresses listed, with their charter and constitution. by later in the year, they gave their first banquet, 600 people, to honor ethyl snowden, the wife of the british mp. this was very elite in its construction in the beginning. later they invited men of all sorts because it was understood what you needed was men who voted. this was really the point. >> right. >> and having this kind of male support was key. and that leads us -- and i'm sure someone else can tell the story of the parade -- but they marched as a group of 89 men in top hats and bowlers in the second annual new york suffrage parade in may of 1911 where they are pill ried and mocked and just every sort of insult is hurled. and they embrace this. it galvanizes them. and from them they are no longer just offering their names. they are really ready for work. >> johanna, why was it so controversial to have men? and they were ridiculed in a lot of cases? >> well, i did want to pick up on brooke's point. >> yeah. >> so, there were 89 men in the 1911 parade. one year later, in 1912, there were 1,000 men. so, that's how much the movement grew in a very short period. >> and a year later there were 35 states and men in the tens of thousands. >> and one of the men who marched, and i was just looking for this quote, was rabbi wise. rabbi wise was a major progressive. he often lectured in the city on progressive causes, those isms that you spoke of that were just a time of great ferment. there was debate among students at columbia and in max eastman's circle in greenwich village. is capitalism the right thing? should we look at socialism? should we explore free love? it was everything -- imagine a time where everything was up for debate. and rabbi wise participated in the 1912 parade where many of the men he knew were in their clubs looking down on fifth avenue, hurling insults, as brooke suggested. >> those guys were rolling their eyes. >> yeah, they were rolling their eyes. >> they were hurling insults. >> he wrote -- i dug out his diary, and he wrote of the mockery that he encountered that day. for a few moments, i was very warm and took off my hat whereupon someone shouted, look at the long-laired susan! some of the other delightful exclamations were, who's taking care of the baby, oh, flossie, dear, aren't they cute? look at the molly coddles. another male suffragist, also another suffrage husband, as they were called, was george middleton. he would called hecklers crying take that hander chief out of your cuff, oh, you gay deceiver, you forgot to shave this morning. so, i think we have there some suggestion of why it was so controversial, because it disrupted this jegender role expectation that men had. and throughout the 1910s, what i think happens is that the -- there's a succession of events that help to normalize the idea of women voting. and, you know, the great fear among men, after all the only voters here, the only people eligible to vote for women's suffrage, either as voters in their states on referenda or members of ledge sla tif committees or lawmakers in congress. there was this great fear that politics would harden women and emasculate men and also hurt the family. and 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. but it probably was say something where 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 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 k elizabeth katie stanton vowed to remove the 15th amendment which removes the barriers to black men voting, they won't support it unless women are also included. and this horrifies the other women who start a rival organization. so, for 20 years you have these two rival groups working at cross purposes. but one black man named robert pervis stood up for elizabeth cady stanton and susan b. anthony in this rather unexpected decision to fight the 15th amendment, and pervis said, if my daughter cannot have voting rights along with my son, i won't vote for it because she has a double curse of being a woman and a black woman. so, i think, you know, we have to say that there are always some men who have stood with woman, and i just wanted to throw that into the conversation. >> i think what's distinct in this particular era is that they organized. >> absolutely. >> and you know, celebrity endorsers, it's always been back to thomas payne, john stewart, there's always been those. but this was really a unique happening. >> i agree. what else is strange about it is that the few people in their memoirs who write about it at all write about the 1911 parade or the 1912 and the response from the crowds. i mean, that seems to be a very effecting experience. and belard talks about it also. it's the only thing he mentions. no one ever mentions the league by name. only the obituary mentions it because his wife probably wrote it and she was such a great suffragist. they never talked about it again. and i -- and i wondered why. was it shi valorous to not take credit for it? or was it insignificant in the active lives and by the time they died six decades later it wasn't an important aspect of who they were. only eastmans make any mention of it. it's kind of fascinating and they were -- george creel, as soon as he becomes head of the committee of public information, he's not talking about it at all because wilson, of course, wasn't supportive. so, it's interesting. >> that's interesting. susan, i want to get back to sort of the home life, if you will. and you know, a woman goes off and joins a suffrage movement, what does that mean for the home life and for the husband during that time? >> well, i think it really changes, can really change -- >> yeah. >> -- all aspects of it because especially if a woman signs on to the suffrage movement, it's kind of like having a religious conversion. and if she's all in, it's like having a full-time job. it's an unpaid job, but it's full-time. and this is likely something that she hasn't done before. and you can see how there would be a ripple effect, that the kind of wifely or daughterly duties that she might have done before like being there when the kids come home from school or being there to entertain at dinner, those things aren't going to happen anymore. and i think that what we need to remember is that it's not just if a woman says okay i'm going to support suffrage. it can affect all kinds of other things in her life. it can affect her family of origin, who she's partnered with, her colleagues, it can affect where she lives, where she travels. it can affect how she dresses. so, it's a really -- it's a big commitment and one of the places where you see it really hitting home, literally, is in suffrage marriages. >> you write in your book why they marched called "married couple ray and gertrude foster brown." tell us about them. >> ray and gertrude foster brown were very much a suffrage couple. she was head of the new york state women's suffrage organization, quite powerful position. and he was a journalist. and he wrote a book, a pamphlet published anonymously called "how it feels to be the husband of a suffragette." and in that pamphlet, you can tell he is a true feminist. he supports women's economic independence and talks about how having a wife who does things beyond the domestic sphere is just so much more interesting to around than someone who just stays home. he's sort of saying all the right things. so, he puts on this wonderful public cheerful face of this is great. this is what it's like being married to a suffragette. and yet in private, things are a little more complicated. she's off traveling. she goes to conventions. she's giving speeches. she's out every night. and he's at home, and he's missing her. so, there's this sort of difference between the cheerful public endorsement of it and that sometimes on the home front it's a little harder to make it work, and that he's the one who's really feeling left behind. this had happened once before in their marriage. she was a talented singer and musician, and she had gone off on the road, had a very successful career. and he then felt like he was being left behind. i think what's interesting is that both times they managed to work their way through it, and they stayed married until his death in 1944. and i think it's just a good reminder that we always need to think about the personal as well as the political when we're telling this story. >> yeah. brooke, i want to ask you about the press and how the men were depicted in the press at the time. >> first of all, as a curiosity -- >> yeah. >> -- i mean, it was interesting so it made news. more importantly, the men who were involved initially made news because they always made news. so, these were people that were followed by social columns. they were followed for their business dealings. they were followed for everything. so, being followed for suffrage was an extra phillip for the movement because it just drew attention. another thing to be cognizant of is that a huge proportion of these men who were engaged from the beginning were editors, publishers, writer, poets, dramatists. i mean, they were people who had media access. so, they were also able to guide coverage. we were talking about catherine mackey a few minutes ago. you know, one of the suffrage publishers was the publisher of harper's. so, there's this four-page puff piece spread about her, you know, when she starts her equal franchise society, which was a parallel organization to the men's league, also directed at attracting the elite women which johanna can certainly talk more about than i can. and that kind of access to print, to having things published that were positive from a movement that for 70 years had been seen as daoudy and dull and it wasn't really a group that was attractive in a celebrity-like way. there's a wonderful cartoon from 1911, i think it is, where it shows two suffrage women, one who looks like a scold and one who's shapely and very attractive and a beautiful hat. and it says, you know, the type has changed. and part of that was this group that had now become part of the image. you even hear flattering descriptions of anna shaw's clothes. like, really? so, things had really quite changed. and i think this part of the movement really that elite attraction had brought something that was needed. >> yeah. well, brooke is looking at me because my first book on this is called "guilded suffragist: 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, that when they embraced this cause, it just 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, though, on the question of the press, most of the coverage was not favorable. and especially, we mentioned earlier are "the new york times." >> "new york times" was anti -- >> they were a more hostile news organization than "the times" who greeted the men with editorialized -- >> disdain. >> -- really virulent editorials against what they were doing. it sort of suggested that they didn't know their own way, you know, that they were a little misguided. perhaps they had been -- well, one editorial in "the times" suggests that some of the men might have been trying to curry favor with female seamstresses to make their suits or something. unbelievable stuff. >> there was a great deal of hostility. but there were other papers like "the lards" and "the herald" and others that were pro. previously they were all like that, so this was the change that you have this wave of positive response that started to create that turn. >> i think there's something else that's going -- that's sort of a general context for what your two books are about, which is your organization starts in -- >> 1909. >> yours 1908. there is -- the phrase i use is -- a kind of quickening around suffragism around that period, 1908 to 1910 where things really burst out into public in a way that for the first 70 years or so of the movement, it really was taking place in church parlors and lecture halls. it wasn't engaging the public. and for a variety of reasons, things really begin to pop. and it makes -- and then there's a sort of self-fulfilling. and then you have this escalation for the -- really the next ten 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, you know, preaching to the converted. and i think there was a daunting realization -- >> to get the word out. >> -- that you have to reach the public. and so in the 1910s, they start to use all the new science of public relations, weapons of spectacle, the public parades, all kinds of things. they had suffrage days at the polo grounds. they had women pilots dropping fliers from airplanes. they had marchers. >> call us update. calling people at the baseball field. they would have fans that said be a suffrage fan, things like that. they tried all kind of stuff. >> they just got savvy -- >> yeah. >> -- about public relations. >> where does the term suffragents come from? >> from england, it was one of the pejoratives. it's not an official term. on this side of the puddle, it's husbandettes of the suffragettes. >> suffragette is also a fraught word in the united states context. that was one of the things i noticed when ray brown was using in his pamphlet. i think he was making a subtle jab at his wife, i don't know. but 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 -- >> correct. >> -- which is something that the united states movement never did and very much wanted to draw those lines. so, you find that -- i don't -- i can't really think of hardly any instances where women in this country would call themselves suffragettes. but you find that the term is very often used to describe them. and it has a somewhat pejorative caste to it. and we're finding that again today as we're facing looking forward to the centennial. the term suffragette is coming back. >> yeah. >> and i find myself often waging battles and saying, no, no, that's not the right term. even hillary clinton used it in her book. and i wrote her a letter and explained to her, as a fellow wellesley grad, why she shouldn't use it. she never responded. >> i think it's just people don't know the difference. >> well, maybe she didn't get the letter. >> brooke, i wanted to ask you about the financial support that was significant in term of funding. >> sure. >> the suffrage fight. even behind the scenes or some cases from the grave, some of these men, these titans of industry were funding the suffrage movement or their widows were funding it. >> divorced and widowed and used all that money towards the movement. mrs. frank leslie actually made back the money that her husband loss in leslie's illustrated precursor to the "life" magazine pictorial publication. she made the money and when she died gave $2 million to the movement. she wasn't even really a big activist but was hugely support. >> that made a huge difference, all that money. >> huge, and so did the others. the headquarters were built by those funds. and other couples 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 and were very involved in -- after the 1915 defeat in new york, there was a huge gaearing 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 away with that much support in congress to counter the opposition from the south. so, all these things really fit into creating that burst of activity through the decade that really did make the difference. >> susan, i wanted to ask you, you mentioned the south, brooke, what role did african-american men play? >> we can all talk about that. susan was going to. >> yeah, i think it's very important as we think back about the history to pay attention to the large roles that african-american men as well as african-american women played in this movement. if you go back to seneca falls, there's frederick douglass with elizabeth cady stanton supporting the women's right to the vote. and he splits with her in the aftermath of the civil war over who will get priority about voting. but he never loses his faith in the importance of votes for women and universal suffrage. and then if you think about someone like w.e.b. dubois, especially as the editor of "the crisis," when you read -- "the crisis" was the magazine of the national association of colored people founded in 1908 or 1909, it practically reads like a suffrage magazine. there are so many editorials he is writing. and there's a reason for that. it's because african-american men, who fought so hard for, in the civil war and then 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 and 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 against men. so, dubois makes that point. many others in the community do. and dubois makes another point, which is kind of an obvious one, but if women get the vote, black women get the vote too. so, i think it's very important, as we tell these stories and we think about a movement, which has a reputation rightly for being predominantly white and middle class,that we can't 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's a perfect case where putting the men in the story just adds so much. so, i was glad for that question. >> johanna, i read one of your quotes. when i stood up for the rights of woman, self was out of the question. i found a little nobility in that act. >> i think one of the more interesting questions about this discussion for me is motives. and for frederick douglass -- and i love that quote too. so, thank you for digging it up. for frederick douglass and for many other people early in the movement, there was a certain nobility in their act. when we get to the modern movement, the league, men's league, i see a couple of groups of people. the first are the -- what are called the bohemian sexual radicals. and these are max friedman and his friends down in the village. max believes that women should have the vote because it will make them better lovers. it will -- you know, there will be an equalizing of gender roles, and women will stop being silly and men can stop being profligate. and they might get to a better relation. floyd dell was another of his friends there who thought that women -- that the woman's movement, really the feminist cause, would liberate men. >> not to have to work. >> because they wouldn't have to work, that there wouldn't be an obligation on their shoulders to support women and children. and they are quite enthusiastic. max friedman calls suffrage the great fight for freedom in my lifetime. so, this is at a time of all these isms. he's saying suffrage is the main cause here. and but say soon lose -- i don't want to say they lose interest. but they leave the league. they start to leave the league by about 1912. max says that he prefers a cause where you can suffer a little for the good. and by 1912 is getting very main stream and they sort of peel away. most of the members of the club -- 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 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 had myriad causes. but i think they welcome women because it doubles their numbers. so, it makes their progressivism even stronger if women get the vote and can help. and so i think there are these different -- 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's just -- it conveys in its breath public acceptance. and 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's a great lesson that social change begins at the grass roots 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 extremely close election in california. the suffrage initiative passes by one vote per precinct. but the impact is huge because in the 1912 election, there are 1.2 million women eligible to vote for president. and by 1916, four years later, analysts say that woodrow wilson would not have been re-elected but for the votes of people in the women's suffrage states. so, there's this ground swell. and what happens when we get to the 19th amendment, i believe, is that women are no longer petitioning congress. please, please can we have the vote? they're coming as constituents. and they're saying we have the power to vote you out of office. >> and there's another point that just if you're having a cocktail conversation about the 19th amendment and someone says, well, women, won, got the vote or were granted the vote. i always hate that. but in august. but you can say, well, actually, quite a few women were already voting. and it really does start in the west and move eastward. but, again, it is the role of the states. the flip side of that is that very few african-american women were infranchised by the 19ment 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 tax and things like that. so, we always need to sort of keep both these perspectives in mind when people just say very easily, yeah, women got the vote. well, it's a little more complicated than that. >> brooke, you spent a lot of your book talking about new york and the significance of that. was that 1917? >> 1917, yes. >> yeah. and why was that so significant? >> well, as i said before, it was the first really big delegation to come into congress and create a change. >>was at 1917? >> 1917, yes. >> and why is that so significant? >> as i said before, because it was the big first delegation to come into congress and create a change. and it was the first state east of the mississippi where (laughs) illinois -- >> we are not a geography. >> i think it is east of the missouri want to come in, which created this avalanche of change. it was understood that if it had failed in new york, that would have been the end. >> right. >> it gave wilson cover, in a sense, to start changing his mind. he always used the states argument. you know this is a states issue. >> you still hear that these days. >> it is still an artful judge. that avoided the question of the south for now but this gave him a way to come forward and actually help change the minds and make this happen. >> fast forwarding to ratification in the state of tennessee. harry t. burn, who wants to tell us that story? the great story? >> we volunteered her. >> go ahead. >> harry was a young legislator in the tennessee senate. the setup for this of course is that to get an amendment, the constitutional amendment through congress took the vote of two thirds of the house at two thirds of the senate. >> to ratify? >> no, to get it through congress. that was the commerce role and that happened in 1919. to get it ratified by the states took three fourths. suffrage leaders spent about a year and a half going from legislator to legislator trying to get ratification right. at first it was going along swimmingly, a drumroll of approval. some five -- i think three states rushed to be the first to ratify and announce standing in the streets together because nobody made it. >> i remember the er a. >> they parade through the states and by then there's a ground swell of what we call the anti's. the anti suffrage forces also see this as the big battle of their lifetime. they marshals for it. what not more powerful of course than the leader lobbies that fears the prohibition, the temperance movement, which was fueled really by women. women have other things up their sleeves, that is just the opening wedge and they are going to come with all this social legislation that is going to be very costly to their business and other businesses. so everyone is martian, everyone is descending on the state capitals and they get to 35 but they need 36. everyone understands that tennessee is going to be the last state. they either make it in tennessee or they do not. when everyone goes there, many of the key players take rooms at the armitage hotel in nashville was. the liquor lobby takes, i think it's the eighth floor and they call it the jack daniels sweet where they are offering, if not bribes, at least a lot of liquor one. the vote is extremely close. harry is one of those who was down as an anti. this is signified by the wearing of new colored roses for the anti's and i think the pros wore yellow. and all of a sudden on many procedural votes, he changes his mind and votes yes and tips the thing. he pulls out a letter from his caucus that basically says my mother asked me to vote for this one. he had not won -- he said he was sympathetic to the cause but he was going to vote no the cars that is how his constituents had made very clear to him 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. you know the ad ties were very powerful in tennessee. they actually filed a lawsuit. this is a little known story. i hope someone is looking at it more closely, but they actually filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the 19 amendments and that was finally, you know, ran through the courts and it was rejected. >> 1922. >> what but harry said it was fickle to him to contribute to history and to make his party look good. >> so we all have the right to vote because a young man listen to his mom. (laughs) that's a great story. brooke we're susan, do either of you have a man to highlight that is the most important people? >> i think platelet is the one. he is the national president of the men's lead. he could counties leniency back to colonial days through 50 different lines. he was on the board of what became standard and he was a real player. his wife was a very important new york city inch. if i can read the mission statement was of the league. let me see if it is here. i can see it was. >> i can read it for you if you can't. >> meanwhile, looking for that, i could add that laid law, when he led man at the 1912 parade, he was asked why they were marching and he said we are here to give moral support for women and courage to the men. i always thought that was quite poignant. >> here is the statement in full. he goes there are many men who inwardly feel the justice of equal suffrage. this was written in around 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 prejudice that he will not consider it at all will pass away with this generation if not sooner. the usefulness of the men's lead politically to women constitutes one of the unenforceable arguments for women's suffrage. legislators are mainly responsible to voters and to voters only. in the majority of states in this country, earnest determined women are besiege-ing the legislators endeavor-ing to bring about the submission of women's suffrage amendment to the people. how long and how burdensome is this effort on the part of non voters? 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 lead coming again on the first proposition of moral support. >> that is pretty great. that is pretty great. >> susan, does anyone come to mind for you? >> i would give a shout out to a man named fred nathan and i think it is partly because he is married to one of the characters in my book. he is a prominent suffrage it and she is in my book because i used her relationship with her sister any nathan meyer who was an anti suffrage it. she was also the founder of bernard college. it introduces this interesting sibling rivalry but also reminds us that not all women were supportive -- wanted to support women getting to vote. but maud and frederick had another one of those suffrage marriages and they did things like a cross country automobile trip in 1912 in a time where there were no cross country roads. i remember he turns up at one of the international men's lead -- >> he went to both of them actually. all three of them. >> it is very important and when we finally get to this critical turning point that we have all talked about of the 1917 november -- november 1917 referendum in new york state, he is quite hill and he is pushed in a wheelchair. something equivalent, so that he can cast his vote for the suffrage amendment. i think he belongs in there. >> definitely. he was one of the original thinkers also. important. >> as you alluded to earlier, there is not a lot of known about some of these folks. i mean as you were writing your book, how did you go about finding a lot of the information, a lot of the stories that you had in their? because you mention they did not boast about it, it was not in their obituaries necessarily. >> interestingly, the historians have not picked up on this. when i started there were a page, a paragraph, they were not even academic papers that did much more than mention it in passing. i went into history .com, these incredible sources of, you know, buried small town newspapers just to find a trace where there were speeches, what they were doing. i almost it all full chronology of the full ten years to figure out it really was a movement and there was more to it and celebrity endorsement which is of course what they set out to do but then clearly became deeply engaged. a quietly. >> yeah. >> quietly. and i also think we have to say as i got the idea to write this and put out a proposal, most of the response was who cared what the men did? it was a very typical response. >> and what was your response to that? >> what was there to say? when >> someone else who did not have that response. >> i'm printable. >> it took a while, it took a while. >> well johanna? >> when you were talking about the men that should be included in this conversation. my mind went to teddy roosevelt. >> why? >> because he was a disciple of manliness for, bigger, 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. and of course at the beginning, he is not very interested in women's suffrage when he is first asked about it around the turn of the century. he says this, you know, women will get the vote when they ask for it and until then, the whole thing boris 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 as he embraced the cause. but what i love about him and i and my book with it is that after women get to vote in new york in 1917, in 1918, theodore roosevelt was 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 accident -- accent, what are you doing here? she said, i am going to vote for. and the enormity -- i mean 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 was reluctantly and belatedly endorsed for. to me, it was like witnessing the human toll of social change. it was a generation of men who had to decide what and i don't think the suffragettes were ever a majority but they were the activists among them. >> i think they also understood, as laidlaw once said, they could make it easier. things that were very, very difficult for women to accomplish, they could just do and it takes 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 immediately could open his offices and his cafeteria so that the meetings could be held. i mean there just was an ease of being able to fix things. >> i think 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? >> yeah, women voting. >> women voting. >> i think what is always endearing to me to the men's leagues and this comes as my training and women's historian, where you see all these organizations that are found in the 19th century, religious organizations and political organizations, men's organizations and then there are women's auxiliaries which often do all the work and raise all the money and are absolutely central but they do not get the credit. what has always tickled me about the men's leagues is that they really were the opposite and they embraced that role and so it's a model of role reversal. >> they actually took direction. yeah, they actually used the term and they get thanked at the 19 17th victory and laidlaw comes up and says, we have learned to be auxiliaries. >> it doesn't happen all that often. so let's give them some credit. >> in fact, the governor of new york, witman, at the time, was asked after the 1917 vote, who won women's suffrage? and he said, well i thought that the men in new york had a lot to do with that. i mean there were always newspapers and magazine articles at the time saying that this faction or that faction and women had actually won the thing. witman is reminding us that the voters were men. >> so we have some time for questions and we have two microphones on each side here so if anyone has a question please make your way to the microphones. oh, i see a gentleman here with a question. >> hi. >> that happens to be my husband. >> on auxiliary! >> hey guys thank you for taking the questions and thank you for great presentation. the question i have -- and the moderator was not bad, by the way. the question i have is you touched on this at the outset of this book, why the west? why is it, do you think, that this first came out of wyoming and then off to california and colorado? was it the sort of pioneer spirit? the fact that they were more equal in the west whereas more stratified in the traditional east? what was it that sort of really took fire, perry fire if you will, in the 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 are very often stories within those states that have to do with clinical alignments and whether there are third parties. basically whether somebody believes that giving women the right to vote is going to help them. having said that, if -- one of the things that is really the most constructive, if you are trying to get a handle on suffrage history, is to look at a map of the united states and see this -- the west where you have these victories and then there is this black hole of the south where there are no victories and the industrial northeast, where there are very few until new york. so the geography is really important. as a historian, i have founded, i am extremely uncomfortable using pioneer, but something is going on out there and i just think thank goodness for that because once you have all these women voting in the west. number one, the world has not come to an end so that's important to show people because what she didn't really know that. it also gets people used to the idea of women voting and you also have increasing numbers of women who actually vote and they can be a political force both in their own states but also in this national movement. so without the west, we might will still be faultless. >> i just want to add that there were one -- i think there were some political mode is one by men who saw adding women to the rose in the west as an opportunity to double their influence, to get more representatives in congress but i also think they needed women want to come populate, very sparsely populated states. >> they also say that the strategies in the west are stronger, that they were very good at giving arguments that appealed to the converted and can still appeal to those who had not made the change. there are several papers that try to deal with why that was possible. >> nine until 1917. >> it took a while. not quite yet. >> again, it is a western state that elects the first woman to congress. >> correct. >> and that is not a fluke. >> i also want to ask something about the west. when you were talking, you were talking a lot about wealthy men in new york. things happen out west. i mean did you have anything comparable to places out like in san francisco or los angeles? >> yes, so in california -- >> but the other thing i wanted to ask you is, you were talking about the fact that these men did things behind the scenes and yet you also said that this became a more popular because you had these celebrities and people of influence endorsing it. that helped. i did not understand it. it sounded kind of contradictory. >> i was saying that there were people in the news already so that became a vehicle for more attention to the suffrage movement in a way that was possible. that was the point. >> i see. >> california had an important lead ran by a man named john bravely. he founded it, it was coeducational. it felt like he was the most important work of his life. but massachusetts had an important lead, chicago had an important lead. there were 35 states that had men's leagues. as i said, through the woman's journal vehicle, this was heavily promoted. that women were asked to encourage men -- the men in their lives, to become very much a part of this. >> hi. >> hi. wow >> i was going to ask how do you think the man in average american household would have reacted to women voting? >> not well. what do you think? >> i am not really sure. i would've hoped it would not have been, oh no, that is a terrible idea, but i also do not think everybody would've been like, oh yeah, let's do that right now. >> i think if you want to take a broader look at the question of why this bias exists egg, in my new book i go back to the american revolution because i do not think suffrage begins in 1848 at seneca falls. i think it begins in that revolutionary moment when some women are agitated for the vote, where new jersey gives women and free blacks the vote if they have the same amount of property as men voters have. and and what is -- called a revolutionary backlash where all of that gets taken off the table and women are asked to become the guardians of patriotism, to teach the new generation of patriots about this new republic do. many of them do this willingly. many of them use it as a wedge to suggest that they get a better education. they stick their toe back to politics slowly. they are instrumental in the drive to oppose andrew jackson 's indian removal policy. they are instrumental in abolitionist cause and slavery. but i think by the time you get to this period we are talking about, the 19 tense, there is this gender construction, this paradigm is dove gender roles where women aren't to be the moral influence and manner supposed to be the ones that get down in the dirty, smoke filled cigar rooms. where politics usually takes place. as i mentioned earlier, this fear about what will happen if women go into that room. i think it just takes public reassurance that we've been talking about to convince the public. again, if you look at movements for social change in our lifetimes, if you look at how gay marital quality happens, it starts at the grassroots. it starts at the states and people the public has to be convinced. there are campaigns, there are losing campaign after losing campaign. public opposition and i think that's what happened here with the man. >> i think i would add to that that i think we need to remember even know the vote doesn't seem like that scary a thing. i mean you go to polls once a year. was kind of seen as an opening wedge. and if that's going to change all things about women's roles could change was also. for many people that would be seen as a positive thing but for many others that would be seen as not a positive thing. we see that playing out through the rest of the 20th century and we see similar ideas on both sides of the equal rights battle. so i think we need to always remember that something that seems like a fairly minor reform, although it is not minor as we do not know. please go vote in 2020. it often stands for something much bigger and in this case it is women's equality in the modern world. >> one of you mentioned that there was a constitutional challenge to the amendment. but in general i thought that once an amendment is approved, it is basically instant. what surprised me was that i was googling harry during your talking he barely survived his election campaign and i would've thought he would be an issue in with about 50% of the voters in tennessee. why did he barely pass? >> well, tennessee you have to look at the political situation there and see why it would've been hard for him to not breeze to an election win. 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. luckily within two years the supreme car ruled that the 19th amendment was valid and there could not be any challenges. that would've been a very poor start to women's political emancipation and equality if it happened under the shadow being knocked down by the supreme court. so they move very quickly on that. i know, i have read those two court cases. they're going to be in the library of america anthology suffrage that will be next summer that i edited but i can't for the life of me remember the details of those cases. >> one other thing and thank you for having read them. i've not done that. it's a sad note really, i don't know if this is partly why harry burn had trouble since subsequently but the 1920 election is the first one where women nationally black and white in the north are eligible to vote. the showing is not good. very few of them, percentage wise come to the polls. there are a lot of reasons for that we need to talk about. the magazines of the day, there were all sorts of headlines about apathy and the apathy of women and so forth. it's possible that that played a role in tennessee as well. >> there are unfortunately, there is a perception that once women get the vote it really didn't matter. there are articles with names like women's suffrage is a failure. one of them i found most interesting from 1924 by ida terrible who was a very prominent anti suffragists. ladies journal center out around the country to see what women were doing with the vote. she came back quite impressed with what vermin we're doing with the vote. they aren't voting at the same levels as men. see this is things most women had not done. takes a while to learn to be a voter. but i think one of the things i hope to see the centennial celebrations can help us see is this continuum of woman's political activism that starts well before a passage of the 19th amendment and doesn't end in 1920. women don't just go home and go to sleep and not do. anything you see it continuing through groups like the league of women's voters, you see it in a new deal with women like eleanor roosevelt. you see it in the 19 fifties with the civil rights movement. it's an ongoing continuum. when i try to remind myself sometimes this could a have done that without the vote? or try to imagine the 20th century without the vote. it's been lost in 100 years and so what i try to do is take all the long view. thank you fiddle the 19th and men minute stretching beyond 1920 and started like you do, beyond 1848. i think the roots are much broader than. that >> so nobody should feel bad about the er and not have passed because it's just begun. >> 100 years. >> do you think men are becoming more interested in the role they played in women's suffrage? >> we could take a poll. (laughs) week the (laughter) >> i don't know. >> when you give lectures to. people >> and a woman they are good to be like this i've had maybe wanted to hostile comments. usually from women. (laughter) just concerned about bringing up any credit to them and some people find that offensive. and of course is the suggestion is that if it was a man's victory it's simply to recognize that social change requires everyone. i think what's interesting about this movement as opposed to some other movements for social change is that it's a one issue thing. it's not a complicated question. it was single, it's not like bringing up a portion, it's not like bringing up birth control. other 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, who has to go to jail for wrongs, who has to abide by contracts, who has to do every other single thing that every single citizen has to do and. has no say in determining what happened. it's just a moral ron. that's easy to get on board with. >> those who didn't agree would have to pass away because it's just wrong. you know it was really susan be anthony, what you want to church reform, the bible was under attack. susan antonin had a broad agenda agenda. occasional opportunities, and it was susan be anthony who said no, we're just gonna focus on the vote. this sort of validates her. >> but you also noticed that because there are so many horrific things going on, when mince issues tend to always get subordinated even by women. it's like this is horrible, but this is not as horrible as fell in the blank. and that seems to happen over and over again. >> but i do think that one of the things i've noticed as i go out hustings for suffrage centennial, i think maybe ten years ago if we were doing this he would think about women getting the vote, as kind of unimportant, wasn't such a big deal. well, i think recent events have opened all our eyes to the importance of voting and voting rights and voting suppression in a way that could make a quaint since ten we'll celebration much more relevant, and much more timely. >> here here. >> and i think we would've expected. >> i think we have time for one more question. >> i was wondering if you know when did women get the right to keep their salaries if they were working? was that part of the movement before? at some point, we got the right to own property and to keep your salary if you work. when was that? >> one important, new york is a very important state in a lot of these legal reforms. an 1848, they passed a married woman's property act which meant that married women could hold property. an 1860, they passed a law, a legislature passed a law that said that women could control their own earnings. >> and this is? new york. >> this is new york. >> what about federal? was there ever a federal law that said that women had the right without their husbands permission to earn money and keep their own money? this is to me incredibly important thing and i can't believe that it got subordinated to being able to vote. a cause with it or before it doesn't it? do not have a right to keep your own money? >> i think most states by the time women suffrage passed in 1920, that in most states women would have been able to control their own earnings. >> you don't know? >> he had no entitlement. i can do what >> i can do one more quick question here. >> so we are one of her have six wonderful exhibits about women's suffrage in washington d.c. here, we can feel the momentum going on here. is that happening in other places across the country? >> oh god yes! it is (laughs) to have a favorite exhibit you've seen someone? >> to me the most exciting thing is that they are happening in all of the states and i just have to give a shout out to the league of women's voters who are playing such a central role in this but also many of the states of setup commissions. this is a wonderful networking opportunity for people to find each other and also doing what we try to do is historians is take a very inspiring but complicated historical story to a broader public who really doesn't know very much about suffrage history. i think it's 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 that it will it will just encourage all kinds of interest and learning more about it and the place they can start as by reading all of our! box >> the one that i've heard about the charmed me the most was on new year's day at the rose parade. there is going to be afloat about women's suffrage. they have invited people to dress as suffragists and walk behind the float and sort of recreate the moment that we've been talking about tonight. i just think it's a wonderful coming together of our history with a cultural icon of our president. >> we were cycle -- suffrage in the media .org. anything that has a media aspect to it which is everything. a really sort of rises to the surface, we put up. we changed almost weekly. so there's always new material and it has one of the best search elements you can search by sub post service, not academic, kaepernick movies, it's all like that. it's all free. >> please join me in thanking our terrific panel. and thank you all for coming. >> you are watching american history tv. every weekend on c-span three, explore our nations past. c-span 3, created by americas cable television companies as a public service and brought to you today by your television provider. >> weeknights this month, we are featuring american history tv program as a preview of what is available every weekend on c-span three. tonight, a look at women in politics. on the night that democratic vice presidential candidate kamala harris addresses the democratic national convention, we show to pass convention speeches by women vice presidential nominees. in 1984, democrat geraldine ferraro who ran with walter mandala and in 2008, republican sarah palin who ran with john mccain. watch tonight beginning at eight eastern and enjoy american history tv this week and every weekend on c-span three. >> next, we visit the national archives in

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