Transcripts For CSPAN3 American Artifacts 20160613

Party in 1916. This group of women spent seven years actively lobbying the president and congress for a federal suffrage amendment. When they received the amendment in 1920, they wrote and began lobbying for the equal rights amendment. When they were lawyering for suffrage, they were working all over the country actively garnering support from western women voters and bringing the fight directly to the president s doorstep. They had headquarters on Lafayette Square where they could all caps edgar and be right at the president s doorstep in a matter of minutes. They began picketing the white house, one of the first groups to do so, when the United States entered world war i in 1917. At that time, it was quite peaceful but they turned ugly when crowds watching the women picket the white house believes there behavior to be unpatriotic, so crowds would throw things at the women, converge on them and tear the banners from their hands. In june of 1917, the women began being arrested on charges of obstructing traffic and were taken to prison and sentenced to anywhere from three days to six months. They were imprisoned at the district prison here in washington, d. C. , and at the occoquan workhouse. They were not treated like political prisoners, they were treated like any other prisoners, often thrown into their cells, their hands handcuffed above them, and they began protesting that treatment and went on Hunger Strike and where forcefed. Because of their activities, there was a lot of press around what was happening to them, which ended up garnering a lot of public sympathy for their cause. Thanks to not only the work of the National Womens party but other suffrage organizations working for similar goals, the federal amendment was passed by both houses of congress and sent to the states for ratification. In 1930, it was ratified by all 36 states and became law. By 1921 and 1922, the National Womens party, be leaving them believing suffrage was only the first step in a many step process to achieve full womens equality began working on the equal rights amendment. Alice paul and Crystal Eastman presented the party in 1923. And from that time, they worked for legal, social, and economic equality for women throughout the United States and later, throughout the world. They worked from 1923 until 1997, when they became a 501 c 3 . Today, we work to preserve our outstanding collection of woman suffrage and equal rights artifacts and educate the public about this movement and community of women who work ed for total equality for women. The belmontpaul house is named after alice paul, our original founder and albert elmont. Belmont was the benefactor and president of the party for many years and its because of her that we have such a large collection of books, scrapbooks, artifacts, and many other objects that allow us to tell this story. Now, we are upstairs and we are going to talk about our collection of political cartoons by the nationals womens party partythe National Womens official cartoonist by Nina Allender. It was the only party to have an official cartoonist and her work appeared on the cover of their publication for more than 10 years. She grew up in kansas. She was born in 1872. Her family moved to washington around 1900. Her mother was one of the first women employees at the department of the interior. And allender studied painting at the Corcoran School of art with the intention of becoming an art teacher. She was a painter and loved to paint and that was a big part of her identity. But she also worked for the Government Land office, so she recognize painting would not pay the bills. She was president of the d. C. Branch of the National Womens Suffrage Association and when alice paul came in 1912 with the intention of lobbying for the federal amendment, allender watched with interest in this new woman. Theres a great story in one of the early biographies of the National Womens party where allender and her mother receive alice paul at their house. They are both interested in the Suffrage Movement and are eager to hear from this woman who they claim was about as big as their finger walking into their house. The story goes that by the time alice hall left, they had committed both time and money to the Suffrage Movement and the Congressional Union without realizing what they had committed to or how this little woman had managed to convince them to begin lobbying for the federal amendment. All of the sudden, allender was an active member of this party. Working for the federal suffrage amendment. I think she always looked around in amazement at alice halls negotiating and strategic way of convincing people to not only work for the movement, but to give money. Allender began her career as an official as the cartoonist of the National Womens party. Her first work appeared in 1914. One of the interesting things about her early work is that a lot of it focused on poverty, child labor, the exploitation of women and labor legislation. Her first work appeared on the cover of the suffragist in june, 1914. From then on there was no , looking back. She did more than 150 cartoons over seven years. They appeared almost weekly and like most political cartoons, they were a commentary on ongoing political issues. They were the news of the week with great attention to how that news was influenced by whats happening in the Suffrage Movement. Here is one of her early works. This is one of my favorite pieces in the museum. The inspiration of the suffrage workers. And you can see how she is commenting on a lot of different ideas in his piece. She is talking about the importance of the vote as a way of changing the condition of the women. Can see the Woman Holding her child and the other girl is sitting in the street playing with a cat and there is trash surrounding her. This is obviously in an impoverished area. She was commenting on how the vote would change the ability for women to earn their own wages, protect their children and move up in society , in a way not having the right to vote or any voice in the laws eating made would allow them to do. Now we are going to make our way into the gallery. We have about 170 of allenders original works. Its one of the only known collections of her works in the country. As far as i know, no other museum has any of her paintings or other works either. Beginning in 1914, she was doing a lot of work on the condition of women. As the movement progressed and as the activism increased, they began a strategy they called holding the party in power responsible. That was the Democratic Party led by Woodrow Wilson. So allenders work often pinpointed symbols of the Democratic Party and more importantly, the main symbol of the party which was the president. In this piece, this is called fairy godmother wilson and it was published on the cover on december 4, 1914. You can see she is utilizing the fairytale cinderella to make commentary about the power wilson wielded over the improvement and condition of women and the laws of the country as well. President wilson is playing fairy godmother. This woman is cinderella. In between, you see the pumpkin is the constitutional amendment and the mice is the senate and house. President wilson is casting a spell to make it possible for her to use the amendment to vote for those who represent her. A lot of commentary about president wilsons power. Just as an aside in the background, you see the proud voting sisters indicating the fact women in many western states at that point had the right to vote. The National Womens party would start pinpointing those women to help vote as a block and vote the Democratic Party out of office. The title of this cartoon is lest we forget. One of the things important to note is this idea that the National Womens party always paid tribute to those considered mothers of the Suffrage Movement. And that included in particular susan b. Anthony. This cartoon is featuring a line of women paying tribute to susan b. Anthony who died before the suffrage amendment was passed but who introduced the original amendment in 1875. You see a group of women and children. You can see women who are college graduates. You see this tag here that says voter indicating western women voters who had the right to vote and then you see a lone woman walking up the steps of the capitol and that is when susan b. Anthony first introduced that amendment. The intent of this is to demonstrate how far we have come but how long we still have to go. This was fairly common for the National Womens party and to and for allender to pay tribute to the original suffragists and all of the work in Progress Women have made but also reminding them how far they still had to go. Then, we circle over to this cartoon called our hat is in the bring. It was drawn and published on april 8, 1916. This is particularly representative of her belief that women needed to be presented with authority, strength and control. , she created an image she called the allender girl. This woman was a different image than many saw in images of suffrage and women who appeared in the press at that time. Oftentimes, political cartoonists would mock it by making women looked haggard or ugly or fraught in some way and allender turns that on its head and create a youthful, invigorated, intelligent woman. You can see in this image that shes very slender, her skirt is above her ankles, which is quite different at the time. You can see the changing face of fashion. Her hands are on her hips and she throws her hat into the ring of politics. Can see her hat says the womens party. You see these comical images of a progressive, a democrat and a republican all looking in wonderment at this woman who is strongly standing there saying i am moving in. The importance of this cartoon is the National Womens party was originally founded as the Congressional Union for womens suffrage and changed their name to the womens party in june of 1916. You can see them predicting what is about to happen within their party. The womens party was an important name because at times, they grappled with the idea of going beyond lobbying for the federal amendment to becoming a n active political player in the same vein as a democrat or republican. Changingtoon is called fashions. Published on march 13, 1915. This is an opportunity to comment on how they were targeting congress and showcasing this is talking about so many different things. Not only are they targeting congress, but you see the Woman Holding out her skirt saying National Constitutional amendment in a very grand, ruffly skirt shes holding out and shes also wearing a hat that shows new york, pennsylvania, new jersey and massachusetts, all states voting on suffered referendums suffrage referendums in 1915. This is a way of lobbying for those states to receive mental municipal suffrage. On her skirt, she has West Virginia and iowa, states that were voting at that time. But she is holding out the skirt and the congressman is looking at her in bewilderment saying she used to be satisfied with so little. So you see her focused on that federal amendment, talking about how this continued to be state by state by state. Her work reflects that in other ways. As they approach the amendment,n of the her work began increasingly to reflect the idea that states were still having to ratify this amendment and that could be a process that could hold them up. In 1919, the National Womens party created a banner in which they sewing stars. By 1920, they had 36 states on the banner. The day suffrage was passed, there is this iconic image of alice paul unfurling the banner at headquarters and showing it for all the members. We no longer know what happened to that banner but we hope someone has it in their attic somewhere. There is also a great allender cartoon that shows them sewing the stars on the banner. Her work is continuing to reflect the state movement while showing the federal movement as well. This cartoon is called american justice. The interesting thing is this is this is another instance of allender taking the imagery of democracy and patriotism, this is obviously uncle sam standing and turning it on its head a little bit. This is a very powerful image. You are seeing uncle sam standing in front of this helpless Woman Holding up a bouquet of flowers. Hes saying american women come women,aying, american you are our inspiration, you give us our soldiers, you conserve our food, you work in our munitions factory, he serve our sick and wounded, except our bouquet. You see her bound with unequal rights, unequal wages and this kindly om it flowers robe. These are issues women still continue to grapple with today and this image is one of many that allender used where she featured uncle sam, the democratic donkey, the republican elephant and other typical images of democracy to showcase how contradictory our country was toward women. Particularly during world war i. These women really focused on the fact that president wilson was lobbying for democracy abroad while not doing so here in the United States and we are going to look at other cartoon that shows that issue. We are going to move over here. This cartoon is called insulting the president and it was published on june 2, 1917. In january of 1917, the National Womens party began picketing the white house through a sustained act of nonviolent or protest. They were among the first group ever to this. Every day, they would stand in front of the White House Holding their banners that would basically speak for them, saying how long must women wait for liberty and talking about democracy in this country and using president wilsons speeches and his words to show the contradictory nature of the direction of the United States. In we entered world war i and april 1917, their banners became more problematic. They were seen as unpatriotic. This particular cartoon was published in june of 1917, just before women started to be arrested. This particular cartoon shows again, ther girl skirt above the ankle this is how women dressed when they were standing at the white house, so it reflects the reality of how they were on a daily basis and you see the banner that she is holding is a quote saying we shall fight for the things have always carried nearest our heart for democracy. For the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own government. Then it says w. W. Down here at the bottom. This was fairly typical. This was just before their being arrested and her work continues to reflect that over the next several months when the rest became violent. You start to see her work showing women in prison and other instances of the donkey and the elephant being used to persecute women. They are keeping up targeting congress and the party in power by using these banners and they picketed the white house and picketed congress and they took their banners across the country. They were lobbying against congress in a very national way. We are going to move across to this cartoon which was published 1920. February 1, we are almost to the finish line. This one is called training the animals. At this the amendment had point, been sent to the state for ratification and passage was, the hope was that passage was all but achieved. You see the democratic donkey and republican elephant standing there as the woman is holding a treat that says vote on it. Shes literally training these animals to get used to the idea that women are entering the political idea and will exercise their right to vote. In 1920 cartoons in particular her 1920zing cartoons in particular reemphasizing this over and over again. This is one of the final times she employed the donkey and the elephant. This cartoon is called to the women voters, stand by your disenfranchised. You can see this is an unfinished cartoon. This would have been the masthead of their publication and this is an instance of allender using imagery to make an impact. They oftentimes showed women in this way, this particular woman wearing the flowing robes and blowing a horn. The intent is to garner support from western women voters, to bring them together to vote as a block against the Democratic Party. The finished product actually look very different once it was published. You will see they added slogans and pieces to the original drawings. Allender did the bones and the editors added additional context to it. This is a great instance of showcasing the editing of allenders work. She would work with editors to define the focus for the cover and the editors would feed her information about the articles that would appear so that they would tie together nicely. In this case, there is a great quote in this issue that talks about the need for western women to stand up for the disenfranchised women across the United States. We are now in the feminist library at the belmontpaul house, the first feminist library established in the United States in 1941. This is the primary place where we house our collection and even more importantly, we house all of our political cartoons in this space. I have pulled out a few to show some additional facets of allenders work. Thisar piece particular piece is fantastic. Its one of her earlier pieces and you can see that it is quite large. It is more of a poster than any of her other work and you can really see the detail she put into this. This is another one of those early pieces where she is talking about women workers, child labor, exploitation, the title is child saving is womens work, vote for women. It appeared in a june issue, june of 1913. You can see the factories in the background and the crowd and a line of women and children wrap ped around. But this is a great opportunity to talk about the materials that allender used to create these works. She often used graphite or charcoal to draw them. There are very few instances where she uses color in her work and i will show you a piece where she uses color but sometimes, she would use watercolor paints. Interestingly, with these pieces , she was never picky about the type of paper she used. It was obvious she would use whatever she had in her studio at the time. It could be anything from artists paper or poster to something thicker like posterboard, cardboard. Sometimes you see that she started a work and didnt like it, so she would scratch it out and turn it over and use the same materials to start a new piece. It really varied the type of materials she would use to draw on. What they would do with these is and sheender drew them, would either draw them in her own studio at home or there are images of her drawing them there. She would give them to the editors of the suffragist and they would go through an editing process. Allender would make recommendations on captions and sometimes the captions would be changed. They would make markings on the backs and these items would be put on to metal print blocks and it didnt matter how large or how small the items were, they always appeared to be about the same size once they were on the cover. I going to close this piece and few pieces that demonstrate the editing process. Because of the different materials she used, you can see overpiece has split in two time, so it gives us a chance to talk about how fragile these materials are. Presentation is very difficult. They have sustained water damage, flaking and every time you handle one of these pieces, something will flake off. There are holes in them and they did not mean for them to survive as long as they have. They will work product and that is how they were treated. We have a few additional works that show the editing process. This is quite a powerful drawing. You can see the woman is held by a noose and shes representing the suffrage amendment here and there is this person writing in to save democracy. I believe this is Woodrow Wilson and the caption she chose is his last chance. This is his last chance to preserve democracy by saving this woman. If you flip it over, a lot of these have her original notes. In this case, shes addressing this to the editor, saying im sure you can come up with a better caption than i have. She is suggesting the need they need to think about the caption they want to use and rethink what her recommendation is. This is one of the pieces i mentioned where she uses color. This is watercolor that she uses on here and this is a fairly simple cartoon. It was published in 1919. The caption she wrote is 31 more days. And this would have been around the time it would have been published. She is indicating they only had 31 more days before a particular deadline to perhaps get suffrage past or have arguments held in congress. Something along those lines. Then you flip it over and there from ninathy note allender. I will paraphrase. She basically says theres a lot behind this date and our members wont necessarily know what 31 days means, so we need to find a way to put more information is about what the deadline means so our members will understand. This is allenders way of saying it not so simple. I think people are going to need a little help with this this is one. Another great instance where you can see the pin holes in it. There are pin marks where they would these up on the wall and theres a great image of Nina Allender surrounded by her work in her office where its just hung all over the walls. It must be 25 or 30 pieces, but they did not see these as longlasting preserved pieces. This was work product. This was something they had to do every week. This was her job and she worked very hard to make it happen quickly and get it to the editor so they could add it to the issue. Im going to talk a little bit about the cartoons she did once they won the right to vote and started working toward the equal rights amendment. This particular piece is called protection. And one of the early National Womens party was publicizing a lot is equalf women, so how the rights amendment would lend it self to the protection of women trying to raise their children, independence for mothers who were not necessarily married, widowed mothers, equal pay. That is demonstrating how the all rights amendment will lend self to increase protection for women. One of the opposing arguments was protective labor legislation would be negatively e. R. A. Were to be passed. This one would have also been published around 1923 or 1924. These women have the right to vote. They are presenting to susan b. Anthony the bill of rights and the image is not caption here but it would have then in the , equal rights magazine and susan b. Anthony is going down the list of rights saying you still have a lot of work to do. The National Womens party fully believed that. Nina allender said cartooning gave her a sense of power nothing else did. I dont think she intended to become a political cartoonist. She was an artist and painter and always believed that was her path. But over the course of more than 10 years, she ended up drawing more than 200 cartoons for the National Womens party images that resonated with women. Her perspective became important to the overall success of the National Womens party. This, like so much of the other work they were doing, was dedicated to getting their message out in the press, positive or negative and showcasing the strategy they were employing to bring this movement to a close. In 1920, when women won the right to vote, it makes sense that she turned around and continued to draw. Her last piece was 1927. Allender continued to work for the womens party becoming chairman of the world womens party and chairman of their legal counsel. She delves into other areas in her later life and passed away in 1957 at the age of 80. 88. Her work today continues to resonate with visitors and it is a draw for a lot of people who come here. Oddly enough, she continues to be not as wellknown as she would like. As we would like. We invite people to come and experience this hall of portraits in this community of women and the stories we are able to tell. Nina allender, her work at one point was referred to like this a woman speaking to women in the language of women about women. That remains true today. Here in the hall of portraits, we invite you to come in and experience our selfie station where you can become part of the hall and see your self as a future leader and empower your sons and daughters to continue to fight for womens equality and be a part of womens empowerment and activity in politics. The house is open thursday, friday, and saturday from 11 00 until 4 00 and we invite you to take a tour. You can watch this and other american artifacts programs by visiting our website at cspan. Org history. Next, the keynote address from an Oregon State University conference titled rethinking grand strategy. The historian takes a critical look at the u. S. Cold war strategy. The professor argues Many American leaders used an alarmist and excessively military strategy to combat communism, despite what he says was the lack of an imminent threat to the u. S. 2013 hisitol the 2013 Pulitzer Prize and the 2013 Francis Parkman prize. This program is about 80 minutes. We are very fortunate to have the professor here with us tonight. Hes the professor of International Affairs at Harvard University at the Kennedy School and professor of history, a specialist on u. S. Foreign relations and 20th Century International history and was the previous professor of history at cornell where i had the history of first meeting him for he is also the sort of figure who is in credibly generous with his time. He is the kind of colleague we want and looks out for junior scholars, people just making their way in the academy. Hes also the editor of nine books including a personal favorite of mine about the lost chance for peace and the escalation of war in vietnam. And most recently a book we were embers ofut today, war, the fall of empire and the making of americas vietna