Closest than any other man in history to destroying the nation that was created in the american revolution. For our complete American History tv schedule, go to cspan. Org. Nina allender was a political cartoonist, for the National Womans Party from 1914 until 1927. Contributing over 150 cartoons supporting the campaign for womens suffrage. Next we visit the belmontpaul womens Equality National monument to see her work. My name is jennifer krafcik, im Deputy Director at belmontpaul womens Equality National monument which was formally the sewell Belmont House and museum on capitol hill in washington, d. C. This house was the fifth and final headquarters of the National Womans Party. The National Womans Party was founded by a woman named alice paul in 1913 as the Congressional Union for womans suffrage. The Congressional Union for womans suffrage became the National Womans Party in 1916. This group of women spent seven years actively lobbying the president and congress for a federal suffrage amendment, at which time once they received the amendment in 1920, they began they wrote and began lobbying for the equal rights amendment. During the period when they were lobbying 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 door step. They had headquarters over on Lafayette Square where they could walk out their door 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 the pickets at the white house were quite peaceful. But they quickly turned ugly when crowds watching these women picket the white house believed their behavior to be unpatriotic. So crowds would throw things at the women, they would converge on them and tear the banners from their hands. And in june of 1917, the women began being arrested on charges of obstructing traffic. And they were taken to prison and sentenced to prison sentences anywhere from three days to six months. They were imprisoned at the district prison here in washington, d. C. , and out in lorton, virginia, at a work house. They werent treated like political prisoners. They were treated like any other prisoners, often thrown into their cells, at times their hands were handcuffed above them. So these women began protesting that treatment and they went on hunger strikes and were force fed. 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. And in 1919 thanks to not only the work of the National Womans Party, but also other suffrage organizations that were working for similar goals, the federal amendment was passed by both houses of congress and sent to the states for ratification. In 1920 it was ratified by all 36 states and became law. By 1921 and 1922 the National Womans Party believing that suffrage was only the first step in the manystep process to achieve full womens equality began working on the equal rights amendment. Alice paul and a woman named Crystal Eastman wrote the equal rights amendment and presented it to the party in 1923. From that time the National Womans Party worked for legal, social and economic equality for women throughout the United States, and later throughout the world. They worked for the equal rights amendment from this house from 1923 up until 1997 when they became a 501c3. Today we work to preserve our outstanding collection of womens suffrage and equal rights artifacts and educate the public about this movement and the stories of this community of women who worked for total equality for women. The belmontpaul house is actually named after alice paul our original founder, and then alva belmont. Belmont was the benefactor and president of the National Womens 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 were upstairs and were going to talk a little bit about our collection of political cartoons by the National Womans Partys official cartoonist, Nina Allender. The National Womans Party was the only party to boast an official cartoonist. And allenders work appeared on the cover of their publication, the suffragist and for more than ten years. Allender grew up in auburn, kansas. Born in 1872. And her family actually moved to washington, d. C. , in 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 here in d. C. With the intention of becoming an art teacher. She was a painter. She loved to paint. And that was a big part of her identity. But she also worked for the Government Land office. So she recognized that painting wouldnt pay the bills. She was president of the d. C. Branch of the National American womans Suffrage Association for many years. And when alice paul came to d. C. In 1912 with the intention of lobbying for the federal amendment, allender watched first with interest in this new woman. Theres a great story in one of the early biographies of the National Womans Party where allender and her mother receive alice paul at their house. And both of them of course were very interested in the Suffrage Movement and they were eager to hear from this woman who they claimed was about as big as their finger, walking into their house. And the story goes that by the time alice paul left they had committed both time and money to the Suffrage Movement and to the Congressional Union without realizing what they had actually committed to or how this little woman had managed to convince them to begin lobbying for the federal amendment. And allender, all of a sudden, was an active member of this party, working for the federal suffrage amendment. So i think she always sort of looked around in amazement at alice pauls negotiating and strategic way of convincing people to not only work for the movement, but also to give money. So allender began her career as an official cartoonist or as the cartoonist in the National Womens party. Her first work appeared in 1914. One of the interest things about her early work is that a lot of it focused on poverty, child labor, the exploitation of women, and labor legislation. And so her first work appeared in on the cover of the suffragist in june of 1914. From then on there was no looking back. She did more than 150 cartoons for the pages of the suffragist for a period of seven years. They appeared almost weekly. Like most political cartoons today, they were commentary on ongoing political issues. They were the news of the week with great attention to how that news impacted or was influenced by what was happening in the Suffrage Movement. So heres one of her early works. This is one of my favorite pieces, actually, in the museum. This is called the inspiration of the suffrage workers. You can see how shes commenting on a lot of different ideas in this piece. Shes talking about the importance of the vote as a way of changing the condition of women. You see the Woman Holding her child and her other little girl is standing sitting in the street playing with a cat. And theres trash surrounding her. And this is obviously in an impoverished area. So allender often, especially in these early pieces, 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 that not having the right to vote or any voice in the laws that were being made would allow them to do. So now were actually going to make our way into the gallery. In our collection today, we have about 170 of allenders original works. One of the only known collections of her works in the country. As far as i know, no other museum has any other of her paintings or any of other works, either. So beginning in 1914, as i said, she was doing a lot of work on the condition of women. But as the Suffrage Movement progressed and as the National Womans Partys activism increased, they began a strategy that they called holding the party in power responsible. And at that time that was the Democratic Party led by president Woodrow Wilson. So allenders work often pinpointed symbols of the Democratic Party and, more importantly, the main symbol of the Democratic Party which was the president. In this piece here, allender this is called fairy godmother wilson. It was published on the cover of the suffragist on december 4, 1915. You can obviously see that allender is utilizing the fairytale cinderella to make commentary about the power wilson wielded over the improvement and condition of women and over the laws of the country as well. So president wilson is playing fairy godmother. This woman is cinderella. And in between you see the pumpkin as the constitutional amendment and the mice as the senate and the house. And president wilson is casting a spell to make it possible for her to use the amendment to use her constitutional amendment to vote for the people who represent her. So a lot of commentary about president wilsons power. And just as an aside here in the background and in the mirror you see the proud voting sisters. And this was indicating the fact that women in western states actually many western states at that point had the right to vote at that time. So the National Womens party would ultimately start pinpointing those women to help vote as a bloc and try to vote the Democratic Party out of office. The title of this cartoon is lest we forget. And one of the things that is important to note about the National Womens party in general, and certainly the way in which allenders work reflected this idea is that the National Womans Party always paid tribute to the women who were 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 federal suffrage amendment was passed but who actually introduced the original suffrage amendment in 1875. So you see a group of women and children. You can see women who were College Graduates in here. You see this little tag here. It says voter. And thats indicating western women voters who had the right to vote. And then up here you see a lone woman walking up the steps of the capitol, up to the capitol. And the date 1875 when susan b. Anthony first introduced that amendment. So 1875 to 1915. And the intent of this is to demonstrate how far weve come, but how long we still have to go. And this was fairly common for the National Womens party. And for allender also to pay tribute to these original suffragists. And all of the work and progress that women have made, but also reminding their members how far they still have to go. And then we circle over to this cartoon. This car soon is called our hat is in the ring, and it was drawn and published on april 8, 1916. This cartoon is particularly representative of allenders belief that women needed to be presented with authority, strength and control. She created an image called that she called the allender girl. And this woman was a different image a lot of people saw particularly in images of suffragists and images of women that appeared in the press at that time. Oftentimes political cartoonists would mock the Suffrage Movement by making women look haggard or ugly or fraught in some way. And allender instead turns that on its head. And she creates a youthful, invigorated, intelligent woman. In this image in particular shes very slender, her skirt is above her ankles, which was also quite different at that time. So you kind of see the changing face of fashion at that time as well. Her hands are on her hips, and she throws her hat into the ring of politics. So here you can see her hat says the womens party. And you see sort of these comical images of a progressive, a democrat and a republican all kind of looking in wonderment at this woman whos very strongly standing there saying, im moving in. The importance of this cartoon is also that, as i mentioned before, the National Womens party was originally founded as the Congressional Union for womens suffrage. And they actually changed their name to the womans party in june of 1916. So this is published in april of 1916, and you can kind of see them predicting whats about to happen within their party. And so the womans party was an important name because at times the naacp grappled with the idea of going beyond lobbying for the federal amendment to actually become an active political player in the same vein of a democrat or republican. This cartoon is called changing fashions fashions she used to be satisfied with so little, published in march 1915. Published in march 1915. This is an opportunity for allender to comment on how they were targeting congress at this time. And showcasing this is actually talking about so many Different Things here. So not only are they targeting congress and you see the Woman Holding out her skirt saying National Constitutional amendment. And its this very grand, ruffly skirt shes holding out. But shes also wearing a hat that shows new york, pennsylvania, new jersey and massachusetts, all states that were voting on suffrage referendums in 1915. So this is also a way of lobbying for those states to receive municipal suffrage. And then on her skirt she also has West Virginia and iowa, which may have been states that were also voting at that time. But shes holding out this skirt National Constitutional amendment, and the congressman is looking at her in bewilderment saying, she used to be satisfied with so little. So at this time you see allender focusing her attention on that federal amendment, but also talking about how this continued to be state by state by state. And her work reflects that in other ways too. As they approach a ratification of the amendment in 1990 and 1920 allenders work began to increasingly reflect the idea that states were still having to ratify this amendment and that could also be a process that could hold them up. In 1919 the National Womens party created a banner in which they started selling stars. So for every state that ratified the suffrage amendment, they would sew a star on the banner. And by 1920 they had 36 states on this banner. And the day that suffrage was passed, theres this iconic image of alice paul unfurling the banner at headquarters and showing it for all of the members. And we no longer know what happened to that banner, but were hoping that somebody has it in their attic somewhere. But theres also a great allender cartoon that shows them also sewing those stars on the banner. So her work is continuing to reflect the state movements while also showing the federal movement as well. This cartoon is called american justice, and it was published in on june 1, 1918. But the interesting thing about this cartoon is actually that this is another instance of allender taking the imagery of democracy and of patriotism, certainly this is obviously uncle sam standing here, and turning it on its head just a little bit. This is a very powerful image. Youre seeing uncle sam standing in front of this bound, gagged, helpless woman. Flowers, and what hes saying is american women, you are our inspiration, you give us our soldiers you conserve our food you work in on you munition factories, you serve our sick and wounded, accept this bouquet. So hes sort of trying to force this on this woman. So you see her bound with unequal Political Rights unequal work unequal wages and this kindly omit flowers rope. So these are obviously issues that women still continue to grapple with today. And this image is one of many that allender used where she features 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 president wilson was lobbying for democracy abroad while not doing so here in the United States. And were going to look at another cartoon that really shows that issue. Were 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 protest. And they were among the first group ever to do this. Every day these women would stand in front of the White House Holding their banners that would basically speak for them saying, mr. President , how long must women wait for liberty . And talking about democracy in this country. And using president wilsons speeches and his words to show, again, the contradictory nature of the direction of the United States. In april of 1917 we entered world war i. And then their banners became a little bit more problematic. They were seen as unpatriotic. And this particular cartoon, like i said, was published in june of 1917, which is just before women started to be arrested. This particular cartoon shows our allender girl, again. Again, kind of the skirt above the ankle. This was how women dressed when they were standing at the white house. So her work also reflects the reality of how they were on a daily basis. And then you see the banner that shes holding is a quote from a speech written by wilson saying, we shall fight for the things we have always carried nearest our hearts for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments. And then it says ww down here at the bottom. And this was fairly typical. So this is just before their being arrested. And allenders work continues to reflect that a lot over the next in particular the next several months where the arrests became particularly violent. And so you start to see her work show women in prison, and you see other instances again of the donkey and the elephant being used to persecute women. So theyre kind of keeping up that targeting congress and targeting the party in power by using these banners to their advantage. And they picketed the white house. They also picketed congress at times. And they took their banners across the country too. So they were really lobbying against congress in a very national way. So were going to move across to the this cartoon. Which was published in february 1, 1920. So were almost to the finish line. This ones called training the animals. At this point, the amendment had been sent to the states for ratification. And so passage was all but or the hope was that passage was all but achieved. And so you see the democratic donkey and the republican elephant standing there as the woman is holding a treat that says vote on it, so shes literally training these animals to get used to the idea that women are now entering the political arena. And will exercise their right to vote. And so her 1920 cartoons in particular sort of reemphasizing this over and over again. And i believe this is one of the final times that she actually employed the donkey and the elephant. So this is cartoon is called call to the women voters stand by your disenfranchised sisters. And this is obviously we can see an unfinished cartoon. So it has the masked head started up here of suffragist, which would have been the head of their publication. This is another instance of allender using imagery to make an impact. They oftentimes showed women in this sort of in this way, this particular woman is wearing the flowing robes and blowing a horn. And the intent of this piece is actually to garner support from western women voters, to bring them together to vote as a bloc against the Democratic Party. And this is another instance. The finished product actually looked very different once it was published in the suffragist. So youll see that they added some slogans and pieces to the original drawing. So allender did the bones and then the editors of the suffragist added additional context to it. And this is a great instance of showcasing the editing of allenders works. She would work with editors to define the weeks focus for the cover, and then the editors would also feed her information about the articles that would appear in the suffragist so that they would tie together nicely. And in this case theres a great quote within the suffragist, in this particular 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 florencebayardhill library at the Belmont House, the first established by the National Womans Party in 1941. This is the primary place where we house our collection. And even more importantly we house all of our Nina Allender cartoons and all of our political cartoons in this space. So ive pulled out a few cartoons to show some additional facets of allenders work. This particular piece is fantastic. Its one of her earlier pieces. You can see its quite large. It is a its more of a poser than any of her other work. And you can really see the detail that she put into this. This is another one of those early pieces where shes talking about women workers, child labor, exploitation. The title of this work is child saving is womens work votes for women. And it appeared, i believe, in a june issue, june of 1914 issue of the suffragist. But you can really see the factories here in the background and then the crowds, the line of women and children that are wrapped around. But this is also a great opportunity for us to talk a little bit 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 allender uses color in any of her work. And i will show you in just a moment a piece where she uses color, but sometimes she would use watercolor paint. But interestingly with these pieces, she was never picky about the type of paper she used. It was obvious that allender would use whatever she had in her studio at the time. So it could be anything from artists paper or poster to something thicker like a poster board, cardboard, sometimes you see that shes started a work and then didnt like it so shed scratch it out and turn it over and use the same material to start a new piece. So it really varied the type of materials that she would use to draw on. What they would do with these is once allender drew them, and she would either draw them in her own studio at home where there are images of her at National Womans Party headquarters drawing them there. What they would do with these pieces is she would give them to the editors of the suffragist, they would go through an editing process. Allender would make recommendations on captions. Sometimes those captions would be changed. Went back and forth on that. Theyd make markings on the backs. And then these items would be put onto metal print blocks that were then used to print the newspaper. 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 of the suffragist. So im going to close this piece and im actually going to show a few pieces that demonstrate the editing process. I also want to draw your attention to because of the many different materials that she used, you can see that this piece has split in two over time. So it also gives us a chance to talk about how fragile these materials are. Preservation of these items is very difficult. They have sustained water damage, flaking. Every time you handle one of these pieces, something will flake off. There are holes in them. The National Womans Party didnt necessarily mean for these pieces to survive as long as they have. They were work product. And thats how they were treated. So well close this. Slide that over. So we have a few additional works that show the editing process. So im going to kind of show this piece here. And this is quite a powerful drawing. You can see the woman is held by a noose. So the senate has her in a noose hanging by a tree and shes representing the Suffrage Movement here. And then theres this group riding in this person riding in to save democracy. And i believe this is Woodrow Wilson here. And the caption that allender chose for this piece is his last chance, so i think in this case shes talking about this is wilsons last chance to preserve democracy by saving this woman. But if you flip it over, a lot of these have allenders original notes. And in this case shes addressing this to the editor and saying, i am sure you can come up with a better caption than i have. So shes suggesting they need to think about the caption they want to use for this. And rethink what her recommendation is. This is one of the pieces that i mentioned where she uses color. So this is watercolor that she uses on here. And this is a fairly simple cartoon. It was published in 1919. The caption that she wrote is 31 more days, so theyre showing the date. This is right around the time it would have been published. And shes demonstrating they only have 31 more days for a particular deadline to achieve their to perhaps, get suffrage passed or get arguments held in congress or something along those lines. And then you flip it over and theres a pretty lengthy note from Nina Allender, and ill sort of paraphrase it. But she basically says, theres a lot behind this date, and our members wont necessarily know what 31 more days means. So we need to find a way to caption it or put more information in the suffragist about what this deadline actually means so our members will understand. So this is allenders way of saying this is not so simple. I think people are going to need a little help with this one. This is actually another great instance of where you can see the pinholes in it. There are little pin marks where they would just put these up on the walls. And theres a great image of Nina Allender surrounded by her work in her office where its just hung all over the walls surrounding her. It must be at least 25 or 30 pieces that they just tacked up there. But, again, they didnt really see these as long lasting preserved pieces. But this was work product. This was something they had to do every week to get their issue of suffragist out. This was her job. And so she worked very hard to make it happen quickly, efficiently, and get it to the editors so that they could add it to the issue. Im going to talk a little bit about their the cartoons she did once they won the right to vote. And started working toward the equal rights amendment. So this particular piece is called protection. And one of the early issues that the National Womens party was working for and really publicizing a lot is protection of women. So how the equal rights amendment would lend itself to increased protection of women who were trying to raise their children. Independence for mothers who werent necessarily married or widowed mothers, equal pay. And so this is one of those pieces that is demonstrating how the equal rights amendment will lend itself to increased protection for women. Because one of the big opposing arguments against the equal rights amendment was that protective labor legislation would be negatively impacted if the e. R. A. Were to be passed. So this one would have also been published around 1923 or 1924. These women now have the right to vote, and theyre presenting to susan b. Anthony the bill of rights. And she is this image is not captioned here, but it would have been in the equal rights magazine, and susan b. Anthonys going down the list of rights that women still do not have. And saying you all still have a lot of work to do. And the National Womens party firmly believed that. Nina allender once said that political cartooning gave her a sense of power that nothing else did. And i dont think she ever intended to become a political cartoonist. She was an artist. She was a painter. And she always believed that that was her path. But over the course of more than ten years, she ended up drawing more than 200 cartoons for the National Womens party. Images that resonated with women, that created a new image for women, somebody that they could look up to and relate to. And so her perspective became very important to the overall success and strategy of the National Womans Party. This, like so many other so much of the other work that they were doing was really dedicated to getting their message out in the press, positive or negative, no matter what. And showcasing the strategy that they were employing to bring this movement to a close. So in 1920 when women won the right to vote, it made sense that allender turned right around and continued to draw. Her last work appeared in equal rights in 1927 but allender actually continued to work for the National Womans Party. Ultimately becoming chairman of their world womans party and later chairman of their legal counsel. So she really delved into other areas later in her life. And she passed away in 1957 at the age of 88. So her work today continues to resonate with our visitors. And it is certainly a draw for a lot of people who come here. But oddly enough she continues to not be as well known as we would like. So wed like people to come here and see her work and the work of others to experience this hall of portraits in this community of women and the stories that were 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. And that remains true today. So here in the hall of portraits, we invite you to come in and experience our selfie station, where you can become part of this hall and see yourself as a future leader 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 actually open thursdays, fridays and saturdays from 11 00 to 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. American history tv airs telling the american story through events, interviews, and visits to historic locations. This month, American History tv is in primetime to introduce you to programs you could see every weekend on cspan3. Our features include lectures on history, visits to College Classrooms across the country to hear lectures by top history professors. American artifacts looks at treasures at u. S. Historic sites, museums and archives. Reel america revealing the 20th century through archival films and newsreels. The civil war, where you hear about the people who shaped the civil war and reconstruction. And the presidency focuses on u. S. President s and first ladies, to learn about their politics, policies, and legacies. All this month in primetime and every weekend on American History tv on cspan3
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