women yielding political power. i m with c-span, american history on tv on c-span 3 every weekend is happy to coordinate with the organization of american historians to moderate this panel discussion. and of course it could not come at a better moment in history with the 19th amendment granting women the right to vote passed by the house u.s. and u.s. senate in 1919 and then ratified in 1920. here we are a hundred years later, the 116th congress has the highest percentage of women ever making up a roughly quarter of each chamber. and we have a female speakr for the second time, and we have four women so far running for president. today s panel will look at women, the role of women and the key turning points of women in american politics. i want to introduce each of our panelists and come back through and have each of them talk about their books or the period of time they re writing about for about five minutes and then we ll open up the conversation to all of you. so let me i
come at a better moment in history with the 19th amendment granting the women the right to vote passed by the u.s. house and senate in 1919 and then ratified in 1920. here we are a hundred years later, the 116th congress has the highest percentage of women ever making up roughly a quarter of each chamber, and we have a female speaker for the second time and four women so far running for president. today s panel will look at women, the role of women and the key turning points for women in american politics. i want to introduce each of our panelists and come through and have each of them talk about their books or the period of time they re writing about for about five minutes, and then we ll open up the conversation to all of you. so when we get to that point for questions, i d like each of you to go to the microphone, line up behind the microphone to ask your questions. so let me introduce you to david perry. journalist and historian working at the university of minnesota. he
we do online global exhibitions. we really felt that in celebration of our 35th anniversary year, it was time for a little reinvention. the jewish film institute is now the umbrella name for media arts organization that brings the jewish film festival to san francisco. 35 years. what are some of the sub themes? i know every year you have a freedom of expression award for director. fill us in on what this year s festival looks like. this is actually a really wonderful year for our 35th anniversary. we have some new things. one of our new things is we have added a new local spotlight, and unbelievably the star of the local spotlight is one of the cofounders of the jewish film festival. janice plot kin is coming with her film she produced called plastic man, arts and life of jerry wash barish, one of the first donors to the film festival. he also makes wonderful art out of plastic. that s something new happening this year. beautiful. every year you are armed the bay area
house wing where we use artifacts and photographs to trace the history of women in congress. this is the first of a two-part program. the story of women in congress begins with jeannette rankin, who is elected to the house in 1916 from montana. she s elected to the house four years before women had the right to vote nationally. and in a way she s really a bridge from the sufferage movement. she was active in a women s sufferage organization. she got the right to vote in a couple of states west of the mississippi. and she runs in 1916. she s elected to one of some the empty s two at large districts. and part of her platform is she s a passivist. she s sworn into the house on april 2nd, 1917. and the house has come into special session, extraordinary session because the prison that night, woodrow wilson, delivers a message to congress asking for a declaration of war against germany. it s the u.s. entry into world war i. and rankin, when that vote is held, is one of a group of
she went after the leadership very publicly. well, very shortly, they came around and put her on to the committee assignments that she wanted. one of the artifacts that we have that i m particularly fond of is this one. it s a letter from j. ed guard hoover to congresswoman khan and the important part of this isn t actually what he s writing. what s important is dear mother khan. and it s an odd phrasing for j. ed card hoover. but she was known very much as the mother of the fbi. so that was often how he referred to her. so this is a fascinating piece of lobbying and playing up that affiliation and that close tie that they had. by the time we get to the late 1930s, early 1940s, we re beginning to see a different group from that pioneer group of women coming to congress. world war ii reshapes the rolled of women in society generally, women hold a lot of jobs that men previously held as men go off to fight in the service. and women who come into congress during that era beg