>> it is going to start up again in the fall. we are going to be on the streets from now on. capitalism with socialism. >> this is the national revolutionary conference for a united front. bringing together students for a so-called democratic society, the black panthers and other revolutionary students. at the oakland california auditorium july 18 through 20, 1969. underlying purpose was to further -- he said youth will decide the entire struggle. the student youth and working-class youth. >> watch the entire film, communists on campus at 10 p.m. eastern. you are watching american

history tv. announcer: next on american history tv, author rebecca roberts talks about the decade leading up to the passage of the 19th amendment and how women gained the right to vote through marching, picketing, and persistence. ms. roberts is the author of suffragists in washington, d.c., the 1913 parade and the fight for the vote. the white house historical association hosted this discussion. stewart: my name is stuart, the president of the white house historical association. it is my privilege to welcome many of you back to the historic decatur house and the white house historical association for another one of our wonderful lectures. tonight is one of the annual national heritage lectures that we do in partnership with the u.s. capitol historical society and the u.s. supreme court

historical society, and we have our wonderful colleagues from both tonight, and we would like to welcome you here today. on june 4, 1919, the 19th amendment was passed and sent to the states for ratification. the silver just used the white house as a backdrop to challenge inequity and bring attention to their cause. tonight, we look forward to hearing more about their successful efforts to secure women's right to vote. speaker,introduce our i have a couple of other introductions and things i would like to share. first of all, we have guests from smith college tonight, the washington club of smith college. stand up, the washington club of smith college crowd. [applause] they are our special guests tonight and we are honored to

have them. i would also like to tell you a little bit about the white house historical association and for those of you who have been with us before, you know i love to talk about our wonderful mission done in 1961 by first lady jacqueline kennedy. remember, she was only 31 years old when her husband was inaugurated president of the united states. at that young age, she had the vision and foresight to know that what she and president kennedy needed then, others would need over the course of time. that would be to have a private partner through a nonpartisan and nonprofit. we accept no government funding. all of the resources we raise goes to our education programs to teach and tell the stories of white house history, going back to 1792. tonight is a part of that education outreach program. we also provide resources directly to the white house to maintain the museum standard of the state floor and the ground floor and the nonpublic historical rooms that misses kennedy envisioned maintaining, and we have done that with every

president and first lady since the kennedys, and we are honored to do so. format, i will introduce our wonderful speaker, and then following her remarks, anne compton, who was a wonderful friend of ours and yours, o come up and have an interview session. do not worry, this podium will be moved so all of you can have an unobstructed view of their conversation. ann, we have been very good friends with it for many years. she has been very supportive of us as an organization, as she is of many things in washington. you know her best as a former reporter and white house correspondent. she was the first woman assigned to cover the white house for network television. she worked for abc news for 41 yous, retiring in 2014, but really have not retired completely because you are very involved, active, and engaged in

things. i know with us, the miller center, and other endeavors prayed her career spanned seven presidents, 10 presidential campaigns. she traveled to all 50 states, six continents, and of the many interesting anecdotes and stories about ann's years and covering the white house and president is the compelling story of her being with president bush, george w. bush, on september 11, 2001, as the only broadcast reported that traveled around the country with him on that day. it will soon be coming up on the 20th anniversary of dedication, and we will do something special to talk about the white house on 9/11. we thanked ann for her friendship and for being with us to take this series of lectures forward. we will have another in september on the role of pat nixon in the white house. this is the 50th anniversary of the nixon's coming into the presidency and misses nixon

becoming first lady, and i think she is really an unheralded first lady in terms of her legacy at the white house, and she contributed in terms of artifacts, really american artifacts in the white house collection, and we will celebrate that with the lecture in september. and then in october, very exciting news, our dear friend, chef roland, has a new book that will be out in october, and for the first time ever, he is finally unlocking his recipe box , and he is going to be sharing the recipes from his service to five american presidents from jimmy carter to george w. bush, and his wonderful confections that he created as executive white house pastry chef for those many years. jennifer pickens, who you may know as an author of a white house christmas, is going have a new book out on ceremonies at the white house, so we will have a conversation with the chef and jennifer pickens at our event in

october. stay tuned for news on both of those occasions. now for our prime event. toare in for a treat tonight talk about this very important and timely happening in our nation's history, and on the centennial of this historic occasion. we have rebecca roberts here tonight as our speaker. rebecca has vein, i understand, many things in her career -- rebecca has been many things in her career. she has been a journalist, producer, tour guide, forensic planner,ogist, event political consultant. she has been a jazz singer, a radio talk show host, and currently, she is curator of programming for planet word, i museum set to open in 2020. the mom to two twin boys, a wife, and a great keeper

of the family in line, and on top of all of that, she is an author. she has written a wonderful book on the subject we are here to learn about tonight and this part of american history and white house history. with that, i will have rebecca come up and then we will remove the podium, and rebecca and ann can have a conversation at the end. at the end, you will be able to pose your questions, as well. [applause] ms. roberts: thank you for having me. thank you, stuart. just to set the record straight, i have three sons, not to brag. the twins have a little brother. the suffragist movement dates from 1978 to the ratification in 1920 per in the interest of brevity and focus, i'm not going to cover all 72 years. i will more or less ignore the just focus onnd

the final push for the amendment. if you have any questions about other parts of the movement, other players in the movements, i would be more than happy to answer them only go to q&a. i would like to start with this image of the program from the 1913 cyprus march down penciling suffrage march down pennsylvania avenue. the great thing about writing 20th century history are the great photographs, but they are black and white. this original program shows you how extraordinarily colorful everything was and all the contemporary accounts talk of that. these colors are deliberate. in fact, most everything the suffrage movement did was elaborate. not only do these colors represent things, but purple is a very rich in saturated color. gold musso, dwight is the absence of color, so these rings

show up really well in black-and-white photographs. that is all on purpose. also, if you want to see the artifacts of the movement in all of their beautiful, colorful glory, the belmont paul house on capitol hill on the senate side has all of the original banners. because we are in the centennial year, there are terrific exhibits going on. there was one of the archives, the library of congress, and one opening soon at the centennial history museum. go out and see all of these artifacts and the glory because we are lucky enough to be in the town where they are curated. so this march, the 1913 march was the first civil rights march. there had been parades down pennsylvania avenue, but this idea of taking a cause to the center of washington was alice holl's idea and it started at the legislative branch of the capital and march down pennsylvania avenue to the white house to the executive branch, and that was absolutely symbolic

and it was the day before inauguration. if that sounds familiar, the women's march on the same weekend of the inauguration of a president they had not voted for in order to remind him he ignored women's voices at his peril from the beginning of his administration, has paralleled and they are very very strong. march, let me make sure this is advancing. i have course do not have my glasses on, so if it is not on, i have no way of knowing that. this is the capital end of pennsylvania avenue. pennsylvania avenue is a really broad street. they were able to plan this grand procession. all of the floats, marching marching inng women procession in matching outfits. this is the herald of the parade, and the idea is she would get on her horse in the beginning and get down on the

capital end of pennsylvania and a bugler would sound that the parade had begun. a few locks later, the bugler call would be picked up i another all the way down to 15th street, the treasury department, which has that big plaza out front. would begin on the treasury steps. we will get to that. is all,can see how this you know, the horses are spaced perfectly with fabulous hats, and this is all poorly planned. burlisonst behind jane and you have probably seen this image, especially at the state of the union this year when women members of congress chose to wear white to honor the suffragist. this one showed up a lot as an example of suffragists and white . i also love this image because it shows you what a great publicist alice paul was. she was a really accomplished professional, but all of the

breathlessly sexist press of the day never fail to talk about how pretty she was. they called her the most beautiful suffragist. alice paul's reaction was, you know what, if you are going to is andout how pretty she not how smart she is, i'm going to put her in white, put her on the white horse, and maybe we'll take a picture and we will get coverage out of it. this image comes back and suffrage laura, but that was her on her horse. byworking women marched profession. these are the nurses. the teachers march together. the riders marched together and they purposely stain their costumes. college women marked by alma mater. i'm certain there are smith women there. we have pictures from other schools. i look smith i cannot find them. and the whole idea was this grand procession would end at 15th street at the treasury department, where the tableau would go on.

fascinatingau was an art form that involved some sort of tortured allegory where people would pose, and this allegory was columbia summoning the virtues. that is columbia in the armor, and they were peace, prosperity, and they involve children in togas, a whole thing. it had very little to do with suffragists, but boy did it look great in pictures. this is still the cover of my book 100 years later and it is strategically planned to be that way. there was a grand stand in front of treasury set up for the inaugural parade set for the next day, and alice paul got permission for vips to sit there. so there was a live audience, but that was not the main audience. there are the children in togas. it was march 3. it is a little chilly and march

in washington. these children were barefoot on the marble steps of the treasury, but the parade begins, the bugle sounds, the tableau gets the signal to start. they perform their beautiful tableau, and then they stand there and dignified silence, and the plan would be the parade would continue in front of them, and then they would all end up at the hall, where the tableau would perform again in triumph to a rousing applause from the audience, and it would be a great day. so the tableau goes ahead and there is no parade. the tableau finishes and they are maintaining their poses but no parade. they have no way of knowing where the parade is and why it is held up. it is getting a little cold up there on the treasury steps in their togas. they wait as long as they can, and finally, they go inside the treasury department. where is the parade? why hasn't come down pennsylvania avenue? that is why. super orientation, this picture

was taken at about 12 street where freedom plaza is now, that power that dominates us now. you are looking back toward the capital. a six lane road with really broad sidewalks, and it was absolutely shoulder to shoulder. i don't know how much detail you can see, and these people were not there for the suffrage parade but for the inauguration next day. the suffrage parade was a --eshow and they were barely they were very poorly behaved. they spit on the women, the police did nothing to stop them and in some cases, police joined in on the name calling and spitting. and you cannot get a parade through that crowd. alice paul realized her perfectly planned parade was about to go south. so she got the car. she was on academic road. she drove a car up and down the parade route, trying to zigzag through the crowd to back them

up and it did not work. the crowd just poured right back in behind her as soon as the car went by. finally, they literally called and cavalry mounted officer standing by ft. myers, and they came in and rode their horses into the crowd, enough so the parade could fight their way down. so instead of the tableau performing at the holland triumph, all the women show up at the hall filthy, furious, horrified that this massive crowd of these jerky men have completely ruined what should have been this ticket loosely planned triumph of day. alice paul realized from the beginning it was the best thing that could ever have happened, that a lovely parade would be in the news for a day and a near riot would keep the suffrage movement in the news for weeks for that is what happened with the congressional hearing, police chief almost lost his

job, a whole thing. again, to notice how good these women were at manipulating not entirelyi'm sure what i should point this set to make a change. over here? ok. this is "the washington post" the next day. i love language. it is so spectacular. so this headline should be wilson inaugurated the nation's 20th president. right? he gets half. and the other columns as women's beauty, grace, and art we will do the capital. femininity presents entrancing suffrage appeal, and there is a photo of the tableau. so this was not particularly well planted story from the national women's party. this is how the men covered the parade without any guidance from the women. so we are all talking about how

pretty it was, and by the way, there was some bad behavior. this is a better example of "the chicago daily tribune." again, woodrow wilson not the headline. this column here, bob the capital, defied police, blocked the suffrage parade. and then, this paragraph down here is the lead and has 17 superlatives. the biggest crowd, the widest streets, the angriest mobs, the ist dutiful girls, and it terrific press, but also, look at the editorial cartoon. there is like little woodrow wilson thinking he gets the spotlight on the day of his inauguration, but ta-da! there are the suffragists. they are literally stealing the spotlight from him. so the 1913 march was sort of the turning point for the final push to get the amendment

through congress, and in addition to being a great callista deploy, it was a reintroduction of the federal amendment as a strategy. i will race through a little political history here. again, feel free to ask questions later because i'm going really fast. the original suffragists, and you know their names, katie sims, susan b anthony, they were abolitionists. backed suffrage because they wanted abolition and they figure they cannot get that done without the votes. war, the civil reconstruction amendments were passed, and they enfranchised women. that caused a major risk in the suffrage party. there were people who said, we are abolitionists, we will take this. it is important black men get the vote and we will fight for

women that. and there were people like elizabeth cady and susan b anthony who said, we stop telling us to wait our turn. if we don't get this now, it will be another generation, and we cannot support the 15th amendment if it does not include women. it was a huge split. so they formed competing organizations, they tore each other down in the press, and they also continued on two separate avenues for getting suffrage passed. with the anthony faction pushing the second amendment and the stone block will faction pushing it state-by-state strategy. in part because of the reconstruction amendments had been hailed as federal overreach by the federal -- confederacy. goo, it is not crazy to state-by-state. eventually, if enough states have suffrage, you will have enough men and women representing that it becomes inevitable. so it had really languished

since just after the civil war. this 1913 march just behind inez on her white horse, there was a big banner that said we demand a constitutional amendment in franchising women of this country. that is called the great demand banner and you can see that belmont hall. this march, in addition to being was an callista deploy announcement that the federal amendment was back, and this was really going to be a major strategy going forward. it was really alice paul who was pushing the switch to the amendment and also these much more public tactics. and she had -- she was very young. she was only in her early 20's at the time of the 1913 parade. she had gone to grad school in england and had become a follower of the british suffrage movement. it also had a slow and steady color within the line suffrage avement, and then they had rush.

the mother and daughter rhetorically radical and totally militant. eventually, alice paul's faction had nothing on the british movement. they started throwing bricks through windows, the escalated tests at the prime minister's house on fire. i understand they burn down the botanical gardens. they purposely got arrested. they were not playing around. i love this. so this is the british paper. the headline says "trouble expected in london tonight, suffrage is determined to force their way into parliament." they say they will certainly break into the house. everyone expected it. the other is an ad saying if suffrage at your windows, call me to put them back in. [laughter] it was in the edinburg paper.

boy who can put them in three suffragists, suffragettes, the word is suffragists. the british press made fun of the british suffrage movement by calling them suffrage at, and to be derisive and like nasty women in deplorable generations later, the british women co-opted the title and kind of leaned in. properly, everyone is suffragists. suffragette refers to the militant british movement. there is your lesson today. so, with these lessons from the british movement and alice paul is arrested, she went to jail, and she participated in these guerrilla tactics parade when she moved back to the u.s. in 1910, she wanted to use some of those tech tack -- tactics to breed new movement into the american movement.

the split had really lost everybody time and energy, so they worked with the national women's association -- suffragists association, and the two actions after the war came back together and formed this overriding major group. they let alice paul set up a washington office, just like lots of nonprofits, ngos, they all had washington offices and it was right here. that is cameron house. it is across the square from where we are now with a light yellow facade, one preserved by jackie kennedy, and now the court structure rises up the hind it. originally, it was the congressional office, the lobbying arm of the american suffragists association, and that were there had -- that was

their headquarters. alice paul went rogue and started publishing a competing newsletter, and she went out and sought some of her own money, and finally, the national women's suffrage will make it throughout -- suffrage movement kicked her out. they said, if you are going to do this aggressive stance, you cannot do it under the umbrella of the national. so they split. they stayed at cameron house and eventually call themselves the national women's party. throughout 1914, 1915, to continue to push their federal amendments and have pretty, public events, parades, a big boost at the world's fair in san francisco in 1915. they had a cross-country road trip. it was still shocking to see women drive, where they gathered petition signals, signatures across the country. they had some success, but not a

whole lot of success with getting success from the amendment. meanwhile, they were pushing the state-by-state strategy and their having little success by the 1916 election. hade were 10 states who earned the right to vote, almost all of the big states that west rate wyoming was first, on tanner, idaho. and they had 11 people living in them, so they were franchising everybody to sort of maximize their political power. , every state that had suffrage on the ballot voted it down. was a realson, who enemy of the suffragists, he was against it for so many reasons. he kept coming up with new ones parade he had lots of reasons to be against suffragists, and he was elected in a landslide. so 1915 felt like it just, you know, it was not at all successful for the movement.

they felt like there tactics were not working. and then at the end of 1916, inez milholland, of the white dress on the white horse, literally collapsed onstage preach she was one of their best speakers, and she had pernicious anemia, and no one realized how sick she was pretty was giving a speech in california and she painted on stage and she died in the hospital a couple weeks later. and her sister, who was in the audience, said her final words were mr. president, how long must women wait for liberty? maybe they were [laughter] [laughter] . it is a great line. but she is, as you might imagine, immediately became a martyr to the cause per she literally died in the cause. and that image of her on the white horse -- this almost looks like a holy card, right? she became almost into sainthood. that was the very -- you can see the original of this painting at belmont hall, two. that was the very end of 1916, so as 1917 donned, the national

women's party things that they we are doing is working. we have not gained a single thing. have not flipped a single voter. we still have this president who is not interested in helping us sway anybody in congress, and we need to do something new. camee beginning of 1917, up with idea of picketing the white house. i promise you, if you go to the white house right now, there will be picketers there. there always are. feel free to remind them it was alice paul's idea. this was the first time anybody had ever done this, and again, check out the visuals. these women in their dark clothing against the white house, that banner that says -- mr. president, how long must victory?t for the pictures are great. they were a

curiosity. people were interested in the white house pickets and they thought that was interesting. this is january, february 1917. people would sort of come by and sometimes women would come to washington to participate, and iere were days and again, looked for smith college pictures, there is new york day. it looks like new york had a terrible and rainy day, and they stayed out there throughout january and february of 1917 every single day. and there are stories of them bringing warm bricks for the women to stand on. one woman had a fur coat and they passed it around. everyone got to wear it for 20 minutes. it was a curiosity at first. even though this was completely new. and then we hear someone say, the women chained themselves to the white house. no one chained themselves. everything they did was legal. standing in front of the white house with a sign is not against any wrong. and they did not want to really want to keep it up. first of all, it was hard to

recruit people to do it, but also, all tactics get sterile after a while. the intention was that it was wilson's second inaugural that had one big ticket and then they would go meet. at his first3 inaugural, archana 1917, this is one of those -- march 1917, this was one of those gross early days in washington where the rain is coming in sideways on the wind is better. they were out there. there was a great news account of them holding wooden poles stains dripping down the women's wrists and in freezing rain, so they march around the white house, and they tried to go into the white house to meet with president wilson, and they are barred. security says, no, you can't come in here, so they go around through the gate, and they try but it is barred, so what do you do then?

they keep marching around and around the white house. they circled the property four times or five times. they go back to cameron house on lafayette square and say, well, we are going to keep the pickets up. if you will not even meet with us, we are not stopping. we will keep going with pickets. so they keep it up throughout the spring of 1917. by the end of april, u.s. is now involved in world war i. now what do you do? do you keep criticizing the president in this very public way while we are at war? you know public opinion is going to turn against it will continue to be the biggest stumbling block.

it says president wilson are deceiving russia. they say we are a democracy, help us win a world war so that democracy may survive. we the women of america tell you that america is not a democracy. 20 million american women are denied the right to vote. help us make this nation really free, that it must deliberate its people. this message is for photographs and newspaper coverage. today this would be a tweet. public opinion does turn against the women. police never did anything to stop this kind of stuff, by the way. what did the women do?

call presidentnd wilson kaiser wilson. "have you forgot your sympathy with the germans? take the beam out of your own i." -- eye." finally the president has had enough. they are not breaking any laws. the police start arresting them for a completely made up charge for obstructing the traffic on the sidewalk. call the women to jail and say a five dollar fine for jail. -- five dollar fine or jail. that whole crew gets arrested.

four nights in jail. this escalates throughout the summer and fall of 1917. which is not making any laws. kept calling the bluff of the sentencing judge and they took the tactics of demanding political prisoner status. force-fed.m were it involves forcing a tube down your throat. they are not breaking any laws. a voice inmanding democracy. the major woman suffrage the national-

women's party was being this tacky. it worked for both of them. if it had just been the national women's party, this would have just been a sideshow. in the fall of 1917, i'm sure most of you heard this story, the warden down there decided he had had enough. he ordered the golf cart to pick the women up. women were sent into this communal area where they stayed together. the warden orders them to pick the women up and directs them to these punishment cells, which

were on the -- unlit and unheated. were physically picked up. several of them smacked their heads against cinderblocks. wascellmate thought she dead, had a heart attack. seeing if they will answer, ca he's ok. her armsn her with above her head in this dark freezing cell all night long. becomes known as the night of terror. word gets out and public opinion starts to turn back. the other thing that happened and fall of 1917 is new york --

finally, -- as 1918 dawned, there was some momentum around the federal amendment. the president still not on board. here, this isight from theette statue far side of lafayette square. the national women's party would hold protests. they bought cayman house and expanded into it. they would stand at the lafayette statue and every time the president gave a speech about democracy, which was like every 10 or 15 minutes, then did that in front

of the white house as well. that banner says president wilson is deceiving the world. opposent wilson has those who demand democracy. he is responsible for the disenfranchisement of millions of americans. these were called the watch fires. women continue to be arrested for lighting a fire after dark. by fall of 1918, there are capital of votes that don't make it there. 1918, new congress is elected and enough pro suffragists are elected and that wave.

1919 looks like it never happened. the amendment passes both the house and the senate. it now goes to the states for ratification. state ratified should show -- should sew a star on. pass it righttes away. states voted down -- vote it down. interested in franchising a single voter. they were systematically dismantling male black voting rights. they wanted no part of new black voters. stalls. kind of 35 states have ratified. you only need one more. five had voted it down.

left, five won't bring it to a vote. reasonsre all specific of governors not wanting to call sessions. there is a crazy battle in delaware, which everyone thought would be the 36th state, and it loses in delaware. the last two states are north carolina and tennessee. it's all down to tennessee. it's august in nashville. it's really hot. everyone shows up in nashville. all of the anti-separatists. they are all staying at the same hotel.

the pro suffragists wear a yellow rose. there was a legislator who wore both to confuse you. are getting all the legislators too drunk to vote. is dirty politicking remember say you need to get back to memphis. this goes on for a week. no one knows how this is going to go. it's all down to the state assembly. vote that could be seen as a proxy. we are down to the last house. the actual day arrives. some people have their red and yellow roses. they all have been in the same

hotel together for a week. one guy changes his vote, harry burns. no one had harry burn in the yes column. his mentor in the legislature was an absolute guide in the well. it takes a while to realize that people -- for people that early in the role people change their vote. did harry burn change his vote? who is harry burn? corpstire national press shows up. you just single-handedly --

what changed your mind? his mom told him to. he had in his pocket a letter from his mother that says, vote for suffrage and don't keep them in doubt. all these reporters, it's because my mom wrote me this letter. advices amother's good thing for their son to follow. how close it came. finally they were able to embroider the 36th star on the of the headquarters out here. close to american women came to not getting them -- getting the 19th amendment passed. with that background, we are going to talk a bit and take

some questions. thank you very much. [applause] >> do any of those political tactics sound familiar? int was it about the women that particular time who were able to pull together the strategy and the effectiveness? these were smart, educated and incredibly inventive women who wouldn't take no for an answer. >> i am continually impressed the more i learn. we have a tendency to think

history is linear and progressive and every generation does a little better than the generation before. these women were doing it 100 years ago. they could do everything up to actually making it happen. it's amazing to me now, especially because some of -- so much of this history is in a condescending way. they affected the largest historical change. was a bloodless revolution. they did it on their own and they did it with no power. it took a long time, and there were a lot of defeats along the way.

it is a radical feet. what made them able to do that final push, some of it was a new generation. i think there were more educated women. i think there were more opportunities for women to have a public life. objections would be that it tears down the house. as more women were in the public sphere already, it was shocking. leadership that emerged, the original ladies were really impressive and radical. this final group -- and i don't

want to take anything away, they were brilliant strategists. were there to lead it through the end -- >> there is an interesting story ,hen the amendment went through -- nor was alice paul. were they good friends? >> no. it was said they detested each other. we just won't invite either one of them to come here. they were all able to pull in that same direction -- what i remember in history classes when you get past the victorian era and the industrial revolution, we are into a time,

and ais a progressivism movement, communications are getting better. it's the political tactics that now really show even through the 20th century and into the 21st, these kind of skills -- my favorite slide is the newspaper. when you look at the front page of the washington paper, and president elect wilson has to share the front page with db , they had tors

push against so much. could they be so media savvy? is it because they were on the outside pushing through? >> they have no allies. there were a few here and there. the washington post was fairly sympathetic. their coverage is really brutal. one of the things the women did that was so smart -- the day of the 1913 parade, all of these women came over from across the country to participate.

the springfield illinois paper would say misses george thurman was manhandled at this crowd and it became a local story. it was the ability to turn the story in their favor when they all went south. and again unsympathetic reporters in unsympathetic ways. especially when world war i donned, that's what the pickets were all about. the board comes along and you have a president who had a showing of birth of the nation in the white house. the early movie that glorified the clan. you not only had the women radicals, but you have a political establishment that didn't feel they needed to give

anything. >> he does emerge as the villain of the story. a historict to judge figure from contemporary norms. it wouldn't have been out of suppression. he was so craven about it. -- he said, i hadn't thought about suffrage. he tried, i'm the leader of the democratic party and there is not a plank -- he had written the platform. as a statestried rights issue. it's really just, i don't want to tell the south they have to franchise black women. finally, the only excuse i give a little bit of sympathy for, i

really need to pay attention to up withr i -- he came so many. it was just basic sexism by the end of the day. to behe also managed anti-semitic and racist and sexist, i don't have a lot of nice things to say. when you think about how this era is taught in schools. the big wars, the big depression , the big things that shook and do theamerica, suffragist get the credit they deserve? >> not even a little bit. i'm hoping the white house spotlight of the centennial will change it right this minute. if you asked an average american

to name a suffragist, they would come up with susan b anthony. she was terrific, but she was dead by the time it passed. i don't think people learn this history anywhere near well enough. that we should learn women's history and have more role models, you are learning it wrong if you don't learn this history. it is inaccurate america history if you don't understand the biggest political movement of the 20th century. bring you forward, because here we sit in a year where we just had a presidential election where, for the first time ever, one of the major ,arty candidates was a woman who in fact won the popular vote. we live in a time where half a dozen women are declared candidates for the presidency. do women vote? oh yes.

women vote, better than 50%. lost its number one place, california is the biggest. texas is second. new york has lost out to florida. in the number of women who vote in all of those places makes a difference. what should we draw from what we see now? yet still, isn't it kind of a woman-- my god, the first -- we still have a hard time pulling away from that secondary role. >> i think it is changing unbelievably quickly. in just one election cycle we have gone from the first woman nominee of a major party to the fact that there are so many women running for the democratic

nomination that it's not even a remarkable thing about it. of the cabinet positions and the government is going to change pretty fast. i think fortune 500 ceos and board members are changing more slowly. every day women outnumber men in medical school. women are poised to take their power.ith 50% of the there does need to be more men giving it up. that's all the legacy of this movement. national, the big organization became the league of voters. they immediately recognize their next role was to make women educated parts of the democracy.

there were all kinds of logistics about how do you register and where do you go and all of those things that take a little while to become ingrained in the voting populace. as you say, women voters now --number i think that's going to be more the norm than the exception going forward. >> one more question, just what a remarkable location we are sitting in right now. they call there, presidents park. but the idea that statutes out there-- statues out representing the heroes, the ,omes like the decatur house cameron washouse --

a senator. cameron from pennsylvania who had a gorgeous wife who had an affair with her neighbor henry adams. park -- and ithis can say this, because i was married at st. john's church. my children were baptized there. covering the white house over seven presidents, i was the youngest kid on the house. st. john's is the only church i knew when town. what is it about the real estate of the white house that the suffragists realized was kind of they pot of gold? >> none of it was an accident.

if you want to have access to federal power, it's pretty good. statute, they directly drew the connection with the marquita lafayette. that was not just the most convenient statute to the white house. also at the base of the statute there is a naked female allegorical character. they stood in front of female america. we have all seen these pictures of suffragists in the white house. it was president wilson's backyard.

of course a century plus of protests have been out on that sidewalk. >> the nuclear people basically live there. [laughter] would love to take your questions. let's give a microphone. as you want to cat -- want to we will get as many questions as we can. for ank you so much remarkable evening, it is a religion to be in this space.

who could you point as your role model and what did you learn from yourand what do we need ton from a role model to move -- to move forward and get a female president in the white house and more females and senate -- in the senate and have the tide turn. we have to do something together. >> did you all hear the question? , im the suffrage movement pick and choose the best of each of these women. one was incredibly bold and issues,ut on some race and when the sorority from theyd wanted to march,

were told they had to march in the back and they did not. you want your heroes to be perfect and they are not. boldness, sheer is someone i would admire more than like. i don't know if i would want to have dinner with her. carrie cabin cat was very funny. and organized. she had these grassroots organization in every state and continued to motivate women, to build on them. and so you could take the best of them. personally i have a role model in my grandmother, who was a member of congress when she was , one of her political mottos was you can get anything you want to get done,

--e, as long as you took the never took the credit for it. which is pretty radical. was born before women got the right to vote, in 1916. and went on to become a same -- a senior member of the house of representatives. the fact that she lived this history, and was able to exploit -- and watchn good her daughters and granddaughters , it was very matriarchal. >> we have a question here. >> thank you for the wonderful lecture. what was the reaction in old washington, the town, the hotel, to this massive group of dare i say it,

nasty women, coming to town for something untoward. >> the parade? >> the march, what was the reaction in town? >> it was interesting, leading up to the march. richard sylvester was really nervous about this parade. and the end of pennsylvania avenue, where the national theater is now, that was run royal, where all the bars were. he knew that women marching in the street, already pretty shocking, plus drunk men for the inauguration equals bad news. and he kept saying things like why don't you march down 16th, you could end up at the white house. no,he's -- and they said the whole point was to go down

corridors of power. washington did not know what to make of it. they had not been the headquarters of suffrage, the group always convened in new york. on the day of the parade, you saw the reaction, the crowd was terrible. as more and more of these publicity stunts started happening in town, those of us who are locals were kind of baffled. plenty were supportive, plenty were appalled. i think they represented the national opinion in microcosm. but the women were not run out of town on a rail. and washington was always a town where women could make their mark. going back to the early days and the turn of the 19th century, there were women who were able haveart businesses, and more power than other places

because there was not this legacy history. certainly wars, because people fled to the during war, the rules for women while men were off fighting -- i think women has always historically been an interesting place for women's history. >> a question here. >> thank you. my question is, can you address the role of edith wilson? >> she such a fascinating character. president wilson's first wife, ellen, died during his first term. , amarried edith wilson socialite. she was anti-suffrage. occasionally a theory will be floated that maybe he came around because of her influence, there's no evidence for that. any public statement she made was anti-suffrage. his daughters were more sympathetic, but edith was not.

by the end of his second term, pretty steady -- and edith wilson was running more of his administration then we will ever know. and i don't think there's a cash paper that will -- a cachet of paper that will show us how powerful she was. but she was the power behind the throne for the last year of his administration, definitely. there's no reason to think that she is the one who finally said, actually, women should vote. around to the lukewarm degree he came around at all, for political expediency, realizing it would happen and he thought the democratic party should get the credit. you both so much. i was wondering, once the amendment passed, how did women

outside of washington react? were they eager to register? i'm curious about how that process happened. >> the reason there was a big push in the summer of 1920 and all of that focus on tennessee have theat women would vote in time for the 1920 presidential election. fast,he amendment was there were celebrations in the streets, jubilation all around. in it actually played out voting behavior was a disappointment. ite states purposefully made hard for women to register in time for the election. but even the states were women could, they had not done that before and did not necessarily they felt like it was not their place. so there's no good data on voting by gender in those years.

anecdotally, women did not turn out in the enormous numbers. did notortant, they vote substantially differently from the men in their socioeconomic class. there is a bunch of handwringing pearl clutching editorials after 1920 about women are just loading the way their husbands the others vote, or interpretation could be that their race and socioeconomic class and geographic location dictated their priorities more than their gender. votingid not start substantially differently from men until the 80's. >> now the gender gap is something measurable, and politically significant. >> but that's an artifact from the last 35 to 40 years. >> a question here. >> you layout alice paulson's strategy for the white house and

congress. strategy was a state or congressional strategy. the decision to target the white political andly a publicity strategy. if you could talk about that, they wanted wilson but that's not where the real power where the decision came from. >> that's true. the targeting of wilson only had so much actual political effect but it had tons of publicity. at the same time, and i don't want to imply that the national was doing all the hard work and the national women's hard -- women's party was doing a publicity stunt. they had an unbelievable lobbying effort. kept two dozen cards on every member of congress and listed how he had ever voted on any suffrage issue, was his wife , and quotations on any suffrage issue, but also

tips about lobbying him. he's a golfer, get someone to play golf with him. or he's a drunk, talk to him before 5:00. his wife is smarter than he is, talk to her. it's amazing. so while all of these attention grabbing things were going on, they were also quietly bending the ear of members who actually had power. interesting point, because that's a little more invisible. you make a political statement, and you catch the nation's attention, but you have to work -- >> behind the scenes you're still doing the long, hard work. were prosuffragists abolition or pro-temperate, would you talk a little bit about her what happened -- about

what happened there? >> the temperance movement was definitely a way that women came to suffrage. like abolition, there were women who wanted temperance and realized they would not get it without the vote. they became suffragists as a sidebar. at first, the suffrage association with the temperance movement was very useful, they learn how to be field organizers and raise money, because the temperance movement was much better organized. when you associate yourself with another movement, you inherit their enemies. as the 18th amendment became more likely an prohibition looks like it would happen, the suffrage movement pulled themselves away from temperance, in part because they did not want to make enemies of wet voters. but also because it's really hard to amend the constitution, as it should be.

you don't really want to support another amendment getting there before you. there was a lot of back-and-forth and overlap. pushing temperance union under frances willard supported suffrage, and a lot of women became politically average -- active through the temperance movement. , they the final countdown suffrage movement was trying to backpedal that association. do i have time for one more question? race, i wasoned interested to see if you had done any exploration of women of color in this movement, and if you could comment on some of the divisions between white women suffragists and women of color. >> this is an area of scholarship where i think you will see a ton more coming out in the centennial year.

there's a lot more focus on paying attention to african-american suffragists. or should be, because they have had large contributions, specifically within the national 1913's party, after that , there were ongoing debates about how to welcome african-american suffragists, or not. and there were some ugly chapters in there. there were overt appeals of going to southern states and women, we franchise will overwhelm the black vote, this is your best way to ensure white supremacy. that was not subtle, they said those words. women suffrage is the way to ensure white supremacy. there were women like mary had sixerrel, who

masters degrees and spoke 10 languages and was unbelievably .mpressive and the white organization felt she was non-threatening and she sheinvited to things and would get there and say you need to pay attention to race. and then there were women like ida b wells, who is not generally welcome at those meetings, but started african-american suffrage associations. part, there were black suffrage groups and suffrage clubs that were not welcoming to black voters. and people like mary church terrel and ida b wells would we share all of your discrimination as women, plus we are black and you really have to pay better attention. but you want your heroes to be

perfect. it is not part of the movement to be proud of. and i think we're going to learn a lot more about it. >> let me bring this to a conclusion by asking one more question, from the purple sashes to the pink pussy hats. what should american who want to bring the playing field even more level now, for women, what should they draw? what important lesson can they draw from 100 years ago that will make a substantive difference now? >> i hatchery think any political activist could learn from the suffrage movement because they were successful. whether your causes feminism, or something else, there are a lot of tactics you can steal from them if you want to be a successful activist. but in terms of the contemporary idea ofmovement, this

the radical, of the mainstream balancing each out -- each other out and making each other look good in contrast, embracing that each has a role to play, the idea of paying attention to how an instagram- in world, we think about modern artifacts but paying attention to how things look it -- look goes a long way. and the declarative sentence, we adn't manned -- we demand constitutional amendment, that's easy to get behind, it's a clear goal, with a clear endpoint, it's easy to explain and understand. i think the contemporary women's movement demands a lot of things, but sometimes the message can get muddied with the different voices. >> so it comes down to branding and messaging.

please think our speaker. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> thank you very much, and for all of you joining us here tonight and our viewers on c-span who have been watching us. if you want to know more about this subject or other matters relating to white house history, our website is an excellent resource. as we close, i would like to ask everyone to please exit through the courtyard. will are three doors, we exit directly through decatur house and onto lafayette park. have a good evening. [indistinct conversations]

>> tonight, on american history tv, at 10:00 eastern on railamerica, 19 70 film, communist on campus. >> yes, they are communist, their mission proudly proclaiming the violent overthrow of the democratic system. but our nation seems unconcerned. >> sunday morning at 10:00 eastern on oral history, woodstock cocreator aarti kornfeld details how the festival came together. outside, let's take it how many people do you think would come? 50,000, my wife said there would be more than 300,000, just like that. terraceoked off that and i saw that film. people said you were spaced out and of course i was, i was

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