announcer: washington journal continues. host: rebecca roberts is at our table this morning, the author of "untold power: the

fascinating rise in complex legacy of edith wilson." she's also the event deputy director for the library of congress here to talk about women's history. but let's begin with the significance of making martial women's history month. guest: keep trying to convince people they connection talk about women's history all 12 months of the year but it is nice to shine a light every march i think that it gives these organizations like yours, museums, anything that is public-facing a chance to highlight different stories and excuse to promote the narratives that maybe might not be in the mainstream. what i find so fascinating about it women-centric view of history is not that it is just saying women were there too, it is actually that women make history differently. we effect social change differently. so when you look at these great moments in american history, you can't pretend that there were

women at the signing of the declaration of independence or something like that. you can't force some there are two that isn't true, but you can say hey, maybe the declaration is not the full story. maybe that is not actually the only way we can tell the story of how america came to be, and that if we broaden the story and talk about affecting social change in a way that is not just about these kind of hall of fame moments, then suddenly you are telling the whole american story. host: and how do you do that? guest: at the library, we have such an incredibly vast collection and we have so many fingers in so many different pies that we need to narrow down our story. everyone who works in a place like the library of congress and everyone who has worked in all of the constitutional positions is so enthusiastic that we are like golden retriever's.

come see this, this, that. this one is also cool. at the library of congress we are very aware that we are americans library, that we are this institution that was founded to showcase the innovation and knowledge of our nation, and we are patriotic about that. we also do have collections that are global, so it gives us the chance to tie-in all of these stories and even go broader about story that might affect each other and interesting connections. post: talking about women's history month, you've course have to talk about women's suffrage. the 19th amendment was ratified while woodrow wilson was president. how did edith wilson feel about the movement? guest: this kills me. she was anti-suffrage and the is and is because she was this

fierce, independent, business- toning, car driving -- she was the first woman in washington to get a drivers license. time after time she proved herself to be this very innovative, aggressive independent. she wouldn't have used the word feminist, but i will. not interested in exercising her full rights as a citizen and not interested in other women exercising their full rights as a citizen i actually got interested in her because of suffrage. i was talking a lot about it especially around the centennial of the 19th amendment, and people kept asking the did woodrow wilson come who dragged his feet on suffrage, he finally changes mind because she told him to? and i wish that were the case, that would make a pretty good story he changed his mind for reasons like politicians do all the times. he was worried all the new voters would become republicans if the democrats didn't suddenly do something about suffrage.

and i don't know why she was anti. i wish that she made more definitive statement about it. i think some of it was especially with the last part of the movement, the more radical branch of the movement, they were taking the white house, they were directly criticizing belton, she really hated that come the nastiness about her husband. but i think that there was just kind of a lot of women who were anti-suffrage, and what they said was we race the families and we run the household and that is vitally important, and if we insist on mucking around in the public sphere, the men's sphere, we not only feed our moral high ground by getting our hands dirty, but we somehow imply that our world is less important and not more. and we start to see echoes of that generations later against the e.r.a.

and so i think she was raised in reconstruction era virginia and she was getting this cult of true women suffrage and i think there is something a little not nice about being out there. host: you've written two books about the suffrage movement. what are some takeaways from your research and from your books that people need to know and understand about that movement? guest: i think the essential thing, and i think this is true of all history, because what makes it turn the corner from being interesting to being relevant is what can you personally take away from it? the suffrage movement in particular is a really great blueprint for becoming an activist. they were really, really good at what they did. now, it took a long time, but that is instructive to understand that there are smaller congressmen along the way to the big bowl. and if you look at women in washington, the shadow of the capital right now, how many

times have you sat and been sort of annoyed that there is a march on pennsylvania avenue and it is just kind of a traffic headache. no one has marched on washington before the suffrage is did it. if you go to the white house, i promise you there are picketers there. those are the people who i think lived in lafayette square with picket signs. nobody picketing at the white house you start seeing these tactics that they invented when they sit in front of the white house with emblems in -- embroidered on banners, those were tweets. that with a 1970 way of making things go viral. make sure someone gets a picture to put in the paper. so it is incredibly interesting to me to see what they were able to do 100 years ago and i think no matter the cause, if you want to be an activist, and i hope all young people do, look to the suffrage movement lessons, no question. post: some move us into the

e.r.a., and how did it move to that and where does that stand today? guest: there's a direct line. in the suffrage movement, by the end of it, by the ratification, it was sort major organizations. the larger, mainstream group, they became the league of women voters. they decided one for 19th amendment was ratified that their role was to educate this generation and future generations of women voters to make sure that they were participating. the national women's party, the more radical wing decided to stay a political party in order to write the first version of the e.r.a. and so the e.r.a. absolutely was considered unfinished business i the activists. -- by the activists. they were a little naive at the time. they didn't quite understand some of the class distinctions

and have some of the rights that working women had achieved in terms of workweeks that enforce breaks would actually be hurt by the e.r.a. because men didn't have those traits at the time, but as the labor movement has progressed and as the e.r.a. became more of a unifying factor and less of a divisive factor, they kept being introduced and introduced. now it is in an interesting situation. i'm not going to speculate on where it goes from here. it is interesting to me that it is not dead, that people are still talking about it. it is interesting to me that in 2024 women still feel that we need it, that in quad -- equality is not enshrined. host: it will be interesting to talk to our viewers about the equal rights amendment marking women's history month by talking about women's history. you can join the conversation. here is how you can do so this morning.

start dialing in. remember, you can also join us on social media, you could text us, include your first name, city and state when you do so. rebecca roberts as our guest, the author of the book open but untold power: the fascinating rise and legacy of edith. she is also the events director at the library of congress. caller: hello, good morning. i have a question. i'm a democrat. i was listening to call her this morning talking about abortion and the rights of abortion, but my question to you is i'm seeing women's rights fading. i'm seeing women that now have men enter exports with women, which diminishes the women. i see men being able to go in

women's bathrooms, locker rooms, the whole bit. how is this helping women? to me it looks like it is taking down women. i think they're losing a notch or two. new yorkers, they are getting punched in the face by men. it is going viral. women are not doing well under this administration. they are fading, and i don't get it. you should be fighting everything here for women. women should be stood up, not taken down. host: rebecca roberts? guest: i think this is an interesting aspect of a movement maturing. when you look at pictures of the suffrage march 8, 1913, for instance, they had a huge banner that said we demand a constitutional amendment to franchising women. they have is very clear goal.

it wasn't we hope and pray, it was we demand. they were organized behind one thing. and they had to be, because they didn't have anything. the fact that the contemporary women's movement can say we demand abortion be safe and legal, we demand equal pay for equal work, we demand freedom from sexual a precedent, it is actually a maturing of the moment because we don't need to force this very basic right. we can, as women, move on 12 of these different causes that add to greater equality. >> alexis, independent. caller: good morning, i'm sorry, i haven't read your book but i'm going to get it. as far as the abortion issue, nobody ever hears that with parenting. i think that women know themselves well. some people can't parent.

unfortunately, contraception isn't 100% effective, and therefore people have to have that. they might make good neighbors, they might make good aunties, but just because you have a uterus doesn't mean that you can parent. i would love to see people admit that and not think just because you can get pregnant, you can parent. that's why we have so many people in our foster home and running away. if you could speak to that i would love to hear it. guest: thanks, alexis.

i think all the women standing up and say i don't want children is also still heavily judged. and i hope women who don't want children don't have them. but i think if you are on any social media and you start getting sent memes from people who are proudly child free, they seem a little aggressive. they seem a little judgey. but it is hard. it is still hard to say i don't want to be a mom. that, i think if this legacy of gender roles and what we are supposed to do and what is expected of us, and i absolutely agree with alexis. if you are not going to make a good parent, please don't be one. host: the suffragist movement is associated with wearing white. we've seen when it came up on the centennial that women in congress were wearing white on big occasions. explain why. >> this is another topic the

suffragists were really good at. they understood how a visual element could make their message go far. and so white, think of it at the time, pictures were black-and-white. a whole lot of women in white is a very striking image. this also is of symbolism behind the color. the colors of the movement were purple, gold and white. purple often associated with royalty, gold had its roots in the sunflowers of kansas where there were early suffrage movements, but actually began about black-and-white. purple visibly saturated color, white is not, gold is somewhere in between. it contrasts beautifully in pictures. and so this imagery was designed , again, the 1913 equivalent of instagram. a white down on a white horse because she was beautiful. she was a labor lawyer, she was totally accomplished, but

everyone kept calling her the most beautiful suffragist and talking about how pretty she was. if you are going to talk about her looks instead of her brains, i am going to put her on a white horse and she will never leave my parade. so i love that it is still a symbol. when you see the state of the union or another era where women are the minority and men tend to wear dark suits, it still contrasts really strikingly on television. you see that scene of the senate floor and suddenly there is this isolated bundle of light. the suffragist knew what they were doing. this time around, women are in congress and the house women decided to wear white to associate with reproductive rights. talked about taking that and the suffrage movement and applying it to the reproductive rights.

guest: it's interesting. one of the antiabortion rights groups is called the susan b. anthony and, trying to draw a line between suffrage and antiabortion. there is not a clear through line from suffrage to abortion lights -- right the way there is with the e.r.a. but the tactics again are things that were successful ban and are successful now regardless of cause. there is a messaging around abortion rights that is about women's empowerment and women's control of their own bodies and they are trying to limit abortion rights to be misogynistic and that is the through line for people who chose that symbol. but it does go directly back to the suffragist in the early part of the 20th century. host: pat, democratic caller. caller: good morning, thank you. i would like to tell my story.

i wanted to be a truck driver when i was a small child. i grew up, went into the army to learn how to drive a truck, came out of the army, got a job and i've been retired for eight years now. my husband and i both retired at 2 million miles, accident free drivers, and we hold everything from campbell's soup and nabisco and we were hazmat endorsed, called explosives, poisons, chemicals. we were out for a month at a time and worked for 23 years for warner enterprises out of omaha. and when we retired, it was because they finally gave a raise, what it was for everyone under the one million mark, and we had 1, 2, 3, 4 and one 5

million miles driver, and they didn't give us a raise, so he got angry and quit. but for women that don't believe that women ought to be doing this or that in a time like this, i wanted to know that i succeeded. host:host: thank you. before you go, did you make a much is your husband throughout your career? guest: we made the exact same. all along. and that was one industry where women got paid the same and that is through my eyes because that is what i experienced. but now i see women that have the opportunity to do these things but were turned away from such employment and say that you ought not be doing this.

it seems like everything is turning backwards and even to the went where i met a black neighbor of mine who said that he doesn't believe in unions. and you know why i retired? i was so angry and i admit that i overreacted, but initially, our company wasn't unionized. i had nobody to go to to voice my concern about being overlooked. host: ok, pat. rebecca roberts? guest: i be curious in the 23 years pat joined that industry. i think that you can talk about statistics and obviously is an industry where women are severely underrepresented, but it is very clear what women need to make industries more friendly for them.

long-haul driving probably isn't one where there is a lot of access to childcare, for there is flexible leave, things like that. so i think her story is fascinating. i can't believe she started driving 23 is ago, one million miles, that is really a story. and i think that we who work have all experienced workplaces that make it easier for us to work and we've all experienced make it harder for us to work. host: feel free to jump in with your text and have a conversation with every risk. what impact to the labor movement? guest: it is interesting you look at the suffrage movement, there are times when those women were blind to the class differences. you can't go attend a march in the middle of the day if you have to be at a factory job. for a while, it felt like it might be the privilege of

wealthy women to be able to participate in that, and finally there were some suffragists, call it intersectionality today, who understood that working-class women have some more political need and then additionally it's. there was an effort to include working women to advocate for them as one. the message was if you can vote, you can fight for the things you need in the workplace. i do think that we are still fighting the fight. there are plenty of women who worried that the contemporary women's movement is a movement of privileged white women and that the labor movement is distinct. as i say, i think a sign that is

a sign of the movement maturing that they can employ -- include many more voices. host: republican. caller: good morning, rebecca. guest: good morning. caller: ic women's history and i'm always intrigued, why did we never hear about alice roosevelt? i consider her a 21st-century woman born in the 19th century. she was something else. guest: she sure was. caller: that poor girl, two days after she was born, her mother dies and teddy's mother dies within eight hours of each other. tenney is so distraught he runs to the west and she has to live with her on and when she comes back another family is already started. she was such an outgoing -- to me, it feels like a tracer -- trailblazer of women, but you never hear about her.

at least, i don't. i just think that it is the strange. seems like they just don't talk about alice. she was so ahead of her time in history, the things she did to be dubbed princess alice by the country and most of europe. she really was something else. host: let's take that. guest: i agree. alice roosevelt from his first marriage, she was a teenager in the white house and very, very beautiful and she had this very glamorous debut and she was also kinder wild child. she had a pet snake, his father -- her father famously said i

could govern the country or i could control alice, but not both. she is talked about at this glamorous princess and she married an up-and-coming congressman and that with the society wedding of the year. i agree that to the degree she's talked about at all, she sort of dismissed at the society that -- belle. she actually wrote in them why that is fascinating, absolutely worth reading because first of all that articulates this narrative of what washington looked like at the turn-of-the-century, but also you see that she had great political instinct. she was really savage, she was absolutely on top of the sender negotiations over ratifying the treaty of versailles. she just really had in the way that a lot of political kids who grew up in washington are, a knowledge and a thirst for those issues. she was funny and she was frank and she was not afraid of

alienating people, and she also, interestingly really had a lot to do with sort of marrying federal washington local washington which still sort of have a social divide, but because she became a congressman's wife stayed in town and was sort of a social arbiter in many ways, she bridge the divide between political washington local washington. and i agree with harry, there is a terrific biography of for as well that i recommend. host: let's dig a little into your recent book. why did you decide to write this book and focus on edith wilson? guest: edith wilson to the degree that anybody knows anything about her, with woodrow wilson's second wife and when he had a stroke in 1919 and he was debilitated by the stroke, his whole left side was paralyzed, he spent a lot of time in bed,

he found it hard to concentrate on conversations, she lied about it. she lied, she circle the wagons with his doctor and chief of staff and among the three of them, they didn't tell the congress, the cabinet, the american public, the vice president. the president himself didn't know how sick he was. and they just decided that edith would do his job for him until he was well enough to do it himself. and i get why people focus on that one year of her life, his stance and knitting and a little appalling. but if you are surprised that edith wilson took the reins of executive power in the fall of 1919, then you are not paying attention. she chose time and again throughout her life that she was going to trust her own instincts to do whatever she thought it right to do. so i thought there was room for

a fuller biography of hers that made her a more three-dimensional character and didn't reduce her to either this kind of naive rube that was being taken advantage of by political men, or this late in the back receives power for her own agenda. she was neither of those. host: how did she do in that year? guest: well, she didn't go rogue. not like she pursued some agenda that he would not have. she knew his mind quite well. but there were effects. i think the biggest effect was keeping him in the dark. he had gotten sick while he was out pushing for the ratification of the treaty of versailles, beleaguered nations. that was his to read, this vision of lasting global peace. it was why he wanted a seat at the table, how he justified america's involvement in world war i. and he went on this cross-country tour, and he

collapsed on the train tour. so he thought that america still out there cheering for him. he thought they were still desperately interested in the league of nations. and because she wasn't telling him any different. she wasn't bringing him any bad news. and that was part of the treatment for stroke at the time, that you had to be kept calm and not face anything hard. i think the bigger effect of her taking the reins is that even if he were making all the decisions behind the scenes, it was terrible because he did know what was going on. he even considered running for a third term in 1920 which was preposterous. he not only wouldn't have survived, he wouldn't have won. so when warren harding was elected an absolute landslide, the only american voter was surprised was woodrow wilson because he didn't realize that the nation had moved on. host: tony in connecticut, democratic caller. caller: good morning, ladies. thank you for taking my call. i have a mother, sister, and two

daughters, and i'm from the 70's myself and i understand how my mother was treated. my question is back when women's rights started in the 70's, i was all for that. i thought it was great. then when the incident with -- excuse me -- the plan and the three or four ladies that went after him, hillary clinton went after them viciously, issue sleep. i always wondered, whatever happened to the women's movement and why didn't they stick up for those ladies? can someone help me understand how that transpired and why they didn't stick up for them? thank you. host: rebecca roberts? guest: that is not my era so i don't want to offer any details anymore than the general public

knows, but i do think that women are not about making political consolations. we are not morally superior to any other gender. i think there are times when people decide that the candidacy of their party's candidate or their family member is more important than whatever principles they had outside of those decisions. i think you saw that in that case. this notion that women make better politicians because we are somehow morally superior is garbage. i can hold up plenty of examples of morally pure men and terrible women. host: did the women's liberation movement take its pointers from the suffrage movement? guest: shirt -- sure. the suffrage movement was a crash course for women activists going over. it taught women how to organize,

how to write petitions, how to introduce legislation. all the things that you need to know to have a successful political movement. host: hollywood florida republican. caller: good morning. can you hear me ok? host: we can. caller: yes, i would like to thank you for that book, i'm going to look for it because i'm always interested in history. i would also like to point out that i think it is a shame that condoleezza rice could not become a president of the united states. i believe she would have made an absolute president and still would the excellent president. i would just like to say one thing about abortion. the pro-abortion movement, i think, fails to take into consideration that unborn girls count for something also.

they have bodies, they feel pain. i would recommend that people watch the film "the silent scream" which came out in the 1970's. it shows a fetus reaction at the moment of abortion and in addition to that, boys also count for something. i'm kind of astonished at the pro-abortion movement has not tried to limit abortion, but only wants to increase it. host: alright, i will leave it there. susan in wyoming, republican. susan, we are talking about women's history this morning. go ahead. susan, are you there? caller: yes. i was wondering if your gasket tell me which state with the first state to allow women to

vote? guest: well susan i know you are calling from casper, so yes, it was wyoming. although it is a little bit of a trick question because there was a brief moment for new jersey women could vote because they forgot to include sex in their state law. so if you really want to get technical about it there was a moment in new jersey but it wasn't on purpose. wyoming is the first state to enfranchise women on purpose. host: susan, are you proud of that? caller: very proud. guest: in what year was that? 1884, am i right? caller: 87, i believe. i'm not sure either. because they enfranchised women in the territory and then brought that into their state constitution when they became a state. >> yes, and we continue to be on the cutting edge of all the social issues.

wyoming is the best state in the union. and truly so, truly so. host: in what ways? tied to women's history and women, how are you on the cutting edge? caller: i believe we had the first woman governor. we have equitable rights in the state. we have law and order. we are just peaceful, very wonderful people. host: all right, susan. michigan, independent. caller: hi. ok, didn't know if you were talking to me. i just want to say it is kind of embarrassing that today, the

only responses we are hearing about our women's health rights on your previous callers from people that probably aren't even allowed to have children or can't have children anymore. i wish the concerns were more than that because women are more than that. edith was about more than that. instead of enhancing the power that we do have, which is to have children, it was embarrassing to hear all of these people talk about women's health care. we overcame a lot where we as women eventually were able to make decisions about our body for health. men, our husbands could only do it at a certain time, but i've been thinking about strong women like nancy reagan when it comes

to just taking care of ronald reagan, making sure that she was there. and i've been thinking about edith as well, particularly with president biden. and i just have an idea that you might write about the complex legacy of joe biden. i think there is somebody like edith hyde joe biden today making decisions. the very fact that you can write a book and add your own name to it, i think that is what women fought for. more than just the right to have or not to have children. i think women voted so that they could have an input, and they do have an impact on this world. because after age 50 there is a lot more than just having children. host: barbara, understood. guest: i agree with barbara. i'm not going to write about

anyone contemporary because i only write about dead people, you can do the live interviews, i can do the other ones. but i do think that she makes a point, that a lot of conversation around women's equality seems to be coalescing around abortion rights this election cycle because it is still burgeoning. that doesn't mean other issues have gone away, that people aren't still fighting for equal pay and the violence against women act and plenty of other issues. maybe it is a coincidence that the callers today having to talk about abortion rights but i do think it is at the forefront. >> she mentioned edith wilson, the role she played as first lady. what was the role of the first lady during edith wilson's time, and how has it changed, if at all? guest: can we stipulate that first lady is a bonkers role?

it doesn't have a job description, a changes administration to administration and it is not official. it is not capitalized. you can't be fired. in some way, you are meant to kind of reflect american ideals but american ideals are a moving target. for someone like edith wilson who was first lady from 1915 to 1921, american womanhood was moving in real time. everywoman has to invented for herself. edith did not champion causes, she did not give speeches, she was not an activist lady but she was very visible. and because she and wilson went to paris to negotiate the treaty, he first american president to leave the country for any extended time. she was the first first lady to leave the country while first lady at all, just by the very fact of them being there, they

elevated the role of first lady to this international stage, which we very much see now. we sort of think of that as part of the first lady's brief, that diplomatic role, but it really wasn't before edith wilson. host: ron n'sync lamented, california, republican. caller: good morning, ladies, and rebecca, thanks for joining this interesting book on edith. i was blessed in my life to be raised by strong women. one of mine with my great grandma. the urban legend is that we were related in some way, second cousins to the wilson family. she said that she married into it. interestingly enough, she was a member of the women's christian union, and that was a direct result of world war i and all these guys coming back from world war i who became drunkards

. and because of the ptsd that they had, they used to call it shellshocked. anyway, that was a direct result and she was a very strong advocate. antialcohol, that was a direct relationship that got her into the suffragette movement, and she was a very strong suffragette and couldn't be more. so in the 1950's, oddly enough she was in her elder years and she was a cowboy writer. she wrote cowboy stories, but she had to use her son's name because of course, women weren't allowed to write cowboy stories or to write novels at all in those days much. i just love to hear what you have to say about the combination of the women's christian temperance union and suffragettes. guest: thanks a lot. guest:thank you.

the women's christian temperance union was formed before world war i. led by frances willard. it is hard to underestimate what a big deal frances willard was at the time. she was an absolute superstar, reveille the best woman in the world. she was just a celebrity of major proportion. and it is easy today to think of temperance as the sort of killjoy, judges spinsters who wanted to take away your cocktail, but at the time when women had so few rights, there is no such thing as marital rape , they didn't have access to their own money. if a man decided to get drunk and take their wages and beat them up, they had no legal resource. temperance was actually women's rights for a whole lot of other reasons. and a lot of suffragists got their start that way. also in abolition, those were two movements where women believed in those causes, got involved in those causes and

realized life they can affect them. it was a pipeline for a lot of women at a training ground for a lot of women. how to be brave about standing on a street corner and handing out flyers which was for a lot of women pretty scary. host: that is a good place to end this morning. rebecca roberts, author of the new book "untold power: the fascinating rise in complex legacy of first lady edith wilson." and suffragists in washington