six new england states. we opened to the public in 1946, been open ever since as private, not for profit educational corporation. so we try to show people bits and pieces of everyday life from the decade of the 1830s. >> watch american artifacts every sunday at 8:00 a.m. on cspan3 american history tv. for schedule information and to view programs, visit cspan.org/history. the strong support we have in our region of the country from where this movement originated gives us an excellent base to go forth on the day of november 5th, and we in my judgment will go forward in the beginning with at least the 177 electoral votes that comprise the states of the south and border, and when you couple that

with just a few other states of the union, then you have the 170 odd leks to recall vote for the presidency. >> as candidates are campaigning, we look back. go to see video of the contenders who had a lasting impact on american politics. >> there's been honest contention, spirited disagreement, and i believe considerable hot arguments. but don't let anybody be mislead by that. you have given in this haul proof of how americans that shoulder. cspan.org/thecontenders.

foursquare. follow american history tv all weekend, every weekend on cspan3 and online at cspan.org/history. coming up next, the national archives host a panel of scholars as they look at the history of the cartoons and banners that members of the national women's party used to convince the public and the president to grant women the right to vote. this is an hour and a half. >> coming up next, national archives host a panel of scholars as they look at the banners that member of the national women's party used to

convince the public and president to grant women the right to vote. this is an hour and a half. >> good evening. my name is tom nasdik and it's my pleasure to welcome you. the national archives is honored to host this program, as we have in our holdings hundreds of documents, petitions, photographs and posters related to women's suffrage. including the document we celebrate today, the joint resolution of congress proposing a constitutional amendment extending the right of suffrage to women, otherwise known as the 19th amendment to the constitution. certified by secretary of state colby on august 26, 1920. changing the face of the american electorate forever. before we get to tonight's program, i would like to first ask you to turn off or mute cell phones or other devices and alert you there will be time for

question and answer after the discussion and we ask that you use the microphones that we'll have set up in the aisles as we are recording this program. i also want to alert you to a couple of upcoming programs here at the national archives. on tuesday, september 6 at noon, michael and luisa will discuss the book "conscience, two soldiers, two pacifists, one family, a test of will and faith in world war i." and a book signing will follow. thursday, september 8, we'll continue our series of programs in conjunction with our exhibit. participating in the post screening discussion will be former secretary of agriculture dan grikman, and others. to find out more about this and all of our exhibits and public programs, refer to our monthly calendar of events.

copies are in the lobby with the signup sheet to be included on the mailing list for the calendar. we are also honored to welcome our partner on this the second women's equality day program we've done together. it's my pleasure to introduce our moderator, executive director paige harrington, who will give us an overview and lead us into tonight's discussion. she's been executive director of the belmont house since 2008. prior to joining the museum, she served as the vice president of the naval heritage center at the united states naval memorial, working with senior u.s. navy leadership to facilitate the reorganization of the business programs. she earned two masters degrees from the university of san diego. her first in public history, historic preservation and teaching and second in nonprofit management and leadership.

in addition to her work at the museum, paige serves on the board of directors and is the senior editor of a series of books on women's history entitled finding a voice, women's fight for equality in the united states. would you please welcome paige harrington. [ applau >> thank you, tom. thank you so much. we're delighted to be here for the second year in a row to celebrate women's equality day. i want to thank tom, definitely his extra help in making sure that everything runs smoothly i definitely. the sewell-belmont museum is committed to sharing the story suffrage. thank you.

the museum is a national historic langek documenting the continuing effort by women and men of all races, religions and backgrounds to win voting rights for women under the law.ter a year of con cataloging and exhibit design, i'm thrilled to say that the museum has reopened as of may of this last summer. when the national woman's party moved to ad final headquarters, it was considered to be an embassy for the women of the nation. activity, and a vantage point from which they may keep congress under perpetual observation. [ applause ]r, they transitioned to an institute for education and preservation and

we began the long journey of preserving and sharing this notable history. as a leader in the fight for women's suffrage and equal rights, the nwp initiated tactics and strategies revolutionary even by today's standards. they women were the first to picket the white house and we are able to exhibit many banners from the collection that tells this compelling story. along with images of the pickets showing their determination, sacrifice and commitment. additionalth documenting their visits to members of congress. these were recorded through nwp's congressional card file, once known by the press, as the deadly political index. today, this unique collection contains over 5,000 cards detailing member's hobbies, educations, religious and economic backgrounds, views on women's suffrage and other related social issues and often

very candid comments by the nwp women who interviewed them. visitors will be able to learn firsthand the challenges of securing suffrage and equal rights through congress and the innovating lobbying techniques created by nwp, which are still in use by other organizations today. over 100 women were ultima imprisoned after picketing the white house. and thanks to the cataloging work of the collection staff and dedicated interns, we uncovered objects from natalie gray's period in prison that provides us with more information about how they spent their time while they were in prison and how they strategically used that story to garner public support and further suffrage. these objects are now on display for the very first time. i invite you to visit the museum during our public hours wednesday through sunday from noon to 5:00 where you'll learn

more about our upcoming programs. in particular, on september 21, we continue the tradition of honoring women for breaking barriers with our annual alice award. this year, we will honor senator olympia snie and dianne feinstein with that alice award. also, on october 4, we host a seminar examining the role of women in american democracy, featuring keynote speaker ambassador carol mosley braun. we also today debuted online our newest exhibit in honor of the past and pledge to the future which delves into the 1933 memorial parade, commemorating many women throughout history who indeed have broken these barriers. in the slides behind me, you are seeing just a glimpse of the beautiful banners and i hope you will take the time to go online and see more of them. tonight, we're here to examine the nwp's use of nonverbal communication with cartoons and banners, all very strategically

used in the battle for the right to vote. the women of the nwp armed themselves with these working class textiles and cartoons and used thoughtful and commanding written words to communicate their message, which often turned the very words of the administration back on the president. as we're focusing on the cartoons tonight, i would like to mention our ongoing conservation needs. you can find more information online. it will ensure the continued care and preservation of the fragile but significant political cartoon collection. tonight, you will hear panelists, dr. kyle siaoni, illinois state university. and lisa kathleen grati of the national museum of american history discuss the ways which the national woman's party utilized these largely silent forms of rhetoric to support the women's right to vote.

she will continue the conversation and examine the banners carried in the suffrage parades and during the picket in front of the white house and share her thoughts on the tactics and strategies employed by the nwp during the campaign and also the escalation of the messaging when the united states entered world war i. she specializes in the history of women across the americas. with a focus on social justice issues. as affiliated faculty, her courses are part of the core curriculum. her publications focus on how the changing culture of work, direct survival strategies, especially in regard to child care, education, and labor. she's interested in women's activities in these areas during the 19th and 20th century.

her current research project is a study of cultural interactions in the 20th century on american indian reservations. as a window to understand the development of inter cultural exchange in communities boundaried by federal laws and public policies. her interests in women's labor and activism derive from her former position of the associate director of the child abuse program in san diego county, an experience that prompted her to enter graduate school as a way to educate others to the importance of understanding the long-term effects on domestic violence and sexual abuse. prior to joining the illinois state university faculty in 2001, she taught women's history at the university of san diego and michigan state university where she was the first person to earn a ph.d. in the history of women and gender. lisa has worked at the smithsonian since 1989 and

is deputy chair of political history, serves as curator of the women's political history and first lady's collections. her work includes the first lady's of the smithsonian. a first lady's debut, and exhibiting george washington. she co-curated the document gallery exhibition, a letter from george washington, november 30, 1785. and traveling exhibition. and she co-authored the book "first ladies, political role and public image." she's been the collections lincoln, an extraordinary life. vote, the machinery of democracy. the permanent and traveling versions of the american presidency, a glorious burden. between a rock and a hard place, a history of america's sweat shops, 1820 to present. and we the people winning the vote.

she's currently working on political history exhibits that will be part of the museum's renovated west wing and continuing her work on women's suffrage movement. and women in american political life. she holds a b.a. in history from university of maryland, ma from texas tech university. following the presentations tonight, we'll move to a moderated discussion format with a few prepared questions and hopefully additional questions from the audience. please help me welcome the panel. [ applause ] >> good evening. it's so nice to be here. to get here on a plane ride that was a little bit treacherous, to survive earthquakes, to be here on the eve of reverend martin

luther king jr.'s tribute statue being dedicated is really an honor. and i thank paige and elizabeth and jennifer and all the friends for inviting me here and thank you for coming out on this wet evening to enjoy some photographs of really important women who dealt with some really important issues. when i accepted paige's invitation, i had no idea this would also be the dedication week for the king tribute statue, and i've been reminded all week of my duty to live up to the promises fought by voting rights activists throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. i was lucky enough to know my maternal great grandmothers, and they always stressed to me the importance of voting. they came from very different backgrounds and class stations. there was absolutely no love

lost between them. and they had as little to do with one another as possible. but they agreed on two things. they adored their granddaughter, my mother, and her children. and they celebrated their hard-fought right to cast their vote by doing so in every election that came their way. they were not wealthy or educated women. in fact, one had a third grade knowledge of reading and writing and supported her children as a domestic. but they understood the tremendous potential that voting rights could offer their children. tonight, i'll present one element of how women like my great grandmothers learned about that potential through the political cartoons of nina evans, the official cartoonist. she began cartooning for the journal in its second year of

publication, 1914, and continued to create provocative images through its run into 1920. my presentation will cover four areas in a brief fashion. first, i put the active cartooning in its historical context of the progressive era. and note how the national women's party embraced the medium as one of its nonviolent strategies to secure the vote. second, i explain the maternalist overtones. reformers embraced what jane adams referred to as public motherhood by using society's understanding of women as guardians of the home to improve their communities. alander adopted this imagery to explain many of the issues driving the suffrage campaigns.

third, i note how she incorporated a wry sarcasm into her work. especially in regard to protest and picket cartoons. fourth, i conclude with the recognition that her images do not depict people subjected to racial inequity. rather, she was a white woman of her time and whiteness prevails in the cartoon images. to understand that time, let me turn to november 15, 1913, when federal amendment activists published the first issue. in that inaugural issue, they made clear their commitment. "until women vote, every piece of legislation undertaken by the administration is an act of injustice to them. all laws affect the interest of women and should not be enacted and put into execution without the cooperation and consent of women." meaning you can just see them doing this when writing that

paper. some success toward female suffrage had been realized at some success toward female suffrage had been realized at the stale level. however, off rajjists engaged in the movement believed a federal amendment was tantamount to women experiencing the rights of full citizenship. in fact n that issue, alice paul declared success can be ours if suffragists stand shoulder to shoulder behind the federal amendment. allen der was one of those suffragists, whereas some critics of the movement identified the suffragists as propaganda and allen der as a key prop ganist. was "infinitely more familiar to voters than the tariff, the currency or conservation and had reached its political stage.

thus there existed no need for propaganda. rather, the suffragist was designed to inform subscribers about events surrounding state xaps and provide them with facts involving the positions of women such asthma ternl workforce statistics. her cartoons invited readers to look beyond political rhetoric and explore these facts. the people in her cartoons seldom morphed into figures of fantasy with animal-like features and mannerisms popular then and now among political cartoonists. allender drew reality. destitute mothers holding hungry children, jailed and beaten picketers, and suffragists campaigning for change. she had not experienced poverty but she had lived through her husband leaving her.

abandoned but not alone, allender threw herself into the suffrage movement through local clubs in washington, d.c. and met influential leaders like alice paul. no matter her identity, when allender's cartoons gab gracing the covers of "the suffragist" in 1914 she had entered a journalistic world dominated by male writers, editors and artists. political cartooning has a long history. and i've noted a couple issues on this slide that commentators in the progressive era used to elicit debate. artists used machine politics, gender shifts, especially as more women engaged in activities connected with the male sphere of public policy like sitting on educational school boards. imperial designs and racist agendas to draw readers to their newspapers and forums. centerfolds from the political

news magazine "puck" illustrates some of the ways in which men envisioned how suffrage would influence change in soes associate from these cross dressers of the 1880s to the mothers chachbd to their domestic labor and dependent upon graft politics. in response to the limited success of state suffrage campaigns in the 1910s, members of the national american women's suffrage association who were dedicated to the federal amendment like alice paul and nina allender shown in this group photo launched a movement separate from the nawsa. through nawsa's congressional union and then their separation into the national women's party, members always promoted a non-violent stance as a way to advocate for and to women of the right to full citizen ri.

led my passive its like alice paul, the ultimate goal was to achieve full suffrage by means of a federal amendment. they used "the suffragist" to educate members about critical social issues that could be altered with the female vote and to communicate how women could change their self-image and stat news society. the suffragist differed in that it emphasized political action and education over fashion or travel items. according to rhetoric scholars kathryn adams and michael keene, alice paul wanted a vehicle to "espouse her own opinions, lavish attention on successful events, feature positive press coverage and stress her large

membership and financial solvency. in december of 1913 there were 1200 paid subscribers to the suffragist. paul asked rita child dorr for the first editor, a seasoned journalist who had cut her teeth at the new york evening post writing about women's clubs and a special series on women's work in factories, door was highly invested in women's rights, especially in suffrage. of her work with the suffragist, door wrote "i published in the paper every scrap of news. and there was always news. accounts of the deputations we sent to the president and aggressive editorials". she and paul worked long hours and did not always see eye to eye. i think that's an understatement. they fought. and they realized after a year that the professional relationship would simply not work. dorr resigned as editor but

stayed immensely committed to the fight for a federal amendment. a unique quality of the suffragist was its attention to middle and working class women as readers. and the traumas endured by working poor women and their children. it is here that allender's work can be best highlighted. allender drew for women about women. fellow suffragist inez haynes irwin described allender as having "a keen political sense". i'm going to quote at length from her because it really sums up the unique quality allender brought to her political cartoons. she wrote "allender's translated this aspect in the terms of the women's movement in terms that women alone can best appreciate. her work is full of the intimate, everyday details of the woman's life from her little girlhood to her old age. and she translates that existence with a women's

vivacity and a women's sense of humor. a humor which plays keenly and gracefully about mass a masculine incensability, a humor that is archly unbitter as that of jean austin. it would be impossible for any man to have done mrs. allender's work. a woman speaking to women about women in the language of women". she adopted the maternalist overtones popular among many female social reformers of this era, and embraced the visual language of sentimental maternalism. that no protection or protectors existed for poor women and their children bush administration they could find it in the vote. essentially allender argued that all women, but especially poor, single mothers, needed the protection of the vote.

this june 13th, 1914 issue shows the mother in an obviously tired state with the caption "the inspiration of the suffrage workers." she also contrasted the worlds of the upper and middle class suffrage workers with those of the poor, as evidenced by the mother of five children looking longingly at the luxurious furs in a shop window. women who lived in desperate situations needed the vote to help them clean up their neighborhoods, the factories in which they worked, to bring clean milk to their children, to lift them from poverty. children, especially girl children, were also important subjects of the cartoons. in the june 25th, 1914 cover, note the integration of the female reformers alongside the mothers and child workers lined outside the factories. that caption reads "child saving

is women's work, votes for women". indicating that women have both the right and a duty to nurture children and improve the community in which these children live. social reformers had been focused on improving workplace conditions for several decades, and had been particularly concerned about wage-earning mothers who had little access to safe childcare. gaining the vote in 1920 certainly did not change these women's situations overnight, but it energized some women to rethink their positions in their home as caregivers. this allender cartoon is from the journal "equal rights" from december 15, 1923. and allender continued to work for the suffrage