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tv   American Artifacts  CSPAN  July 3, 2016 11:23am-12:01pm EDT

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price and said anybody can print it. that is one reason that book is so well-known and printed. discussion of anti-mormonism in america, from the 1830's to their current status as a religious minority. >> the latter-day saints are not only a religious minority, but a religious minority that over time has figured in disproportionately visible ways in the debates about religion. >> take a tour of the brigham young museum of paleontology and see the dinosaur skeletons. they talk about how the fossils were gathered from utah and outside states. >> when you can hide the armature and the still supports, the animal looks more alive, in the sense that you get the .eeling that these are bones
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but you know, it brings life to these bones. and jason cerf lumen, professor of history at brigham young university, talks about 33 mormon families establish the settlement of provo in 1849. this weekend, what's the c-span cities tour of provo, utah, at 2 p.m., on the c-span cities tour on c-span3. the c-span cities tour, working with our cable affiliates and visiting cities across the country. announcer: nina allender was the political cartoonist for the national women's party from 1914 until 1927, contributing over 150 cartoons supporting the campaign for women's suffrage. next, we visit the belmont paul national women's equality monument to see her work. jennifer: my name is jennifer krafchik. i am deputy director and director of strategic initiatives at the belmont paul
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women's equality national --ument, which was formally formerly a museum on capitol hill in washington, d.c. this house was the fifth and final headquarters of the national women's party. the national party was hounded by a woman named alice paul in 1913 as the congressional union for women's suffrage. this group of women spent seven years actively lobbying the president and congress for a federal suffrage amendment. at which time, once the received the amendment in 1920, they began, they wrote and began lobbying for the equal rights amendment. during the period where they were lobbying for suffrage, they were working all over the country actively garnering support from western women
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voters and bringing the fight directly to the president's doorstep. they had headquarters over on on lafayette square where they could walk out their door and be right at the president's doorstep in a matter of minutes. and they began picketing the white house, one of the first groups to do so, when the united states entered world war i in 1917. at that time, the pickets at the white house were quite peaceful, but they turned ugly when crowds watching the women picket the white house believed their behavior to be unpatriotic, so crowds would throw things at the women, converge on them and tear the banners from their hands. and in june of 1917, the women began being arrested on charges of obstructing traffic, and they were taken to prison and sentenced to anywhere from three days to six months. and they were imprisoned at the district prison here in washington, d.c., and at the prison in virginia at the
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occoquan workhouse. they were not treated like political prisoners. they were treated like any other prisoners, often thrown into their cells, oftentimes their hands handcuffed above them. and they began protesting that treatment and went on hunger strike and were force-fed. because of their activities, there was a lot of press around what was happening to them, which ended up garnering a lot of public sympathy for their cause. and in 1919, thanks to not only the work of the national women's party, but other suffrage organizations working for similar goals, the federal amendment was passed by both houses of congress and sent to the states for ratification. and in 1920, it was ratified by all 36 states and became law. by 1921 and 1922, the national women's party, believing that suffrage was only the first step in a many-step process to achieve full women's equality,
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began working on the equal rights amendment. alice paul and a woman named crystal eastman presented the document to the party in 1923. and from that time, they worked for legal, social, and economic equality for women throughout the united states and later, throughout the world. they worked for the equal rights amendment from the south from 1923 until 1997, when they became a 501(c)(3). and today, we work to preserve our outstanding collection of women suffrage and equal rights artifacts and educate the public about this movement and the stories about this community of women who worked for total equality for women. the belmont-paul house is named after alice paul, our original founder, and alva belmont. belmont was the benefactor and president of the party for many years, and it's because of her that we have such a large collection of books, scrapbooks, artifacts, and many other objects that allow us to tell this story. now, we are upstairs, and we are going to talk about our
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collection of political cartoons by the national women's party official cartoonist, nina allender. the national women's party was the only party to boast an official cartoonist, and her work appeared on the cover of their publication "the suffragist" for more than 10 years. allender grew up in kansas. she was born in 1872. and her family actually moved to washington, d.c. around 1900. her mother was one of the first women employees at the department of the interior. and allender studied painting at the corcoran school of art here in washington dc with the intention of becoming an art -- here in d.c., with the intention of becoming an art teacher. she was a painter and loved to paint, and that was a big part of her identity. but she also worked for the government land office, so she recognized that painting would not pay the bills.
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she was president of the d.c. branch of the national american women suffrage association, and when alice paul came in 1912 with the intention of lobbying for the federal amendment, allender watched first with interest in this new woman. there is a great biography in one of the early biographies of the national women's party where allender and her mother receive alice paul at their house. both of them are very interested in the women's suffrage movement, and they are eager to hear from this woman who they claim was about as big as their finger, walking into their house. and the story goes that by the time alice paul left, they had committed both time and money to the suffrage movement and the congressional union without realizing what they had actually committed to or how this little woman had managed to convince them to begin lobbying for the federal
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amendment. and allender all of a sudden was an active member of this party, working for the federal suffrage amendment. so i think she always sort of looked around in amazement at alice paul's negotiating and strategic way of convincing people to not only work for the movement, but also to give money. allender began her career as the cartoonist of the national women's party. her first work appeared in 1914. one of the interesting things about her early work is that a lot of it focused on poverty, child labor, the exploitation of women, and labor legislation. and so, her first work appeared on the cover of "the suffragist" in june, 1914. from then on, there was no
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looking back. she did more than 150 cartoons over seven years. they appeared almost weekly, and like most political cartoons, they were a commentary on ongoing political issues. they were the news of the week with great attention to how that news impacted or was influenced by what was happening in the suffrage movement. here is one of her early works. this is one of my favorite pieces actually in the museum. this is called "the inspiration of the suffrage workers." and you can see how she is commenting on a lot of different ideas in this piece. she is talking about the importance of the vote as a way of changing the condition of the women. you see the woman holding her child, and her other little girl is standing, sitting in the street playing with a cat and there is trash surrounding her. this is obviously in an impoverished area.
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allender often especially in these early pieces was commenting on how the vote would change the ability for women to earn their children, and move up in society in a way not having the right to vote or any voice in the laws that were being made would allow them to do. now we are going to make our way into the gallery. in our collection today, we have about 170 of allender's original works. one of the only known collections of her works in the country. as far as i know, no other museum has any of her paintings or any of her other works either. so beginning in 1914, as i said, she was doing a lot of work on
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the condition of women. but as the suffrage movement progressed and as the women's national movement increased, they began a strategy they called holding the party in power responsible. at that time, it was the democratic party led by woodrow wilson. so allender's work often pinpointed symbols of the democratic party and more importantly, the main symbol of the party, which was the president. in this piece, this is called "fairy godmother wilson," and it was published on the cover on december 4, 1914. you can obviously see allender is utilizing the fairytale "cinderella" to make commentary about the power wilson wielded over the improvement and condition of women and over the laws of the country as well. president wilson is playing fairy godmother. this woman is cinderella. and in between, you see the pumpkin is the constitutional amendment and the mice is the senate and house. president wilson is casting a spell to make it possible for her to use her constitutional
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amendment to vote for those who represent her. a lot of commentary about president wilson's power. just as an aside here in the background, you see the proud voting sisters. this is indicating the fact women in many western states at that point had the right to vote. the national women's party would ultimately start pinpointing those women to help vote as a block and try to vote the democratic party out of office. the title of this cartoon is "lest we forget." and one of the things that is important to know about the party in general and the way allender's work reflected this idea is that the national women's party always paid tribute to those considered mothers of the suffrage movement.
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and that included, in particular, susan b. anthony. this cartoon is featuring a line of women paying tribute to susan b. anthony, who died before the federal suffrage amendment was passed, but who actually introduced the original amendment in 1875. you can see a group of women and children. you can see women who are college graduates. you see this little tag here that says voter indicating western women voters who had the right to vote, and then you see a lone woman walking up the steps of the capital, and that was in 1875 when susan b. anthony first introduced that amendment. the intent of this is to demonstrate how far we have come but how long we still have to go. this was fairly common for the national women's party and for
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allender also to pay tribute to these original suffragists and all of the work and progress women have made, but also reminding their members how far they still had to go. and then we circle over to this cartoon. this cartoon called "our hat is in the ring." and it was drawn and published on april 8, 1916. this cartoon is particularly representative of allender's belief that women needed to be presented with authority, strength, and control. she created an image she called the allender girl. and this woman was a different image than a lot of people saw, particularly in images of suffragists and how women had appeared in the press and the time. oftentimes, political cartoonists would mock the political suffrage movement by making women looked haggard or ugly or fraught in some way, and allender turns that on its head
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and creates a youthful, invigorated, intelligent woman. you can see in this image in particular she's very slender, her skirt is above her ankles, which is quite different at the time. you kind of see the changing face of fashion at that time as well. her hands are on her hips, and she throws her hat into the ring of politics. here you can see her hat says the women's party. you can see these comical images of a progressive, a democrat, and a republican all looking in wonderment at this woman who is very strongly standing there saying, i am moving in. the importance of this cartoon is the national women's party was originally founded as the congressional union for women's suffrage, and they actually changed their name to the
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women's party in june of 1916. this is published in april 1916, and you can see them predicting what is about to happen within their party. the women's party was an important name, because at times, they grappled with the idea of going beyond lobbying for the federal amendment to actually becoming an active political player in the same vein as a democrat or a republican. this cartoon is called "changing fashions." "she used to be satisfied with so little." published on march 13, 1915, this is again an opportunity to comment on how they were targeting congress at this time and showcasing -- this is actually talking about so many different things. not only are they targeting congress, but you see the woman holding out her skirt saying national constitutional amendment in a very grand, ruffly skirt she's holding out, but she is also wearing a hat wearing a hat that shows new
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york, pennsylvania, new jersey and massachusetts, all states that were voting on suffrage referendums in 1915. this is a way of lobbying for those states to receive municipal suffrage. and then on her skirt, she has west virginia and iowa, states that may have been voting at that time. but she is holding out the skirt, constitutional amendment, and the congressman is looking at her in bewilderment saying , "she used to be satisfied with so little." ucl under focusing on that federal amendment but also talking about how this continued to be state by state by state. and her work reflects that in other ways too. as they approach the ratification of the amendment, allender's work began increasingly to reflect the idea that states were still having to ratify this amendment, and that that could be a process that
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could hold them up. in 1919, the national women's party created a banner in which they started sewing stars. so for every state that ratified a suffrage amendment, they would sew a star on the banner. by 1920, they had 36 states on the banner. the day suffrage was passed, there is this iconic image of alice paul unfurling the banner at headquarters and showing it for all the members. we no longer know what happened to that banner, but we are hoping somebody has it in their attic somewhere. there is also a great allender cartoon that shows them sewing the stars on the banner. her work is continuing to reflect the state movement while also showing the federal movement as well. this cartoon is called "american justice." it was published on june 1, 1918.
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the interesting thing about this cartoon, this is another instance of allender taking the imagery of democracy and of patriotism, certainly this is obviously uncle sam standing and turning it on its head a little bit. this is a very powerful image. you are seeing uncle sam standing in front of this bound, gagged helpless woman, and he is holding up a bouquet of flowers. he is saying american women, you are our inspiration, you give us our soldiers, you conserve our food, you work in our munitions factory, you serve our sick and wounded. accept this bouquet. you see her bound with unequal rights, unequal wages, and this kindly omit flowers robe. these are issues women still continue to grapple with today, and this image is one of many that allender used where she featured uncle sam, the
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democratic donkey, the republican elephant, and other typical images of democracy to showcase how contradictory our country was toward women. particularly during world war i, these women really focused on the fact that president wilson was lobbying for democracy abroad while not doing so here in the united states, and we are going to look at other cartoon that shows that issue. we are going to move over here. this cartoon is called "insulting the president," and it was published on june 2, 1917. in january of 1917, the national women's party began picketing the white house through a sustained act of nonviolent protest. and they were among the first group ever to this. every day, these women would stand in front of the white
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house holding their banners that would basically speak for them, saying, mr. president, how long must women wait for liberty, and talking about democracy in this country, and using president wilson's speeches and his words to show again the contradictory nature of the direction of the united states. in april 1917, we entered world world war i, and then their banners became a little bit more problematic. they were seen as unpatriotic. and this particular cartoon was, like i said, published in june of 1917, just before women started to be arrested. this particular cartoon shows our allender girl again, the skirt kind of up above the ankle. this is how women dressed when they were standing standing at the white house, so it reflects the reality of how they were on a daily basis and then you see the banner that she is holding is a quote from a speech written
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by president wilson saying "we shall fight for the things have always carried nearest our heart for democracy. for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own government. " then it says w.w. down here at the bottom. this was fairly typical. so this is just before their being arrested, and allender's work continues to reflect that over the next several months when the arrests begin -- became particularly violent. you start to see her work show women in prison and other instances of the donkey and the elephant being used to persecute women. they are keeping up targeting congress and targeting the party in power by using these banners, and they picketed the white house and picketed congress and they took their banners across the country. they were lobbying against congress in a very national way.
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so we are going to move across to this cartoon, which was published february 1, 1920. we are almost to the finish line. this one is called "training the animals." at this point, the amendment had been sent to the states for ratification, and so passage was all but, the hope was that passage was all but achieved. and so you see the democratic donkey and republican elephant standing there as the woman is holding a treat that says vote on it. she's literally training these animals to get used to the idea that women are now entering the political idea and will exercise their right to vote. so her 1920 cartoons in particular sort of re-emphasizing this over and over again. i believe this is one of the
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final times she employed the donkey and the elephant. so this cartoon is called "to "call to the women voters, stand by your disenfranchised sisters." you can see this is an unfinished cartoon. it has the masthead started up here of "suffragist," within the masthead of their publication. they oftentimes showed women in this way, this particular woman wearing the flowing robes and blowing a horn. the intent of this piece is to garner support from western women voters, to bring them
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together to vote as a block against the democratic party. and this is another instance, the finished product actually looked very different once it was published in the "suffragist." allender did the bones, and the editors added additional context to it. this is a great instance of showcasing the editing of allender's work. she would work with editors to define the week's focus for the cover, and the editors would feed her information about the articles that would appear in the "suffragist," so that they would tie together nicely. in this case, there is a great quote in this issue that talks about the need for western women to stand up for the disenfranchised women across the united states. we are now in the florence bayard hillard feminist library at the belmont-paul house, which is the first feminist library established in the united states by the women's party in 1941.
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this is the primary place where we house our collection, and even more importantly, we house all of our nina allender political cartoons in this space. i have pulled out a few cartoons to show some additional facets of allender's work. this particular piece is fantastic. it's one of her earlier pieces, and you can see that it is quite large. it is more of a poster than any of her other work, and you can really see the detail that she put into this. this is another one of those early pieces where she is talking about women workers, child labor, exploitation. the title of this work is "child saving is women's work, vote for women." it appeared, i believe, in a june issue, june 1913 of the -- june of 1914 issue of the "suffragist." you can see the factories in the background and the crowd and a line of women and children wrapped around. but this is a great opportunity
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to talk about the materials that allender used to create these works. she often used graphite or charcoal to draw them. there are very few instances where allender uses color in any of her work, and i will show you in just a moment a piece where she uses color, but sometimes she would use watercolor paints. interestingly, with these pieces, she was never picky about the type of paper she used. it was often said allender would use whatever she had in her studio at the time. it could be anything from artist's paper or poster to something thicker like a poster board, cardboard. sometimes you see that she started a work and then didn't like it, so she would scratch it out and turn it over and use the same materials to start a new piece. so it really varied the type of
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materials that she would use to draw on. what they would do with these is once allender drew them, and she would either draw them in her own studio at home or there are images of her at neste women's headquarters drawing them there. what she would do with these pieces is she to the editors of the "suffragist," and they would go through an editing process. allender would make recommendations on captions, and sometimes the captions would be changed. they would make markings on the backs, and then these items would be put on to metal print blocks and they were used to bring the newspaper. it didn't matter how large or how small the items were, they always appeared to be about the same size once they were on the cover of the "suffragist." so i am going to close this piece, and i am going to show a few pieces that demonstrate the editing process. i also want to draw your attention to, because of the different materials she used, you can see this piece has split
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in two over time, so it also gives us a chance to talk about how fragile these materials are. preservation of these items is very difficult. they have sustained water damage, flaking. every time you handle one of these pieces, something will flake off. the national women's party did not mean for them to survive as long as they have. they were work product. that is how they were treated. slide that over. we have a few additional works that show the editing process. i am going to kind of show this piece here.
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this is quite a powerful, powerful drawing. you can see the woman is held by a noose, the senate has her in a noose hanging from a tree, and she is representing the suffrage amendment here, and there is this person riding in to save democracy. i believe this is woodrow wilson here, and the caption allender chose for this piece is, "his last chance." i think in this case, she is talking about this is wilson's last chance to preserve democracy by saving this woman. but if you flip it over, a lot of these have allender's original notes. in this case, she's addressing this to the editor and saying, "i am sure you can come up with a better caption than i have." she is suggesting they need to think about the caption they want to use and rethink what her recommendation is. this is one of the pieces i mentioned where she uses color. so this is watercolor that she
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uses on here, and this is a fairly simple cartoon. it was published in 1919. the caption that she wrote is "31 more days." they are showing the date, and this would have been around the time that it would be published. she is indicating they only had 31 more days for of particular deadline to achieve there, to perhaps get suffrage passed or have arguments held in congress. and then you flip it over, and there is a pretty lengthy note from nina allender. i will paraphrase. she basically says, there's a lot behind this date, and our members won't necessarily know what 31 more days means, so we need to find a way to caption it or put more information in the "suffragist" so our members will understand. this is allender's way of
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saying, this is not so simple. i think people are going to need a little help with this one. this is actually another great instance where you can see the pinholes and its. marks, andittle pen here is a great image of surrounded by her work. not see these as long-lasting, preserved pieces. this was work product. this was something they had to do every week to get the issue e suffragist" out, so it was her job to get it out so they could put it in the issue.
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i'm going to talk about the cartoons she did once they won the right to vote and started working toward the equal rights amendment. is calledcular piece protection. one of the early issues the working towards a lot the protection of women and how it would lend itself to the increased protection of women their children. equal pay. this is one of those pieces demonstrating how the equal rights amendment would lend itself to increased protection for women. one of the big opposing arguments was protective labor legislation would be negatively impacted if the e.r.a. were to be passed.
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also wouldthis one have been published around 1924. rightwomen now have the to vote and they are presenting anthony the bill of rights. this image is not captioned here, but it would have been in the magazine. goingsan b. anthony is down the list of rights that women still do not have. saying, you all still have a lot of work to do. the national women's party believed that. allender said that being a political cartoonist gave her a sense of power. i don't think she meant to become a political cartoonist. but over 10 years, she ended up drawing more than 200 cartoons for the national women's party, images that resonated with women, that they could look up
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to and relate to. her perspective it came very important to the overall success and strategy of the national woman's party. this, like so much of the other work they were doing was really dedicated to getting their message out in the press, positive or negative, no matter what and show the strategy they to bring this movement to a close. when women won the right to vote, it made sense that she turned right around and continue to draw. she continued to work for the national woman's party, ultimately becoming the chairman of their world woman's party and the chairman of their legal counsel. so, she really delved into other countries later in her life and she passed away in 1957. at the age of 88.
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continue today resonate with our visitors and it is certainly a draw for a lot of people who come here. that oddly enough she continues to not be as well-known as we would like. we invite people to come here see her work and the work of others. nina allender, her work at one point was referred to like this -- a woman speaking to women in the language of women about women. .nd that remains true today so, here in the howl of portraits, we invite you to ll ofience -- in the ha portraits, we invite you to experience the selfie station. invite your sons and daughters to continue the fight for women's equality and be part of
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women's empowerment in activity and politics. the house is actually open thursdays, fridays and saturdays role of the clock until 4:00. and we invite you to take a tour. >> you can watch this and other programs by visiting our website at c-span.org. university of georgia professor teaches that class on historic preservation and the debate over southern cultural heritage sites such as the tearing down or relocation of civil or monuments honoring confederates. he also discusses the origin of usuallythese monuments, affected during the 19th century. his class is

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