one of his nieces we talking about how they were bombing the church. that's why they pretty much convicted him. it was some 14 years later that then, 30 years later after that, the church had to go through i guess a lot of rebuilding. because some people blamed the pastor for allowing the marches and the movement in the church. the church had the history of it. i guess the way the church rebuild was going back to the basics. going back to jesus christ. him the central of attraction,

what christ would have us to do. and we began to focus on our mission and mandate from the savior. there is plenty of ways, one way that we remember each year. we have a memorial service on september 15 at 10:22, the time when the bomb went off. a couple of plaques outside to commemorate the girls. we added a mark they are last year where the bomb went off to commemorate the girls. and we did a stabilization campaign to restore the church so people would always know this was the place where four girls lost their lives. that regalvanized the civil rights movement. tragedy can turn to triumph. that justice delayed is not justice denied. that the rights that we have as individuals today may be free to

us but it cost four individuals their lives to gain their freedoms. >> today is the 100th anniversary of the national park service and american history tv is featuring natural and historic sites across america. you can watch american history tv. and on weekdays during the august congressional break. we continue with our look at the national park service. >> nina allender, contributing over 150 cartoons supporting the campaign for women's suffrage. next we visit the national monument to see her work. >> i am the director at the national monument.

it was formerly on capitol hill in washington, d.c. the national women's party was founded by a woman named alice paul in 1913 as the congressional union for women's suffrage. it became the national women's party in 1916. this group of women spent seven years actively lobbying the president and congress for a federal suffrage amendment at which time, once they received it in 1920, they wrote and began lobbying for the equal rights amendment. during the period when they were lobbying for suffrage, they were working all over the country. actively garnering support from western women voters and bringing the fight directly to the president's doorstep. they had headquarters over 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 picketting 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 were quite peaceful. but they quickly turned to ugly when crowds watching believed them to be unpatriotic. so crowds would throw things at the women they would converge on them and tear the banners from their hands. in june of 1917, the women began being arrested on charges of obstructing traffic. and they were taken to prison and sentenced, prison sentences from they have days to six months. and they were imprisoned at the district prison near washington, d.c. and lorton, virginia, at the work house. they weren't treated like political prisoners. they were treated like any other prisoners. often thrown into their cells.

at times their hands were handcuffed above them. they went on hunger strikes and were force fed. there was a lot of press around what was happening to them which ended up garnering sympathy for their cause. in 1919, thanks to not only the work of the women's national party but other suffrage, the federal amendment was passed by both houses of congress and sent to the states. 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 began working on the equal rights amendment. alice paul and a another woman presented it to the party in 1923. and from that time, the national women's party 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 this house from 1923 until 1997 when they became a 501 c 3. today we work the preserve our outstanding collection of women's suffrage and women's rights artifacts and he had date but not this movement and the stories of this community of women who worked for total equality for women. the belmont paul house is named after alice paul. our original founder. and then alva belmont. it is because of her that we have such a large collection of books, scrap books, artifacts, and many other objects that allow to us tell the story. now we're upstairs. we're going to talk a little about our check of political cartoons by the national women's

party official cartoonist nina allender. the national women's party it was only party to boast an official cartoonist. and her work appeared on the covers of their publication, the suffragist for more than ten years. she grew up in auburn, kansas. she was born in 1872. and her family actually moved to washington, d.c. in, around 1900. her mother was one of the first women employees at the department of the interior and allender studied art with the intention of becoming an art teacher. she was a painter. she loved to paint. that was a big part of her identity. she also worked for the government land office. she recognized that painting wouldn't pay the bills. she was president of the d.c. branch of the national american

woman's suffrage for many years. when alice paul came with the intention of lobbying, all yenlder watched first with interest in this new woman. there is a great story in one of the early biographies where allender and her mother received alice paul at their house. both of course were very interested in the suffrage movement and they were eager to hear from this woman who they claimed 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 sufficientage movement and to the congressional union without realizing what they had committed to or how this little woman had managed to convince them to begin lobbying for the federal amendment. and allender all of a sudden was an active member of this party.

working for the federal sufficientage amendment. so i think she sort of looked flaunld amazement at alice paul's negotiating and strategic way of convincing people to not only work for the movement but also, to give money. so she began her career as an fellow over as the cartoonist of the national women's party. her first work appeared in 1914. and 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. so her first work appeared in, on the cover suffragist. she did more than 150 cartoons for the pages over a period of seven years. they appeared almost weekly. and like most political cartoons

today, they were 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 sufficientage movement. so here's one of her early works. this is one of my favorite pieces in the museum. this is called the inspiration of the suffrage workers. you can see how she's commenting on a lot of ideas in this piece. she is talking about the importance of the vote as a way of changing the condition of 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. and this is obviously in an impoverished area. so especially in these early pieces, she was commenting how the vote would change for the

ability to earn their own wages, protect their children and move up in a society in a way that not having the right to vote or any say in the applause were being made would allow them to do. now we're going to make our way into the gallery. in our collection today, we have about 170 of allender's work. one of her only collections in the country. and 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 the condition of women. but as the suffrage movement progressed and as the activism increased, they began a strategy that they called holding the party in power responsible. that was the party held by woodrow wilson.

so allender's work often pinpointed symbols of the party and the main part, the president. in this piece here, this is called fairy godmother wilson. it was on the cover december 1915. you can see that she is utilizing the fairytale cinderella to make comment bear the power wilson wielded over the improvement and condition of women and over the laws of the country as well. so president wilson is playing fairy godmother. this woman is cinderella. in between, you see the pumpkin as the constitutional amendment. and the mice as the senate and the house. and president wilson is casting a spell to make it possible for her to use the amendment. to use her constitutional amendment to vote for the people who represent her. so a lot of commentary about

president wilson's power. and just as an aside here, in the back ground, the mirror, you see the proud voting sisters. women in western states, many western states had the right to vote at that time. so the national women's party would pinpoint those women and rye to vote to democratic party out of office. the title is "lest we forget. "it was way in which her work reflected, this idea is that the national women's party always paid tribute to the women who were considered mothers of the suffrage movement. 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 actually introduced in it 1875. you can see a group of women and children. you can see women who are college graduates in here. you see this tag here. it says voter and that's indicating western women voters. then here you see a lone woman walking up the steps of the capital. and the date, 1875, when susan b. anthony first introduced that amendment. so 1875 to 1915. the intend of this is to show how far we've come and how far we have to go. for her to pay remember the you'd to these original suffragists and all the work and progress women have made but also reminding their members how far they had to go.

and then we circle over to this cartoon. this cartoon is 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 need to be represented as strength and control. she created the allender girl. this woman was, a different image than a lot of people saw. particularly in images of suffrages and women who appeared in the press at that time. oftentimes, political cartoonists would mock the movement by women look haggard or ugly or fraught in some way. and allender turns that on its head and she creates a youthful, invigorated, intelligent woman. you can see in this image in particular, she is very slender. her skirt is above her ankles

which is quite different at that time. you see the face of fashion. her hands are on her hims and she throws her hat into the ring of politics. so you can see her hat says the women's party. and you see these comical images of a progressive, a democrat and a republican. all looking in wonderment at this woman who is saying, i'll moving in. the importance of this cartoon, as i mentioned, the national women's party was founded as the congressional union for women's suffrage. they changed it to the women's party this june of 1916. so this is publish in the june of 1916. you can see them predicting what is about to happen within their party. so the woman's party was an important name. at times, the nwp grappled with the idea of going beyond lobbying for the federal amendment to actually becoming

an active political player. in the same vain as a republican or a democrat. this is called fashions shelf used to be satisfied with so little. published on march 13, 1915. and this is again an opportunity for allender to comment on how they were targeting congress at this time and showcasing, well, this is talking about so many things here. not only are they targeting congress and you see, national constitutional amendment. in this very grand, ruffly skirt that she's holding out. but she is also wearing a hat that shows new york, pennsylvania, new jersey, and massachusetts. all states that were voting on sufficientage referendums in 1915.

on her skirt she has west virginia and iowa which may have been states also voting at that time. the congressman is looking at her in bewilledment saying, she used to be satisfied with so little. so at this time you see allender focusing her attention on that federal amendment but also talking about how this continued to be state by state by state. her work reflects that in other ways too. as they approach the ratification of the amendment in 1919 and 1920, allender's work began to increasingly reflect the idea that states were still having to ratify this amendment. that could also be a process that could hold them up. in 1919, the women's party created banner in which they started sewing stars. so for every state that

ratified, they would sew a star on the banner. by 1920, they had 36 states on this banner. and the day that suffrage was passed, there is this iconic image of alice paul unfurling the banner at headquarters and showing it for all the members. and we no longer. >> know what happened to that banner. we're hoping someone has it. there is a cartoon also showing the stars on that banner. >> this cartoon is called american justice. it was published on june 1st, 1918. the interesting thing about this cartoon. this is another instance of allender taking the imagery of democracy and patriotism. this is uncle sam standing here

and turning it on its head a little bit. this is a very powerful image. you're seeing uncle sam standing in front of this bound, gagged, helpless woman. and he is holding a bouquet of flowers. what he is saying is american women, you are our inspiration. you give us our soldiers. you conserve our food. you work in our munition factories. you serve our sick and wounded. accept this bouquet. he is sort of trying to force this on this woman. you see her bound with unequal political rights, equal work, unequal wages, and this kindly over mit flowers rope. so these are obviously issues that women still continue to grapple with today. and this image is one where she featured uncle sam, the democratic donkey, the republican elephant, and other typical images of democracy to show case 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 in the united states. and we'll look at another cartoon that really shows that issue. so we're going to move over here. >> this cartoon is called insulting the president. 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 do this. every day, these women would stand in front of the white house holding their banners that would basically speak for them saying mr. president, how long must women wait for liberty? in 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 of 1917, we entered world war i. and then their banners became a little more problematic. they were seen as unpatriotic. and this particular cartoon, like i said, was published in june of 1917. just before women started to be arrested. >> this particular cartoon shows our allender girl again. kind of the skirt above the ankle. this was how women dressed when they were standing at the white house. so her work 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 by wilson saying, we shall fight for the things we have always carried nearest our hearts. to have a voice in their own governments. and then it says ww at the

bottom. and this was fairly typical. this is just before they're being arrested. and allender's work continues to reflect that a lot over the next, in particular the next several months where the arrests became particularly violent. so you start to see her work show women in prison. you see other instances again of the elephant being used to persecute women. so they're kind of keeping up that targeting congress and targeting the party in power by using these banners to their advantage. and they picketed the white house. they picketed congress at times and they took their banners across the country, too. so they were really lobbying against congress in a very national way. we're going to move across to this cartoon.

which was published in february 1st, 1920. so we're almost to the finish line. this is called training the animals. at this point, the amendment had been sent to the states for ratification. so passage was all but, the hope was that passage was all but achieved. so you see, the democratic donkey and the republican elephant standing there as the woman is holding a treat that says, vote on it. so she is literally training these animals to get used to the idea that women are entering the political arena and will exercise their right to vote. so her 1920 cartoons in particular sort of reemphasizing this over and over again. and i believe this is one of the final times that she actually employed the donkey and the elephant. >> so this car soon the called,

call to the women voters. stand by your sisters. >> and this is obviously, you can see it is an unfinished cartoon. it has the mast head started here of suffragist. the masthead of their publication. and she is using the imagery to make an impact. they often showed women in this sort of, in this way, this march woman is wearing the flowing robes and blowing a horn. and the intent of this piece is actually to garner support from western women voters. to bring them together to vote as a block against the democratic party. the finished product looked very different once it was published in the suffragist. you will see that they added some slogans and pieces to the original drawing. allender did the bones and then the art i havists added to it.

and this is show casing her work. she would work with editors to find the week's focus. and then the editors would feed her articles that would appear in the suffragist so they would tie together nicely. and there is a great quote in the suffragist 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 library at the belmont-paul house. the first feminist library in the united states by the national women's party in 1941. this is the primary place where we house our collection. and even more importantly, he with house all of our cartoons in this space.

so i've pulled out a few cartoons to show some additional assets of her work. this particular piece is fantastic. one of her earlier pieces. and you can see, 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 the work is child saving is woman's work. votes for women. and i believe in a june issue, you can see the factories in the background. then the crowds, the line of women and children that are wrapped around. but this is also a great opportunity for to us talk a little about the materials that

allender used to create these works. she chb used graphite or charcoal to draw them. there are very few instances where she uses color in her work. and i will show you in a moment a piece where she uses color. sometimes she would use water color page. she was never picky that the type of paper she would use. it was obvious that she would use whatever she had in her studio at the time. it could be anything from artists' paper to a poster to something thicker, like a poster board, cardboard, sometimes you see that she started a work and then didn't like it. she would scratch it out and turn it over and use the same material to start a new piece. so it really varied the 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 the issues of them at the women's national headquarters. she would give them to the editors of the suffragist. they would go you this an editing process. she would make recommendations on captions. sometimes the captions would be changed. went back and forth on that. they would make markings on the backs. and then these items would be put on to metal print blocks that were then used to print the newspaper. and distant matter how large or small they were. they always appeared to be the same size once they were on the cover of the suffragist. so i'll the chose this this piece. because of the many materials that she used, you can see that this piece has split the two

over time. so it gives us a chance to talk about how fragile these materials are. the 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. there are holes in them. the national women's party didn't mean for these pieces to survive as long as they have. they were work product. that's how they were treated. so close this. so we have a few additional works that show the editing process. i'll show this piece. this is quite a powerful drawing. you can see the woman is held by a noose. so the senate has her in a noose from the tree. and she is representing the

suffrage movement here. and then there is this group, this person writing in to save democracy. i believe this is woodrow wilson here. and the caption that allender chose 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. if you flip it over, a lot of these have allender's original notes. in this case, she is addressing this to the editor and saying i am sure you can come one a better caption than i have. so she is suggesting that they need to think about the caption they want to use for this. and rethink what her recommendation is. this is one of the pieces that i mentioned. she uses color. this is water color that she uses on here. this is a fairly simple cartoon. it was published in 1919.

the caption that she wrote is 31 more days. so they're showing the date. this would have been right around the time that it would be published. she is demonstrating they only have 31 more days for a march deadline to achieve their, to perhaps get suffrage passed. held in congress or something along those line. then you flip it over. and there is a pretty lengthy note from nina allender and i'll paraphrase it. she says, there is 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 about what this actually means so our members will understand. so this is her way of saying this is not so simple. i think people will need a

little help with this one. this is another freight instance of where you can see the pin holes in it. there are little pin marks where they would put these up on the walls. and there is a great image of nina allender surrounded by her work. this was something they had to do every week to get their issue of the suffragist out. this was her job and she worked very hard to make it happen efficiently, quickly and get it to the editors so they could add it to the issue. i'm going to talk a little about their cartoons that she did once they won the right to vote. and started working toward the

equal rights amendment. so this particular piece is called protection. and one of the early issues that the national women's party was working for and really publicizing a lot is protection of women. so how the equal rights amendment would lend itself to increased protection of women trying to raise their children. independence for mothers who weren't necessarily married or widowed mothers. equal pay. this is one of those pieces demonstrating how the equal rights amendment will lend itself to increased protection for women. one of the big opposing the arguments was that protective labor legislation would be negatively impacted if the e.r.a. were to be passed. so this would have also been published around 1923 or 1924. these women have the right to

vote and they're presenting to susan b. anthony the bill of rights. this was not captioned but it would have been in the equal rights magazine. and susan b. anthony is going down the bill of rights and showing the rights that women still do not have. saying you have a lot of work to do. and the national women's party still believed that. nina allender said that this gave her power nothing else did. i don't think she intended to become a political cartoonist. she was an artist, a painter and she believed that was her path. over the course of ten years, she ended up drawing more than 200 cartoons for the national women's party. images that resonated with women. someone they could look up to and relate to. so her perspective became very important to the overall success

and strategy of the national women's party. this like so many other, 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 though casing the strategy to bring this to a close. in 1920 when women got the right to vote, it made expense allender continued to draw. her last work appears in 1927. but allender continued to work for the national women's party ultimately becoming cheryl of the world women's party later on. and chairman of the legal counsel so she really delved into other areas later in her life shelf passed away at the age of 88. her work today tens to resonate with visitors. and it is a draw for a lot of

people who come here. but oddly enough, she continues to not be as well known as we would like. we invite people to come here and see her work and the work of others, to experience this hall of portraits in this community of women and the stories that we're able to tell. nina allender, her work at one point was referred to like this. a woman speaking to women in the language of women about women. and that remains true today. so here in the hall of portraits, we envit you to come in and experience ourselfie station where you can become part of this hall and see yourself as a future leader. empower your sons and daughters to fight for women's equality and to be a part of women's empowerment. and activity in politics. the house is actually open thursdays, fridays and saturdays

from 11:00 to 4:00. and we invite you to take a tour. you can watch this and other programs at c-span.org/history. american history tv is marking the centennial of the national park service. we asked members of congress which national park service site this your state has special meaning to you and why. sth my first introduction to the national park service was at the gettysburg field. i was 15. it was a high school trip. and it was love at first sight. and i was taken both by the extraordinary nature of our national park service and how important a role they play in american history and in

education, but also, the civil war. and so i have made it my high of long habit to visit a civil war battlefield run by the national park service every chance i get. from gettysburg to bull run near where i live in virginia. to fredericksburg, to the wilderness, vicksberg. it is an extraordinary service the parks service the has. that piece of our history that was so critical and so pivotal in changing the country. >> when great decisions were made to preserve big chunks of land and even historical sites, starting i guess with ulysses s. grant. certainly through teddy roosevelt and president obama.