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Kitty Calash

~ Confessions of a Known Bonnet-Wearer

Kitty Calash

Category Archives: TV Review

A Brief Bibliography: Suffrage

21 Sunday Jun 2020

Posted by kittycalash in Research, TV Review

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

National Woman's Party, Research, resources, woman suffrage, women's history

women hold signs

Suffrage Campaign, Pickets, College Day, 1917. NWP Collection 1917.001.020

I was roused from the torpor of this year’s endless existential crisis to imprecate the television screen when we watched The Vote, PBS’s two-part series on how the women’s suffrage movement. In the past nine months, I’ve given myself a crash course in women’s suffrage in order to intelligently perform at my contract position with the National Woman’s Party in Washington, D. C. As their Collections Manager, I can’t catalog, track provenance, and arrange unprocessed materials without knowing what you’re looking at. I’ve also provided researchers and documentarians with hundreds of images, including dozens used in The Vote. As a result, I was really anxious to see the film.

Lafayette Statue Demonstrations, Fall, 1918. NWP Collection , 1918.001.085.01

After viewing it, I thought a bibliography could be helpful for those interested in exploring topics and context in greater detail. The women’s suffrage movement and the passage of the 19th Amendment a century ago may seem unimportant compared to everything happening now, but knowing more about that movement can help us understand some of the divisions we see today.

girl in front of suffrage signs

Congressional Union Headquarters in Atlantic City, 1914. NWP Collection, 1914.001.066

A Brief Bibliography

I was able to get all of these from my local library system or using their ILL services.

Bausum, Ann. With Courage and Cloth: Winning the Fight for a Woman’s Right to Vote. Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2004.

Belmont, Alva E. (Mrs. Oliver H. P. Belmont ). “Woman’s Right to Govern Herself.” The North American Review, Vol. 190, No. 648 (November, 1909), pp. 664-674 University of Northern Iowa Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25106503

Cahill, Bernadette. Alice Paul, the National Woman’s Party and the Vote: The First Civil Rights Struggle of the 20th Century. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2005.

Cassidy, Tina. Mr. President, how long must we wait? Alice Paul, Woodrow Wilson, and the Fight for the Right to Vote. New York: 37 Ink/Atria, 2019.

Dumenil, Lynn. The Second Line of Defense: American Women and World War I. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020.

Graham, Sally Hunter (1983). “Woodrow Wilson, Alice Paul, and the Woman Suffrage Movement.” Political Science Quarterly. 98 (4): 665–679.

Johnson, Joan. Funding Feminism: Monied Women, Philanthropy and the Women’s Movement, 1870–1967. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017.

Lindsey, Treva B. Colored No More: Reinventing Black Womanhood in Washington, D.C. University of Illinois Press. (2017) Chapter Title: “Performing and Politicizing “Ladyhood”: Black Washington Women and New Negro Suffrage Activism.” https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctt1p6qq7h.7

Roberts, Rebecca Boggs. Suffragists in Washington, D.C.: the 1913 Parade and the Fight for the Vote. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2017.

Walton, Mary. A Woman’s Crusade: Alice Paul and the Battle for the Ballot. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

Weiss, Elaine. The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote. New York: Penguin Publishing Group, 1918. (available as an ebook)

Zahniser, J. D. and Amelia R. Fry. Alice Paul: Claiming Power. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014 (available as an ebook)

Online exhibits:

Library of Congress: Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote

National Archives: Rightfully Hers: American Women and the Vote

National Portrait Gallery: Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence 

Online Resouces:
Library of Congress: Women’s Suffrage Teacher’s Guide

Additional Library of Congress resources, including another bibliography

PBS Videos on Women’s History

PBS/Ken Burns on Women’s Suffrage

Women Voters Envoys, December, 1915. Envoys, left to right: Miss Kindberg, Sara Bard Field, Mabel Vernon, and Miss Kindstedt. NWP Collection, 1915.001.228.02

Some things left out are minor. Still, the two Swedish women who drove the American women from the San Francisco Exposition to Washington in 1915 collecting signatures in support of women’s suffrage had names: Maria Kindberg and Ingeborg Kindstedt. Marie owned and drove the car; Ingeborg was the mechanic.

women standing around a desk

Alice Paul (left) and Alva E. Belmont (right, seated) with members of the National Woman’s Party, around the desk that belonged to Susan B. Anthony. NWP Collection, 1920.001.107

Alva Belmont was active in the suffrage movement and funded much of the work of the National Woman’s Party, eventually going the party over $76,000. Belmont, whose first husband was William Vanderbilt, hosted Suffrage Teas at Marble House in Newport, RI. The iconic “Votes for Women” china? That was Alva’s. The NWP would not have been able to function without funding, and Alva (along with other wealthy women) was there to provide it.

Victory. Published on the front cover of The Suffragist, September 1, 1920. Charcoal drawing by Nina Allender. NWP Collection, 1920.003.008

In addition to donations, funding came from subscriptions to The Suffragist. The weekly newspaper was written, edited, and published first by the Congressional Union of NAWSA and then by the NWP. The covers frequently featured drawings and cartoons by Nina Allender, perhaps the most famous suffrage cartoonist.

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Wolf Whistle

08 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by kittycalash in History, Literature, Living History, TV Review

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Anne Boleyn, art history, authenticity, Hilary Mantel, historic interiors, interpretation, Thomas Cromwell, TV Review, Wolf Hall

Thomas Cromwell, Hans Holbein the Younger. The Frick Collection,1915.1.76

Thomas Cromwell, Hans Holbein the Younger. The Frick Collection,1915.1.76

At last it has arrived: Wolf Hall. I waited, and did not use a proxy server to watch it early. Just as well that I watch PBS online as I have, thus far, watched the first episode three times.

At last I can understand people’s enthusiasm for historical programs some of us seethe at and cannot watch: my knowledge of the Tudors and their material world is limited enough that I am captivated and not annoyed (except by Anne Boleyn’s wrinkled silk satin bodice, which is striking in its puckers) and I read the books when they came out, and have thus forgotten enough of the details to be merely annoyed and not enraged at changes. (Other, real, critics have caught the language changes in the scene with Wolsey; Mantel is better, of course.)

The third Wolf-watching was with Mr S, who was suitably impressed by the low-light filming. As a former photographer who did a lot of night photography, improper and unbelievable lighting in film does cause an outbreak of caustic commentary. Not this time (he merely noted the fill light on Liz Cromwell’s face in one scene). With 20,000 pounds spent on candles, the BBC did this one right– and lucky for them the advance in camera technology.

But forgot the astronomical cost of all those tapers, that’s not the point: the point is what was believable and how the staging and lighting were used. I believed Wolf Hall all the more because of the low light, indoors and out, matching the time of day. I know how dim it is to light only with candles, and what a pain it is to make them, and how expensive. Light is money, whether you’re paying Ameren, National Grid, or the candlestick maker.

Aside from Hilary Mantel’s brilliant stories and all those candles, what makes this Wolf Hall good television? You know what I’m going to say: the authenticity. No, there are no Tudor accents, late or otherwise; these folks use our vernacular. And excellent arguments can be had about the historical accuracy of Mantel’s characters.

There are other arguments about the material details:

“The dull palette used – presumably in conscious contrast to The Tudors – created an ambience which, at worst, was lacklustre or, at best, homely. And it is that homeliness that concerns me most.

The homely is unthreatening. So, we are invited to view a ‘Tudor world’ as we know it or, rather, as we would like it to be. For instance, I was struck by how classless the society was – social gradation seemed to have disappeared both in the interactions and the interiors. There was little sense (as there is in the novels) of the heavy distaste for a man of such lowly birth as Cromwell’s; there was limited hauteur in a Norfolk or, indeed, the king. Meanwhile, the buildings which were home to Cromwell – still, at this point a lawyer in Wolsey’s service – seemed to lack none of the late-medieval conveniences afforded to the higher born and bettered housed. This is a world which has been domesticated for us so that it is tame, familiar and quintessentially English.”

Anne Boleyn
by Unknown artist
oil on panel, late 16th century (circa 1533-1536)
21 3/8 in. x 16 3/8 in. (543 mm x 416 mm)
Purchased, 1882. NPG 668 [Britain}

I will say that I was struck not just by the cleanliness of everything in an age before detergents (the blacksmith’s yard is remarkably pristine) and the amount of stuff in Cromwell’s house, but also by the softness of class lines. An argument could be made that depicting that much background detail would distract from the larger story, that of Cromwell and Anne and Thomas More, and the dissolution of the Catholic church in England.*

I know Cromwell ended up with riches but on the BBC he seemed to start ahead of where I thought he was at the start of the novel, mercenary and mercantile background aside.

Still: the spirit of the story and of Mantel’s Cromwell seem well-drawn here, and that’s what makes the difference between a series of living Holbeins and a gripping tale. That’s also what makes the difference between museum mannequins and costumed interpreters: emotional authenticity.

No: you cannot get costume and material culture wrong and still claim emotional authenticity as your defense. But the factor that makes a good event or site great is the believability of the characters, and that means more than a lecture on fine details. It means understanding the past, and even admitting what we don’t understand, and seek still to learn.

* Here’s an interesting and tough take on Cromwell’s work destroying the church.

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Visual Illiteracy

23 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by kittycalash in Art Rant, Clothing, Fail, Research, Snark, TV Review

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

art, Banastre Tarleton, Captain Tallmadge, Colonel Tarleton, dragoons, helmets, light, museum collections, National Gallery, paintings, Research, Revolutionary War, Turn

Banastre Tarlteon by Joshua Reynolds

Portrait of Sir Banastre Tarleton (1754-1833) by Joshua Reynolds, 1782. National Gallery (UK)


See update below!

By 9:00 on Sunday, I was asleep and missed “Turn,” which Mr S wasn’t even watching because, as he declared, “It’s just a bad show.” On Monday evening, I made it through the opening of the show and gave up for good. But those minutes made me think of the Banastre Tarleton portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and the suggestion on Twitter that “Turn” had no historical consultant.

It occurred to me, as I stared at the rather curious headgear worn by Captain Tallmadge (I think it’s stretch lycra over a “Roman” gladiator costume helmet glued to a baseball cap visor and edge-taped with gold foil) that perhaps the people doing the costumes simply lacked visual literacy. This could explain the refugees from Fort Lee who looked like they stepped out of an Emma Lazarus poem, and it could explain the very unfortunate helmet.

Tarleton_notes

Let us look at Banastre Tarleton, hunky bad boy of the British dragoons: he came to mind on Monday night, and what visual relief he is.

Note the light edge of the visor: this is a highlight. The leading edge of a polished surface will shine, and helmets, even of leather, will be reflective. Over time, the edges will polished by wear if not on purpose. I cannot speak to the helmet habits of the horse-mounted, but I know from paintings, and that edge is a highlight.

The Boys last July. Look, shiny, not-taped visor edges.

The Boys last July. Look, shiny, not-taped visor edges.

Reynolds painted what he saw, and just as the Young Mr’s cheekbones are reflecting light off the underside of his visor and Mr S’s helmet edge is shining in the direct light, so too is Colonel Tarleton’s helmet edge shining.

(Yes, there are both mounted and unmounted dragoons within a unit; but I just can’t help feeling that an officer would be mounted more often than he has appeared to be thus far.)

ETA: Heather has graciously pointed out a very nice blog on Turn, which is doing a far more even-handed and informed job of watching and commenting on the show. Thank you, Heather!

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Not in Defense of ‘Turn’

14 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by kittycalash in Fail, History, Snark, TV Review

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

18th century clothes, 18th century clothing, historical fiction, history, material culture, Revolutionary War, snark, Turn, TV Review

John André’s self-portrait, 1780. George Dudley Seymour Papers, Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University

John André’s self-portrait, 1780. George Dudley Seymour Papers, Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University

Like all the other history-obsessed Rev War reenactors with basic cable, Mr S and I have been watching ‘Turn’ on AMC, and like some other reenactors, I’ve been lurking on the fringes of the Facebook feeds trashing the show, but hoping a contrarian view would be possible, just to keep things interesting.

So we watched last night with the best intentions: I would not think about shoulder seams, drawstring-neck shifts, circular caps, obvious mascara, white linen shirts on farmers, shirts with neck bands but not collars, a lilac silk cloak on a farmers’ wife, the amazing amount of light candles throw, beards on smugglers who look like they escaped from a spaghetti western… Mr S has learned to live with this and I have learned to keep quieter. He learns best visually, so he really had hopes for this show. I think we all did, even given what we know Hollywood does to historical realities.

Mr S keeps asking, “Where’s the war? Where are the soldiers?”

I keep asking, “Why is Tallmadge allowed to be on his own for so long, and what the heck is wrong with his uniform facings? And he’s a dragoon, where the heck is his horse?”

The low shoulder seams on Woodhull’s leather(?) jacket still make me nuts, though I think Anna serving in the tavern in a pristine white apron over a cranberry silk button-front gown really took the cake last night, costume-wise.

The dialogue howler I enjoyed the most (i.e. caused the final outburst) was Major Andre and his “player” girlfriend who is so not pumping him for information (horrid pun intentionally retained).

If you were the suave Major, you would respond with complete candor to the charming (mascara-eyelashed, obvious foundation-wearing, look out for the lip-gloss) woman’s question: “You will tell me where you’re going on your next secret mission, won’t you?” “Why, sweetie, yes, and let me use my time machine to bring you the Enigma machine and a smallpox vaccination.”

I expect and grudgingly tolerate:

  • Bad costuming
  • Odd set dressing (highly suspicious table in the church-stable; suspect it would be happier in Amistad)
  • The incredible candlepower of candles
  • Non-18th century speech rhythms
  • Changes to actual events for increased drama

But patently absurd, asinine dialogue on top of all that goes beyond my patience.

I should give it up: Two Advil PM at 8 and I’ll no longer spend an hour every Sunday night performing mental alterations on TV costumes. (Those shoulder seams really annoy me, and could someone try pressing the facings?)

But no; next week, Fort Lee should fall and chances are good Mr S will lead the screen-shouting…

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