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Tag Archives: National Woman’s Party

A Brief Bibliography: Suffrage

21 Sunday Jun 2020

Posted by kittycalash in Research, TV Review

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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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Suffrage Wardrobe

13 Thursday Feb 2020

Posted by kittycalash in Clothing, Living History, material culture, Museums, Research

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Tags

1910s, 1913, material culture, National Woman's Party, vintage clothing, vintage sewing, woman suffrage

The weekly newspaper of the Congressional Union and National Woman’s Party

2020 is the Centennial of the 19th Amendment granting women in the United States the right to vote. Oddly enough, I am currently on a contract with the National Woman’s Party, founded by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns as an offshoot of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), and originally called the Congressional Union. The split was largely over tactics and splits continued over the years, again, mostly about tactics and mission. (In the post-suffrage years, splits continued, largely over how to pass the Equal Rights Amendment.)

I’m waiting to find out if the site has been awarded a grant I applied for in December so that I can produce a collections open house and living history event in late April designed to explore the material culture of the NWP’s protests. On the off chance that I’ll get the grant, and on the basis of a life-long obsession with the 1910s formed when I watched Testament of Youth on Masterpiece Theatre and promptly demanded the book, I have begun to consider the component parts of a suffragist’s wardrobe. (You gotta have something to think about on the Metro.)

Capes in violet and yellow were part of the costumes worn in suffrage parades and pageants

Here’s the preliminary list:

Chemise
Drawers
Corset
Stockings
Petticoat
Corset cover
Skirt
Blouse
Jacket or sweater (we’ll be indoors)
Boots or shoes
Votes for Women button

I am incredibly lucky to have found (separately) a silk blouse and a wool skirt that both fit me! I also have a wool skirt that is too small, but could be patterned, and a cotton blouse, that could also be patterned. But given what I have to accomplish by the end of April, I think it’s most likely I’ll need to wear the antiques.

Stylish suffragists in the capitol for a meeting

What do I have to make, if I get this grant and decide to be one of the costumed interpreters?

At a minimum:

Chemise
Drawers
Corset

Now, I could opt for a union suit of the kind Our Girl History made, but I’m not super convinced by my abilities to sew knits. Before she posted the union suit, I was planning to use the Dreamstress’s guide to 1910s underwear.

The Suffragist was funded in part by ads.

I have the Scroop pattern, and if I finish my projects and I get the grant, I’ll dive into this decade sometime in March. It’s hard to say whether I’d like to get it or not: there is always the “Oh crap, now we have to pull off this project!” factor with any grant award. It’s daunting, but at the same time, once those projects are finished, thinking about the who, how, and where of the making of suffrage banners and capes is pretty appealing for a material culture person.

In the meantime, while I’m at work, inventory projects provide lots of exposure to inspiration.

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