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Kitty Calash

~ Confessions of a Known Bonnet-Wearer

Kitty Calash

Tag Archives: resources

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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Got to Get By: Resources for a Quarantine

14 Tuesday Apr 2020

Posted by kittycalash in Living History

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Tags

covid-19, reading, resources, things to do indoors

How are you going to Get By these days? For some of us, Self-Isolation or Quarantine or Artist-in-Residence or whatever you are calling the past four to six weeks has been not much different from everyday life. We work from home, and while our income may have decreased because people have less disposable income, we still have plenty to do. There are patterns to write, things to make, food to cook, gardens to weed and plant, files to organize. Other folks lack inclination or access: not everyone likes the same thing, some people are always tidy. For most of us, though, reading is a tolerable past time, and one you can indulge in safely

Organizing research files gave me a sense of control and made my workspace nicer.

But what about now, when you’ve read all your library books and the library is closed? If you have a library card, chances are you have access to free ebooks through OverDrive or Libby. You can synch OverDrive to your library account and check out ebooks for free. I don’t love reading on a screen, but needs must. 

The University of Chicago Press offers a free ebook every month, and thanks to that offer, I have been exposed to books I would not have encountered otherwise. (They have also lowered the epub and PDF prices of some of their books this month.) Other publishers (Random House/Penguin, for example) have done the same. 

If you, like me and many others, are missing the luxury and solace of art, the Met can help you. For years they’ve had their publications online, many downloadable as PDFs. There are a *lot* of publications. On the other coast of this continent, the Getty offers their publications online, to, and you can find LACMA catalogs online, too.

Need other distractions? Want to remind those around you to social distance? Frog & Toad of Providence has the shirt for you, based on the RI Governor’s now-famous (ok, in small circles) order to Knock it Off. (I think it’s the perfect Mother’s Day present, but we run to odd.) 

Books from Symposium in PVD.
Books from Symposium in PVD.
The cookbook was for Monty.
The cookbook was for Monty.

Want to hold a print book in your hand? Your local indie bookstore may well be shipping. I ended up ordering from both Symposium Books and Books on the Square in Providence because they had what I wanted at the price I could afford. 

There are free sewing patterns online, too, at a range of places from Mood Fabrics to Fabric-Store.com if you want a new garment. You can also still get patterns, fabrics, and (some) notions from your local independent fabric stores. In addition to the favorites I use for historical costuming (in the sidebar under “Sutlers”), I buy from Harts in San Jose (really like their pattern and cotton print fabric selection). It’s far away but shipping, service, and selection are all excellent. Fabric.com is still shipping (more slowly) but they have a wide selection, as does Fabric Mart, who helpfully notes shipping delays and news on their website.

Burnley & Trowbridge linen, Assembly Line apron dress.

Notions, like interfacing and thread, are harder to come by than you might think, but I was able to get interfacing and needles from my local shop in Alexandria. Bored with the usual selections? I find new places from the “Stockists” or “Retailers” section of pattern companies I like. This is helpful when the patterns I like are made by Scandinavian companies (I am currently obsessed with The Assembly Line.)

 

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To Name a Thing is to Know theThing: Vocabulary Exercises

08 Tuesday Aug 2017

Posted by kittycalash in Clothing, History, Living History, Research

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Tags

CoBloWriMo, definitions, fabric, fashion plates, future projects, Research, resources, vocabulary

Today’s CoBloWriMo prompt is vocabulary, which in my case usually means blue, NSFW, or unprintable in the New York Times according to their Style Guide, (but now OK in the New Yorker, thank you Tina Brown).

Captain Haddock proclivities aside, I find myself trying to remember to use period-correct terms as I work, which means trying to figure out what the terms mean. It isn’t always easy, but there are number of printed and online sources.

Here, for example, is the Robe de Marcelline fashion plate I’ve been obsessed with since at least 2011, when Sabine made hers. I finally tracked down some dark green gingham fabric in Framingham, but, d’oh! It’s cotton and not marcel(l)ine.

Google Books provides many useful lookups, through dictionaries and, best of all at the moment, The Dictionary of Fashion History, which helpfully illuminates marceline as “a brilliant but slight kind of sarcenet.” That helps narrow down “lining fabric for women’s clothes,” and confirms that this is a lightweight, probably plain weave, silk.

That doesn’t solve my fabric issue, but given that I am still lack full-time work outside the house, Imma stick with my remnant table cotton. But at least I know what I *should* be using, and have expanded my vocabulary along the way.

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Styles Style: Book Recommendation

06 Sunday Aug 2017

Posted by kittycalash in Book Review, material culture, Research

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

book review, CoBloWriMo, Research, resources

Please forgive the watch– a test shot of a gown from a runaway ad.

This is a quick one, because I’m writing in advance of a trip to New England, but for me, the best secondary source I’ve read that helped me understand the people I was clothing is John Styles’ The Dress of the People. That’s not to say that I haven’t read more, and found period resources and collections of resources equally useful. If you’re doing a poor woman in America, Don Hagist is your man, with Wenches, Wives and Serving Girls (now Wives, Slaves, and Servant Girls. Read Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Uneasy Patriarchs for more on period terminology).

I like Styles because he helps us understand the why of people’s clothing, and their wants. For me, context is key (I harp on this a lot) so insight into how many shifts are usual, the fashion for pocket watches, and the activity of the second hand clothes market is really helpful. So despite my love of shiny satin gowns and fashion of all eras, among the few books I didn’t send to storage when I moved was The Dress of the People. I think that’s a strong recommendation.

(researc

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Fave Friday: Full-On Federal

04 Friday Aug 2017

Posted by kittycalash in Clothing, History, Research

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

19th century clothing, CoBloWriMo, fashion, Federal style, personal, Research, resources


Favorite Era? Easy-peasy! Federal, of course. Whether furniture or fashion, the early Republic is my thing. I spend a fair amount of time in the 18th century, since there are so many events in that time period, and while I loved the story of the American Revolution as a child, the early Federal* period intrigues me more. Furniture, porcelain, wallpaper, and clothing from 1790-1820 all appeal to me, as well as the notion that women’s roles were in flux in the earliest decades of the United States.

“American Women and French Fashion,” from The Age of Napoleon

I love the idea of women in mercantile businesses and trade, and the way that milliners provided access to fashion (and you can read more about that in The Age of Napoleon).

Merrymaking at a Wayside Inn, watercolor on paper by John Lewis Krimmel. 1811-1813. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 42.95.12

I also love the way that American women (and men) translated European high style into a vernacular, as seen in John Lewis Krimmel’s watercolors of Philadelphia and surrounding areas.

This is a time period I’m comfortable in (yes, the stays are part of that comfort) but aside from comfort and aesthetics, I think it’s also because for a brief time, women had slightly more freedom than they had previously.

It was short-lived, and Republican motherhood was confining in its own way before the “cult of womanhood” blossomed fully. But ideals of freedom and fashion very briefly aligned, and for that, I love the Federal– and vain creature that I am, I think it suits me.

*pre-Andy Jackson, amirite?

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