 Kick-off of the Centrum of Osher Ali program for 9th, for 2023-24. We have 11 programs and we have three movies, as is our tradition. We are in our 14th year and we are one of seven of the regional chapters of the Osher Life Long Learning Institute. And we are so, so pleased to be kicking off the first of our 11 programs with Linda Radke, who has been my neighbor for more than 40 years. We both live in Middlesex. After retiring from teaching at Harvard Union High School, she started to research old songs as a way to learn about history and has developed programs for the Vermont Humanities Council of Vermont Songs and Our History. On Vermont Songs and Our History, sorry, Linda is a professional singer, a founding member of Counterpoint and frequent alto soloist in the region. She hosts the choral hour on Vermont Public every week. Today she shares what she's learned about the long fight for voting rights for women on the songs they sang. She is accompanied by David Gibson of Riverton. Without her due, here comes Linda Radke. There's a wave of indignation rolling round and round the land and its mission is so mighty and its meaning is so grand that none but knaves and cowards dare deny its just demand as we go marching. Whence came your foolish notion now so greatly overgrown that a woman's sober judgment is not equal to your own as God ordained that suffrage is a gift for you alone as we go marching. Men and brothers dare you do. Men and brothers dare you do. So as our friend Pete Seeger said, if the audience knows the tune and you're having a rally, half your work is done. And so a lot of times the suffrage movement used familiar songs and then put new words to them at the rallies and at the marches. It was an amazing journey for them for so many years and I urge you afterwards to visit my little old school science fair project thing instead of having a PowerPoint because I have pictures. Many of these women had portraits done and also I have some information about Montpelier suffragists. I shouldn't even be talking, I don't have my gloves on. I always wondered why the suffragists dressed so well and they wanted to be taken seriously and that was sort of the reason. The colors were purple, yellow and of course white. If you were forced... Really? Okay. So I'm going to be talking about those 72 years beginning with 1848 Women's Rights Convention in my hometown of Seneca Falls, New York. And actually when I grew up there there was no women's history being taught. So the actual site, if you've been to the National Park there, was the laundromat. And it had like a little tiny New York sign on the side on this site. So I was so grateful in the 70s for those 70 feminists and the federal government to go in and really look at women's history. And for me looking at women's history in Vermont led me to some of the leaders of the suffrage movement. Then I kept on... During COVID I kept on reading and reading and reading and finding out more about the suffrage movement that has been recently researched. Certainly the people who were left out of the movement. There's a lot of stuff there now that I could learn about. But when I was growing up I remember Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Our school was named for her but I had no idea who she was. There was a big picture of her and we thought she was Mrs. Santa Claus or something. So really, really beautiful as an older woman. And also I went back to my 50th high school reunion and I looked at our old American history textbook which was a New York state textbook. And I looked up women's suffrage, one sentence. In 1920 women were given the vote. And so we know it took decades and decades many of these women never lived to vote. But they came in many different generations. And what I want to focus on too besides the songs is how they used persuasion. Because nobody gives up power without a fight. And so they began with more genteel methods of persuasion and then by the time 70 years had gone by politeness will only get you so far. And so then I'll talk about the rallies and the picketing and the marches on Washington. So the first song I want to sing comes from the early days and it's called I Will Speak My Mind If I Die For It. And it reminds me of Gilbert Nisullivan a little bit. It's very early, 1852. And at that point in Vermont history I think one woman had dared to speak to the legislature so far about women's suffrage. And at that point it was just municipal suffrage. So initially they came from the parlor. Like the women would get together. Women's clubs were really central to every community and they would talk about issues of the day. Then if they got geared up to try to do a petition their next step would be the church. Usually the church basement. There are a lot of allies among the pastors especially the Methodists and the Unitarian which in those days was the church of the Messiah. And they often could use the basement while the church was heated or for prayer meetings or something and meet. Next step the town hall. And that was hard because a lot of women had no training in public speaking unless you were Quaker then you were allowed to speak. So that took a lot. And then the state legislature of course and then to Washington D.C. So it was a long haul thing. And this is from 1920. But you think about the time of this song women were in hoop skirts and corsets. And I love this one because it's pretty radical but I think it was probably just meant for women singing together and the covers of the music are over there. And often it would say this tune is sung by Mrs. John Smith. You know it'd be some vaudeville act or something. So it was really hard because women had no names. So I had to really work on it. So here it is. I will speak my mind if I die for it. Mentalist is fit for wives to submit to their husbands submissively weekly and whatever they say their wives should obey submissively done with a weekly I'm sorry. I'm questioning stupidly making. Our husbands would force us their own dictum take without ever aware for or why for it. But I don't and I can't and I won't and I shan't. No I will speak my mind if I die for it. For we know it's all fudge to say man is the best judge of what should be and shouldn't and so on that women should bound or attempt to say how they consider the matter to go on. I never yet gave up myself such a slave however my husband might try for it. But I won't and I can't and I won't and I shan't. No I will speak my mind if I die for it. And you ladies I hope with the husbands to cope with the rites of the sex will not trifle. We all if we choose our tongues but to use can all opposition soon stifle. Let man if he will then bid us be still and silent a price he'll pay high for it. For we won't and we can't and we don't and we shan't let us all speak our minds if we die for it. Thank you. So initially it wasn't about voting. Initially it was about other rights of women certainly to own property to inherit property and then eventually in Vermont in the 1880s women were given the chance to vote only in municipal elections. So it was a gradual thing and in Seneca Falls and the declaration of the rights of women at the end it talks about women perhaps voting and I remember here reading that Elizabeth Cady Stanton wanted to put that in. She was the radical of the group. And Lucretia Mott the Quaker said no Lizzie thou would make us look ridiculous. Like that's just too far. So it's interesting how it started off gradually and then just kind of snowballed and how did they try to convince other people especially men and one was using something that people everybody considers a very important word in their language which is mother and the idea that we love and respect our mothers how could we insult them by not allowing them to have full citizenship and I thought it was interesting because that's a very emotional appeal and later on they had this whole debate about whether voting would sort of take women away from their proper role in the home and with the children. Big debate there. So this tune is another one from the Civil War. It's actually sung at rallies and also at General Sherman's funeral I think but this is the new words and it's called giving the ballot to the mothers and I want to dedicate this to a mobiliar woman. Her name is Phoebe Stone Beeman and her husband was a Methodist minister. He was also a suffragist and by the way a suffragette was something they used in England but here they tried to figure out what to do because so many men were part of the movement either from temperance for prohibition or for abolition of slavery or for women's rights and they tried to call them suffragents for a while and they really were really important because some of them had power so her husband was the Methodist minister and she was in the first class at Wesleyan University to admit women. That was 1870s and she became a member of the WCTU the Women's Christian Temperance Movement and then she became the president of the Vermont Equal Suffrage Association and at one point, I love this by the way she died in 1913 never got a chance to vote nationally but one of the meetings she brought her child to the meeting and somebody in the newspaper wrote it's important that she's showing that women can still care for children and still be involved in public affairs. So here's the song Giving the Ballad to the Mothers Bring the good old bugle boys we'll sing another song sing it with a spirit that will start the cause along sing it as we ought to sing it cheerily and strong giving the ballad to the mothers Hurrah, hurrah we'll sing the Jubilee Hurrah, hurrah our spirit shall be free so we'll sing this chorus from the mountains to the sea giving the ballad to the mothers bring the dear old banner boys and fling it to the wind mothers, wives and daughters let it shelter and defend equal rights our motto is we're loyal to the end giving the ballad to the mothers Hurrah, hurrah we'll bring the Jubilee Hurrah, hurrah our spirit shall be free so we'll sing this chorus from the mountains to the sea giving the ballad to the mothers And later on one of our last songs also talks about mother but it's from the time of this costume and they sort of changed the appeal not so much to your mother but to the mother of your children and to your daughters so I'll do that later I'm going to dedicate this next one to one of the suffragists who was important in Vermont because every year from 1852 on women would petition they'd run around everywhere all these little towns and get petitioned signed by hundreds and hundreds of Vermonters presented to the legislature some people spoke the debate continued, continued and then what happens it would go back and forth in the 1880s other states were already voting, women were voting already so one year it would be the legislature would say no and then the senate would say yes and the next year it would be the opposite and they worked and worked and worked and lobby and spoke and finally right around 1919 they got both houses of the legislature to say yes but the governor at that time Percival Clement a blessed memory refused to call a special session to ratify the 19th amendment so we were not part of the original states to do that so we got to vote 1920 when the federal government told us to but guess what the women got to vote 1920 and Percival Clement was not elected and later on who became governor is James Hartness who was an industrialist from Springfield and I've heard stories about him and how he treated women at his factories the same they had special rooms where they could leave their clothes they had during the Civil War they were working but also when men came home they were still paid the same so Hartness's picture is up there in my honor roll because he was a suffragist and it was scary at that time to stand up for that so he was elected so this next one I'll do that for James Hartness is sort of a vaudeville song it's about a man and a woman arguing about women's rights and like Governor Clement the woman is saying we're going to eventually get the vote we know this so you might want to join us now because it will be important in the future and of course in 1920 three out of five voters were women so it did make a lot of difference so I have to play both parts because David doesn't want to sing okay so here we go winning the vote I've been down to Boston boys to see the folks and sights dear me I heard such fuss and noise about these women's rights now it's as plain as my old coat that's plain as plain can be that when you women want the vote they'll get no help from me not from Joe, not from Joe and he knows it not from Joseph no no no not from Joe, not from me I tell you no Joseph tell us something new we're tired of that old song we'll sew the seams and cook your meals to vote won't take us long we will help Cain House the one too large for men to leave alone the state and nation don't you see when we the vote have won yes we will and you'll help for you'll need our help friend Joseph yes you will when you're in so you better help us win you're just right how blind I've been I never had the seen it thus it's true our taxes you must pay without a word of fuss you are subject to the laws men make without a word or note can you sing out where it will count I'll help you win the vote yes I will thank you Joe we'll together soon be voters yes we will if you'll all vote next at the polls next fall here's another argument that really worked in the early days not talking about women's rights or feminism the word taxes because every boy went to school learning about taxation without representation and say we pay taxes and we own property at that point and why can't we have any say in things and that was sort of persuasive logically I think this next one I'm going to dedicate to two people first is Lucy Daniels from Grafton she was kind of a pariah in her day but now they're putting up big signs and they're very proud of her she was a wealthy woman who inherited property quite a bit in Grafton and she refused to pay her property tax because she could not vote so the town fathers and they were fathers took away some of her property so that was a catalyzing force for Miss Daniels so she went to Washington DC she was part of the women who did that huge parade on Wilson's inauguration day took all the attention away from him picketed and finally you know won the vote she came back to Grafton and no one would speak to her and they had written terrible things on her barn so what she did according to some oral histories is that she went around town and gave 50 cents to every girl she saw a little girl and said I'll pay you to go to town meeting because go to town meeting because by the time you're an adult you'll be able to participate so Lucy Daniels and then here in Montpelier Susan Isabelle Doty Hanson we know the name Doty she was a teacher in Montpelier her husband also was an ally he was a local doctor and he was part of the prohibition party and she was the one who planned the big suffrage parade in Montpelier in 1919 and got to meet with the governor Perceval Clement de Novel she was president of the Vermont women's club or Montpelier women's club which is a really important force in town and also later on she ran a variety store in downtown Montpelier so this tune is again it's using a persuasive strategy that has to do with the housekeeping they mentioned in the last song she said we'll help you clean house we'll sew your seams, we'll cook your meals but we'll clean out the house that's too big for man to clean alone which is the state and the nation so what that was called was enlarged housekeeping they didn't want to argue that they weren't going to do the housekeeping or that they were going to neglect their home duties what they were saying is women have always been responsible for the poor and the neglected in their communities they do charitable work they help children who are poor or orphans now they can help you clean up the mess that you've made of your town and help us because cleaning things up is sort of what we do and of course in the beginning they thought women were all sweetness and light and would always just bring a high moral ground to everything they did so this uses Uncle Sam the idea in the tuna bianchi doodle and there's a great cover design where Uncle Sam's walking down the road looking like Peter Schuman from bread and puppet and then on his arm is a housewife with a broom all the songs that have been sung within our state and nation there's none that comes so near the heart with an Uncle Sam's relation Yankee Doodle is his name you asked his common station red and white and starry blue his garb on each occasion when Uncle Sam set up this house he welcomed every brother but in the haste of his new life he quite forgot his mother now his nephews are now his house is up in arms a housewife he must find him to sweep and dust and set to rights and tangles all around him Uncle Sam is long in years and he is growing wiser he can say twice his mistake to have no misadvisor his nephews now have got the reins and looking o'er their shoulder shout to Good Old Uncle Sam goodbye dear old man forever one more now we're here dear Uncle Sam to help you in your trouble and then the first thing best to do is making you a double Yankee Doodle will be glad to join with us in spreading the news about all the land of Uncle Sam's great wedding Thank you Some of the worry about women voting was that because we have apparently we did anyway a high moral standing in all things that all of a sudden we will start to bring about legislation that a lot of the people in power did not want as you can guess it was opposed by a lot of the factory owners they knew and it happened that limitations we put on child labor the first legislator in Montpelier Edna Beard from Orange the first female she had the temerity to actually propose a bill that children's working hours be limited to 10 hours a day and it was voted down but they knew the people in power knew that this was going to be tough because especially the liquor traffic and the women and the men in the WCTU looking at temperance and this legislation would really impact their business so there's a lot of fight from the big powers in the whole country but that idea that we would clean up the mess continued that we would be the domestic goddess we would be that angel at the hearth but also in our communities so this is wonderful for Monter her name is Annette Parmerly from Innesburg Falls and she's she was a really strong Methodist WCTU prohibitionist her husband as well and she would go around and talk to everyone about women's voting a lot of these women by the way had support at home other women faced the ostracism of their families and she did and she used humor so she didn't want to make people you know you only get so far by yelling at people about injustice so at the beginning she would say things like they had a mock parliament in Bristol, Vermont where women got dressed up as the judges and they were debating whether or not men were ready for the vote and it was an entertainment it used humor and one of the we don't have the script anymore but one of the arguments was that men are too emotional because whenever they're at a sporting event they just lose their minds and the other one that they remembered or they wrote about was that they believe when there was a conflict knew better than to resort to fisticuffs and so they had to use negotiation they didn't use the word negotiation but they had to use reasoning and persuasion to get their way so Annette was called Annette the Hornet or Annette the Suffragette and she just kept on going and it was interesting I went up to see where she lived and they said that the name of the sports team in Enesburg is the Hornets but I don't think it has anything to do with Annette so she used humor the one thing that was disappointing to me later on is she had arguments for women voting that were racist and also there's a great deal of anti-immigrant sentiment at that point and so she said if women can vote if native born women can vote meaning white women if native born women can vote then they will out they will out vote the steerage they will out vote women educated the deplorable voters that we don't want in so there's a big argument too about what they called educated voters whatever that is and Annette did fall into that trap but still she's a hero this was a march and that's one of the reasons why the Hems went up a little bit they were doing a lot of marching it was their way before radio and access to any kind of newspapers and this is one of the songs they marched from what means these votes for women just as the time has come when we may voice with freemen concerns of land and home then snap the ancient tether enthralling us too long and stoutly pull together to write a grievous frong shout the song the votes for women bring it out upon the air here it's no cheap patriot freemen who the right will dare sing a loud with lusty vigor dude rattles earth and sky that the woman's cause grows bigger and the woman's day draws nigh the votes of sisters brothers in every sovereign state for us and many others lie to the gloom of fate the joyless haunt of drudges where children toil and die may find these votes the judges that ask the reason why shout the song of votes for women sing it out upon the air sing it loud dear nasty freemen who the right will dare with lusty vigor dude rattles earth and sky that the woman's cause grows bigger and the woman's day draws nigh thank you so you notice the allusion to children toiling and dying and that women's women's influence will help those poor people the other thing that Annette Parmily suggested didn't happen right away she said I think a woman should be appointed every board of trustees of institutions that serve women and children the so-called insane asylums the poor farms those kind of things even though they couldn't vote they should serve on those committees and eventually in Vermont women did get the chance to vote for school board president not serve as school board and then eventually women got to be town clerks and of course now I think pretty much all the town clerks are women so when you go to your town hall you'll see if they keep their records in 1920 you'll look up the names of the women who registered to vote in Vermont and took the Freeman's oath and it's pretty neat in middle six there were 18 women and many of them would sign things like Mrs. John Smith so that's kind of hard but I did find a lot of them were wives of some prominent people in town might be a business owner or a minister or something so he had a boy from Harwood and he had to do some community service for some hijinks I don't know what it was so he had to work for the town clerk and so I said come out over here look at this book read me the names and I'll type them out and he kept on looking at it beautiful penmanship he said what is this it was cursive so it was really neat to say if you're interested in history there because I didn't realize this is about the poll tax I knew that you had to pay your property tax in those days you had to own property to vote but you also had to pay your poll tax and in 1920 it was $6 no $3 in 1919 in 1920 it went up to $6 and so there's a place you can look up the current inflation calculator $92 so you can imagine the people the voters who were left out of that just as we talk about voting rights today so the big argument I guess was that women women were part of the natural order of God and so Christian women were such a part of this I'll have a Jewish suffragist later but most of them were Christian most of them were Protestant and they could find evidence we could find evidence in the scriptures of both sides either Adam and Eve we are subservient or some methapestates that say we're all equal in God's eyes so they'd argue about this and every once in a while one person like Elizabeth Cady Stanton would be too radical for the time and she said you know I think the Christian the Christian church is detrimental to the lives of women and the rest of the suffragists were going because that was their base you know so that argument kept on going but often they would use hymns familiar hymns if they were Protestant and put new words on them and so this one I'm going to dedicate to my grandmother her name was Minnie Clemens and she told me that she first voted in 1920 and ever since then she whispered that she'd been voting sort of opposite from her husband and never told him and I was really proud of Minnie and because she had signed the pledge Francis Willard had this pledge for temperance I had to sign it too and did anybody know the pledge lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine so many of them were intensely religious and thought that alcohol was ruining the lives of women and children which you know especially people living in poverty but everybody so Lucia I think it's Lucia instead of Lucia Bailey Bliss was educated in the Montpelier schools a member of the Unitarian church and she attended Smith College she became president too of the Montpelier women's club she got a chance to vote she lived until 1967 but at one point in April she marched with 400 women downtown and wanted to speak with Governor Clement and they weren't allowed to and she's buried over here in Greenmount Cemetery this is a hymn you might know and it was sung at the centennial of the country so that would be 1876 we're talking about women's suffrage and they're thinking about what the world will be like 100 years hence what a utopia in 1976 there will be and here is their vision of that you might know the tune 100 years hence what a change will be made in politics morals religion and trade in statesmen who wrangle and ride on the fence these things will be altered 100 years hence our laws then will be uncomfortable rules our prisons converted to national schools the pleasure of sitting it's all pretense and so we will find it 100 years hence oppression and war will be heard of no more nor the blood of a slave leave his print on our shore our conventions will then be a useless expense for we'll all go free suffrage 100 years hence instead of speech making to satisfy wrong all would join our glad chorus to sing a freedom song and if the millennium is not a pretense we'll all be good neighbors 100 years hence I love that though that utopian ideal of America that we can live up to that 100 years hence maybe not 200 years hence but in terms of their vision it's really wonderfully gutsy and again they were saying this in their communities and not in church so much but maybe in the meetings after church this next song I'll dedicate to another Montpelier woman and her name is Lucia again Ellen Casey this is the word we know Blanchard and her husband ran I think it was he had a hardware store on 35 main so I have to go back and see where that was she became a teacher when she was 18 as many women did and what her big goal was to write to the legislature all the time and so she that's what she did to try to keep on proposing this at least somewhat rights for women and then she became a president of the Vermont Equal Suffrage Association they had these conventions around the state every year and then eventually Green Mountain Cemetery Cemetery which was in Waterbury she taught there for a while and she planned this big state convention right at the end 1919 and she got a speaker Carrie Chapman cat to come up which was an amazing coup for her she was a great leader in the last push for women's suffrage so this next song oh these are so great this is about women going to the polls and getting the stink eye from the men who are waiting and also talking about this horrible idea in a way that why why can I think Elizabeth Casey Stanton said why why cannot a field she didn't say hand but why can a field hand vote whose male and a woman who went to Vassar college cannot so there was a lot of that kind of distancing this is sort of got ugly and one of the ugly things had to do with anti-immigration and the Irish and the Irish the connecting of the Irish drinking and the connecting with prohibition and so a lot of times they would say look at that drunk you know waiting in line to vote and he does deserve it so here it is and this is another familiar song if the men should see the women going to the polls to put down the liquor traffic needed vex their souls if we're angels as they tell us can we one suppose that all the men will front on us when going to the polls we love our boys our household joys we love our girls as well the law of love is from above cance that we ne'er rebel no discharge have Christian women from the war with sin at the polls with Gog and Magog must our fight begin sweet bible marching orders needed fright our sighs so all the men should front on us when going to the polls we love our boys our household joys we love our girls as well the right of sorry the law of love is from above cance that we ne'er rebel thank you thank you I found a poster I didn't want to bring it in it's just so disturbing but it's from Life magazine 1919 and it says four voters and it has four figures in the front and one of them is clearly a drunkard one of them is clearly kind of a gang member it says black hand behind him maybe it's sort of one of those Tammany Hall people oh yeah one is a black man can't remember what the other one is but then there's a woman in the center and she's wearing all white and has a parasol and the thing is four voters oh four voters those undesirable deplorables are voting and not this pure wonderful woman so that's there's a lot of racism that comes into the movement as well and that's why I've enjoyed reading more about the black women's clubs and how they continued to press on even though they were often shunned by their white sisters and the other thing that happened was they talked about the women's hour this is the women's hour they'd work for abolition of slavery and the amendment came and black men got the vote but women did not and I think the reasoning was that the country was not ready for two radical changes at one time and so one of my heroes unfortunately Phillips Brooks was a great abolitionist said this is not the women's hour this is the Negro's hour so wait and be patient it'll come soon so it was 19 20 I'm going to dedicate this to Mary where Foster she was born in Montpelier and she attended the Church of the Messiah which is the early name for the Unitarians and she met Lucy Stone whose picture is over there too Lucy Stone was not a Vermonter but she came up here a lot to try to win the women of Vermont to the sense that we were a lot of us were kind of resistant to it we thought we had plenty of votes we didn't really understand the need for it so Lucy Stone and these other out-of-town people would come and speak and Lucy Stone was married to another suffragist Harry Blackwell they were really strong activists but when they married she decided to keep her name yes and so those women were called the stoners I just love that and so she was a member that Mary Foster was part of having this suffrage bill to introduce municipal suffrage which eventually was passed so this next song I want to read this one thing about I'll talk about one black suffragist who's an amazing hero Ida B. Wells is over there she was a journalist had a bad marriage and so left it and wrote a lot about anti-lynching and other things in the south and then she became a suffragist in Illinois very prominent and when women had that huge parade in Washington DC with all the delegations of every single state they said no we don't want your delegation to march you can be in the back of the parade this is 1920 and so Ida B stood on the curb and when the Illinois delegation went by she just stepped off the curb and continued and what could they do so I love Ida B but a lot of the opposition they came they faced had to do with women from the south and the north for various reasons so this is something another song of persuasion and it's talking to a man who believes where women's place is in the home and then the last stanza is think about an earnest and thoughtful man who can see beyond that sphere to women choosing a sphere familiar song I have a neighbor one of those not very hard to find who knows it all without debate and never changes mind I asked him what of women's rights he said in tone severe my mind on that is all made up keep woman in her sphere I saw a man tattered garb forth from the pub house calm he squandered all his cash for drink and start his wife at home I asked him should not women vote he answered with a sneer I've taught my wife to know her place keep woman in her sphere I met an earnest thoughtful man not many days ago who pondered deep all human love the honest truth to know I asked him what of women's cause his answer came sincere her rights are just the same as mine let woman choose her sphere I think I'm one of those 70's feminists and I remember that big debate about you know women's sphere it should be in the home you know and why are women stepping out and doing all these radical things but the other thing and looking back at Elizabeth Katie Stanton she was the writer of the early movement she had seven children she stayed in Seneca Falls brilliant legal mind so she wrote so much and this one she again is a little ahead of the game she said I think that even maternity should be voluntary and of course the people got you know they were way before Margaret Sanger too so anyway so the the movement changed quite a bit as the years went on as I said they didn't make much traction in the rural New England but they did make a lot of traction in the cities and New York State got women's suffrage much before we did because of the factories and the recent immigrants who came and the idea of labor unions because unlike maybe a Vermont housewife who wasn't in poverty the women and the tenants on the east side they couldn't choose what kind of water their children were drinking or what the sanitation was like or what kind of food they were eating they had no power at all so the movement sort of split aside at this point and they started to publish brochures in the different languages of the immigrants and Elizabeth Katie Stanton said you know I don't think uneducated voters other educated women should vote or men and her sister Harriet just of the next generation said I just met a man who was sweeping the floor who's a recent immigrant he can quote German he's not stupid he's not uneducated he just needs to learn English too so that was a big debate and this next song is in Yiddish part of that movement and I'm going to dedicate this to Ernestine Rose her picture is there she was a daughter of a rabbi in Poland but kind of a free thinker for America and when she got there she realized she could not buy any property she couldn't own property so she worked for that initially but also for the rights of married women to have a say in child custody cases because that was the man's choice usually unless he was really you know bad and so she was part of the movement but again she was a cultural Jew but not a practicing Jew but still it was tough for the women at one point she said but you know I'm not really Jewish I don't believe in God and I'm grateful to Avram Pat many of you know him because my Yiddish is not so great so he helped me for translating it too now this is a song that's using humor Betsy Tomaszewski was the queen of Yiddish theater in New York very popular and she and her husband had these great shows and she was very popular but she used humor and later on by the way she and her husband moved to Hollywood changed their name to Thomas instead of Tomaszewski their grandchild is Michael Tillson Thomas there's a great PBS special on the Tomaszewskis here's the sort of general idea of this song when women get the same rights as men we'll have all the power and we'll be able to come home dead drunk from the saloon in the middle of the night and he'll have nothing to say about it and also we will no longer work like slaves and in the future men will have the babies for us so we can keep our flat stomachs what's more elections will all be in our hands and the president will kiss every woman in the country 300 times and we'll be the police so two or three of us would stand in a street corner and when a thief is caught if he gives us a kiss he'll be free feel nice I don't think it's that bad the fairies don't fight they fight for something direct different women find all the russes they're hanging clean here as plain hair they're running around in my spit gazing at the mass and I tried with the men here and they're shouting they're just trying if they're not here then ready they're not here they're just trying if they're not here then ready I don't think it's that bad the fairies don't fight they fight for something direct different women find all the russes they're hanging clean here as plain hair and they're running around in my spit and they're running around in my spit and they're running around in my spit well, it's hard it's fun because I speak German too so it's really fun to do that I found that in the Library of Congress so that's not a Vermont song so now we're getting to the end of the suffrage movement in a way and there are a lot of other people I want to talk about and one is Elektra Havermeyer Webb you probably know her from Shelburne very wealthy woman and she actually became part of the suffrage movement very educated woman she marched in that enormous parade let's see how many were there 40,000 people voting in that in Washington DC on the day of President Wilson's inauguration and it was a violent one they did have, you know, men trying to help but there were a lot of, there was a lot of violence and she was one of the women who was hauled off and set to jail she was a friend of Alice Paul who again was part of the last more radical suffragist movements and I can tell about that later so you can see that the gentility of the early days has kind of gone to we're going to just step out, we're going to do it and take whatever but women, you probably know this women some of the women were force fed in this horrible prison and they weren't as radical in terms of disruptive as the British women but they had that perseverance, didn't they so the National Women's Party was founded because many women believe that women during World War One should not get involved in the war many of them were pacifists the women's international league for peace and freedom which is still around was saying no we should not get involved in this foreign war but other women said we're citizens, we should be citizens we need to help and that really served them well because many of them worked in hospitals, drove ambulances did all kinds of things in World War One all around the country so it was hard for President Wilson who was a southerner and opposed to suffrage this sort of resists that sort of what was happening in the whole country so finally that history caught up with him and I think a lot of it was the women's public service that they did but the party split in half that's the tragedy of this that women's suffrage was unified and it split over black people getting the vote that it split again over religion that it split again over political activism and so it would have come sooner I think and also it would have been sooner if they had not been alive to the temperance movement that was probably not political but it's what they felt so they kept on, kept to the pressure and I'm going to dedicate this to the last person the first person to vote who was in the 1848 convention in Seneca Falls her name was Charlotte Woodward she was a Quaker and she was a glove maker in Gloversville New York and can you imagine they got this thing together in less than a week this is without radio, without internet somehow people came to this thing in 1848 and she was only 19 years old and she went in a carriage with a bunch of other Quakers and she was still alive in 1920 and was able to vote all the other women had died by then and so I really think about that and that commitment to something that they will not live to see sorry and one more story I want to tell you oh yeah, Northfield I don't know where that town hall used to be but when finally the federal government said women have to vote they swept out all the hay from the bottom of the town hall because men were spitting tobacco on the floor and they thought they'd clean it up for the women and then they also put chairs along the side of the hall for the women to sit and I thought well that's a little bit disrespectful can't they just sit where the men are sitting but I realized they wanted to make them feel comfortable and also they had these enormous skirts and so that was their way of making them feel welcome I think the last story is there's a book called the Woman's Hour by Elaine Weiss that I recommend it reads like a thriller even though you know that eventually it passed does anybody know what the last state to ratify the 19th amendment was it surprised me yes really surprised me but they gave up on Vermont Connecticut was still out but they said no it's not going to work they went down to Tennessee and Carrie Chapman Cat Alice Paul went down and established their bulkhead there at a hermitage hotel in Nashville and upstairs the anti-suffer just set up their place it was called the Jack Daniels Lounge and so they worked really hard to try to lobby these legislators to vote it wasn't going their way and they had roses if you were pro-sufferage you wore a yellow rose if you were anti you wore a red rose a lot of women also were against suffrage in the south but the argument they used again was if our women are voting our women are voting that way any votes from the Negroes that you haven't suppressed they'll be outnumbered and so they used that argument as a politically expedient argument and it worked and so this is the song that they sang at the end of the movement Alice Paul who was not a domestic person at all but she wanted to make a show of it they had this big banner and every time a new state was added she would sew the star on and put it over the balcony so this comes from that and it's a confederate anthem because they knew they were in Tennessee there is a band of women and to our man are born emerging from the darkness past and looking toward the morn their mothers labored waited in a night without a star the morning showed our suffrage flag that bears the woman's star for equal rights are off for the suffrage flag that bears the woman's star the end is all reforming war shall be at an end that being that's in sword shall rust will use the brain the pen lain with precious freight now thunders our progress car the headlamp weighs our suffrage flag that bears the woman's star for equal rights are off for the suffrage flag that bears the woman's star one more time off for a flag that bears the woman's star so the vote was won and Alice Paul by the way had a summer home up in Barton and I haven't found much more about that I'm trying to she had a long life after that and she also traveled a bit in 1920 after we had the vote she spoke at the church I grew up in in Seneca Falls the Presbyterian church about something called the equal rights amendment that she was proposing in 1920 so here it is November 2nd 1920 my grandmother is voting one third of those eligible voted for the first time but again there were a lot including the first lady Edith Wilson who was against suffrage Eleanor Roosevelt was initially against suffrage I'd like to know more about that that doesn't sound like Eleanor but it was a pretty good start first of all Clement didn't get elected and but I don't want to leave you with a sense of triumph because of course we know about suppression of voting rights and also we know to whom these votes were meant for Native Americans of course were left out and the court case came and that was in 1948 Native Americans could vote in national elections and there was finally a holdout that was the state of Utah but they finally were convinced in 1962 I think they could vote in federal but not in state at that point and then Chinese Americans 1956 after what they've done for this country and then Japanese Americans 1952 shameful so we know that it was a hard won battle and we know that it's not done so I'm going to sing one more song and then we're going to have a sing-along and then we're going to have questions I hope you have a lot to share if you have a story about a new American voting for the first time if anybody's been to those wonderful ceremonies tell it to me or tell it to the group also if any member of your family talked about the first woman who voted in your family and the other thing I want to tell you is please speak out about this history to everyone who's younger than we are a young woman who was helping we put together this thing and she said wait a minute that's not a declaration of independence it's logical to her why in the world would you separate out women so it's really important that the story gets told of this and obviously during the centennial we had all these plans and then COVID hit we were going to have a huge parade then so I'm glad that you invited me back because women's history and voting rights are still relevant so now we've received the vote but the idea of a suffragist has changed there's a cartoon over there that shows an early suffragist and they thought there were women that no men would want and they're ugly and they had wards on and they had awful clothes and that was the sort of stereotype of the suffragists by nineteen sixteen anyway suffragists were fashionable they were cute, they were sexy there were a lot of these wonderful tin pan alley songs about you beautiful suffragette so again things had changed and this was written by well by a man who worked in the same publishing firm as George Gershwin we'll hear a lot of that 1920s jazz first song mentioned mother this one mentions mother as well and the title is the best and the cover design she's good enough to be your baby's mother and she's good enough to vote with you no man is greater than his mother no man is half so good than the wife he loves her love will guide him what ever be tied him she's good enough to love you and adore you she's good enough to bear your troubles for you and if your tears were falling today nobody else would kiss them she's good enough men plunge this world in war and sadness we must protest hear her say all this madness I bring you glad she's good enough to be so but thank you so much so we're going to end with a rally song and we know it, everybody knows it it's been used so many times through the years so I can think of the old Pete Seger ones, peace rallies solidarity all these things and I could find some wonderful lyrics but I didn't want to sing like 20 verses so I picked the best ones and Pete Seger said the concert ain't over until the audience sings so here we go, you'll know it it's the right of every woman to mark out her path in life or to be a saint or soldier or a true and loving wife to fill the soul with gladness and recall the world from strife as we go marching on ready? it's her right to serve her nation in its every hour of need her right to sit in judgment on her country's faith and creed and show the world her courage by some high heroic deed as she goes marching on best verse it's her right to train the children in the home and in the school her right to frame statutes and determine who shall rule and like man to cast her ballot for a statement or a fool as she goes marching thank you and thanks to Ali and Osher and where's the rogues gallery here yeah Mary Jess Skinner my neighbor who rock walks by my house every day and has asked me about this for a year Edie Miller, Allison Underhill thank you Jenny Callan, Bob Rosenfeld and Marge Zinder thank you so much for organizing this way for people to get together and learn something alright so questions or comments or things that you the suffragists in the United States different from the suffragettes in England, was it just two names for the same goals? Not at all, good thank you she asked for the same goals the same goals but different strategies the suffragettes and I bet there's a lot of reasons for this were much more disruptive they actually blew things up and they actually rang rang bells when statesmen were trying to speak and they were amazing but a woman was actually killed during one of these parades and so Alice Paul the last person who was sort of in charge, she was trained there so she was the one who came back and said ladies being polite won't get you so far maybe you have to go to jail and my argument is that American women weren't going to jump to that right away and these were middle class and upper middle class women basically at the beginning and so they did start off with these other strategies that were very gentle and persuasive comment question? I should know that, I think in 1917 before us and I hate married poppins because they sort of trivialized the suffragettes but they were a bunch of courageous women and very very radical and also in many countries you mentioned the Taliban earlier many countries women are still fighting for the vote and it was like 1970 something so I noticed hi Mary just to have a quick suggestion in future, I'm so glad I came here I've heard about it for years have somebody standing at your bulletin board and point out yes, or I could have that little pointer because OSHA is filming us, I didn't dare but let me just give you a quick rose galley because there's some I didn't talk about it makes them feel real to me so Annette Parmerly is here the suffragette this is Lucy Daniels who wouldn't pay her property tax James Hartness is over there Clarina Howard Nichols who is a great worker for suffrage but also women's rights ended up going out to Kansas and working for anti-slavery things and I think there's a women's center named for her and this is Addie Estee who went to Green Mountain Girls who went to Washington and got to speak to President Wilson and here are some things that Paul Carnahan from the History Center found about the poll tax and how women weren't getting the word that even though they took the free man's out in front of the city council it was a big deal you also had to pay property tax if you owed it and also that poll tax and women didn't it wasn't part of our culture and why the suffrage movement turned into the League of Women Voters to try to get that information out to people let's see oh and that's Alice Paul and an Ida B is over here too so come on over afterwards and sort of look especially in these covers of the magazines too any other questions anybody who voted for the first time in 1920 no no yeah did they ever talk about it of course she lived out it she grew up in Omaha Nebraska but then she lived in Chicago later but yes she was and I remember her taking me to the Chicago convention back in 1960 and I was running along trying to keep up with her and I was like 13 and she was what a great model for you I hope she didn't go to the 68th convention in Chicago I wish she was 90 whatever thank you for that story and if you've ever sponsored a new American that just makes you know that you should never forget to vote you know once you see the work that people do so that they can the other story you mentioned the colors do that have significance the colors and I think they all had symbolism too so white was purity and you certainly see that now with women in Congress wearing white but since this was for a parade I didn't want to wear too much white and purple and then the green I don't know why later on but then the idea of the yellow rose they came up with a color scheme they had a good branding I guess and the idea of the men wearing yellow rose to show that they supported it just like your flag of Ukraine so there were colors and also this idea of dressing up I was talking to a college girl who just came back and has changed all her politics you know sort of resisting her parents' goals and she said oh my god those women's suffragists were all racist well you know it's a more nuanced story than that and there's a lot of uncomfortable things to learn about this movement but it worked any others well thank you very much and please stay on I appreciate it very much Linda for a really wonderful presentation I have been a long time feminist and I learned a lot today so I know that I'm probably not alone in this crowd there's so much information it gets me excited to read all the things that Linda has the house that I walked by oh I've got a book list of stack because that's what I did during COVID really black suffragists didn't know it's a long long fight I remember when I first moved to Vermont I was studying for the bar exam in 1972 and Louise Swainbank who was a representative from St. Johnsbury knew I was a lawyer and she asked me to get involved in the Equal Rights Amendment fight the very first time around and here I was fresh out of law school and I ended up being a speaker to oppose Phyllis Schlafly where she came to Vermont well what a memory I was so excited that I could get involved and making a difference which I thought when I was so young the fight goes on though and it didn't pass thank goodness that we've done made some progress in other areas but you can never really let your guard down because there's so many people who are wanting to take us back to the old days so Linda I am so pleased that I finally got to see it I've heard and seen you all around and I never have done it and I just thank you so much thank you and the other thing I've learned I got to go around to different towns after COVID for the Humanities Council and I get to do the same thing for every town there's always a historical society it's usually like three women doing all the job it's like high school prom but anyway they can go to the town clerk and I can make it and it's really really inspiring how these women sort of stepped up because they had no access to power at that point and actually Lois Jackson who made this costume she's a customer from Chelsea Chelsea look at this the lighting nobody can see the lighting at any event thank you so much for kicking us off what's next week and I was just about to tell you that this September 27th meeting is to learn about Medicare and all the variations just before an enrollment period and just before we start getting Joe telling us about Medicare Advantage plans etc etc we're going to learn the nitty gritty from let me see somebody who knows from Specialist Council on Aging Christine Melick I think I pronounced that correctly so thank you again for coming and I'll see you next Wednesday at one o'clock I'll see you up by the science fair