 Good afternoon everybody. I'm Travis Gross. I'm the executive director here at the Shiboyin County Historical Society And I'd like to welcome you all to this very special day here at the museum As you have already Found out we have some very special and honored guests amongst us today We are Here to celebrate the ratification of the 19th amendment so to all of that I'll give you believe one of the best amendments to our US Constitution. I know my audience anyway So what I am up here to do first is to welcome you which I've done make a few jokes because I'm really nervous And also thank the League of Women Voters of Shiboyin County. They are here without their hard work and many members that are helping us out We couldn't have pulled this day off without their help So also if you do have any questions about registering to vote or if you need to register to vote Please visit their table out in the adjoining gallery and they will be more than happy to help you out with that. I Apologize I didn't get a list of all of the League of Women Voter people who have helped us out But I've been working with Jane Kettler on most of this event So I thank Jane for her efforts as well and everyone So I did make a few notes because I knew my memory was gonna fail me at this moment So Little bit as I just want to start out as the husband and father to two very strong independent women I am honored to be a part of this day and this event It is a it was a long time coming and I'm glad that it happened Primarily for my wife and my daughter I Am honored to be a part of this celebration of the anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment It also brings me great honor to introduce our first speaker. That's first lady Kathy Evers She is the chair of the Wisconsin 19th Amendment Centennial Celebration Committee Which was created by our governor Tony Evers in April of last year The committee has organized events to celebrate the passage of the 19th amendment including an event attended by approximately 1500 people at the state capitol on the 100th anniversary of Wisconsin being the first state to ratify on Wisconsin She has worked with the Wisconsin Historical Society and the State Department of Public Instruction to create Educational activities and an educational toolkit for teachers and students about the importance of the suffrage movement and the ratification of the 19th amendment and is working to coordinate and promote events around the state to celebrate the final passage of the 19th amendment as well as women's leadership and Activism more generally first lady Evers and her husband were both born in nearby Plymouth, Wisconsin May I introduce first lady Kathy Evers? Thank you beautiful day out today, isn't it so yes, thank you for taking part of this day to come today So and I think the Historical Society for asking me to be part of this terrific event with you, too So since April I've had the pleasure of chairing the Wisconsin Suffrage Committee Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment So on this committee it was a pleasure to work with terrific group of women leaders across the state To celebrate the advancing of the women's suffrage movement forward So as you may already know Wisconsin has a long history of working towards women's suffrage and that started long before the passage of the 19th amendment So and as a result of their hard work Wisconsin became the first state to ratify the 19th amendment back in June of 1919 I don't know if you know a little bit of the story Good that It was a big battle between Wisconsin and Illinois and Wisconsin won We found the shortcut I think to DC so that's what happened there But we were the first so that was that that's just a great honor as and most of you already know too that the 19th Amendment was an incredibly important milestone, but it did not guarantee the right for all women to vote So as we celebrate these hundred years of women's suffrage Let us acknowledge that we are also celebrating 100 years of continued activism to expand voting rights continued active activism to increase the number of women in leadership positions and Continued activism to increase parity for women and people of color You may have noticed You may have noticed that I brought my husband along with me today So some of you might recognize him. I thought I better introduce him a little bit here I need to thank Tony for lots of things in my life. I've known him for 40 Well, we've been married 47 years or whatever, but knew him five years even before we got married So I owe him a whole lot in my life. So but today I want to especially thank him for the leadership and making Issues important to women a priority in his administration Andy You know it's very good about joining me on some of these activities to help celebrate the women's suffrage movement So thank you, Tony We were both as you it was already mentioned that since we're both born in Plymouth, Wisconsin Again like to extend the thank you to the Schwedgen County Historical Society for inviting us back home It truly does feel home to us Even though we've been outside of the Plymouth area for quite a few years in our life, but we tend to come back as often as we can we have a condo at Blue Harbor And unfortunately, we don't get there as often as we would like but we certainly look forward to it every time we come We've got our favorite restaurants to go to and you know, so do appreciate the visits every time we come So I'd also like to acknowledge the members of the Wisconsin the League of Wisconsin voters Who are at this event? It's no coincidence that the League is also celebrating its 100th anniversary to this year so Events like today are so important because they cause us to reflect on our history The good and the bad we have to talk about both The success and failures and the leadership of women and men in pushing for a better future So I'd like to thank you for your interest again in the history of the suffrage movement as we shape our path toward our future Thank you for being here to help celebrate the centennial celebration and enjoy this event And what a terrific museum, so thank you for coming to see the museum too and Tony would like to say a few words to you too Hi everybody, thanks so much. I'm just a side show here today But you know it is it is great to have this opportunity that I Historical Society of Wisconsin and and all the historical societies and various counties across the state have really done a great job as far as the organization and and the and the Background and the information they put out on it. So it's been a great year I've been so pleased to have the executive order that I signed to create this year Celebrating us being number one and you know the Wisconsin League of Women Voters has done such a great job And all sorts of areas and we need to continue supporting them because of the hard work They do to make sure that everybody can get a chance to vote no matter where you live Who you are and that continues to be a problem all across the country. So League thank you so much Good What an exciting day. Oh my goodness Well, we wouldn't be able to have this event without the sponsorship of the League of Women Voters of Sheboygan County So before we introduce our main next speaker We're gonna have Lauren who served as the inaugural president of the of the County League three years ago when it kind of researched and came back to life So we're gonna have her come up and share with all of you a little bit about what the league does what they offer And the celebration today. So Lauren Good afternoon everybody. Wow. I was sitting in the front row and didn't see how many of you there are This is wonderful. If you're a member of the league currently, could you stand up, please? Thank you. And if you want to be a member of the league, could you stand up? There we go So League of Women Voters is a 100 year old always non-partisan Organization we advocate for active and informed participation in democracy and One of the most important ways that we do that is our voter registration and access activities Thankfully for the internet it has made that job for us so much easier So if you are not registered or if maybe you've moved recently and you're not sure if you're on the rolls or if you've read about The thousands of people that have been taken off the rolls you can check easily to see if you are Registered you go to my vote dot w i dot gov and if you forget that We have these little cards that are on tables all over and it will give you that that URL It's really an easy thing to do. In fact our voter registration committee has actually gone into high schools And they are registering 18 year olds and teaching them how to do this and then they register their friends when they turn 18 So it's a wonderful thing If you haven't seen the buttons that most of us are wearing those are all also Available for you to just take home. We're not charging for them this one's from the historical society this one's from us and These are wonderful, and we hope you'll pick one up. It says a woman living here has registered to vote thereby assuming Responsibility of citizenship and these are How when were these first printed up? Kristen, do you know I don't they're about a hundred years old when they were first printed up So I'm gonna put one in my at my front door. You should also Also wanted to let you know about our next league meeting, which is March 18th If you're not a member you're you're welcome to come you don't have to be a member to come to our meetings March 18th at 630 at Lakeshore Community Health. I believe is where we're having it this time again Which is on Samans Road We we always do an interesting program and just a short business meeting So please do come you can also at that time if you're interested in getting one of those signs that you can see over there By the snack table, and it says vote Tuesday your vote is your voice You can pick those up at the meeting and I believe we're not charging very much for those ten dollars less ten dollars, okay? One last thing that we want to promote and it will be on our website shortly League of Women Voters has Due to a generous grant as able has been able to print up Booklets you're for those who are immigrants to the country and it's your rights as an immigrant You'll be able to find a PDF copy of that on our website Very soon. Kristen is working on that. It's an excellent resource We printed them in English and in Spanish and if you would like a copy See me or see one of us and we'll get you a hard copy We're distributing them all over Manitowoc and Sheboygan counties, but we can get you a get you a copy or again You can have a PDF so without further ado so happy to see all of you here and Hope that you will get involved with us as we get more and more involved in the county and voter registration and access efforts All right. Thank you very much Lauren Well now we are going to take a march through suffrage history So and as you can see I am appropriately addressed for this this discussion in this lecture Although I will admit my shoes kind of pinch a little bit. So that's the downside But we have such an exciting opportunity to celebrate local history here at the Sheboygan County Historical Museum our mission is to Collect preserve and educate but we can also talk about the state history as well as national history So today we have a special guest speaker We have Simone Munson who is the collection development coordinator for the Wisconsin Historical Society Where she supervises the acquisition of collections for the library and archives She earned a master's degree in history from the University of New Mexico and a master's in library and information Sciences from the University of Wisconsin Madison. She currently resides in black earth with her family So without further ado, I'm going to turn it over to Simone Mrs. Evers and Governor Evers have both said Wisconsin is a very unique place to live when we're celebrating the centennial of the 19th amendment and the the the struggle for suffrage for women is really it's a hundred year story and 70 years of that story are a pretty intense story And so we are gonna sort of do an overview of the history of the suffrage movement and then we will Start to talk about what the suffrage movement meant once the amendment was passed and how We use our vote today and where women are in politics today so I Always love this quote from Abigail Adams so people often ask us when did the suffrage movement start? They want to know when the beginning was well women have always been advocating for more rights Whether it's suffrage or in any other sphere of sort of humanity really But Abigail Adams is a great example of how From the foundations of our country We were asking for the right to vote for asking for women to be more actively involved in politics And she said when she was writing back and forth to her husband when he went up to Philadelphia to help draft the Constitution I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and fable to them than our and then your ancestors If you jump down to the bottom He said that if they forget the women then we are determined to foment a rebellion and so He she really strongly advocates for her husband to remember the women whether that be in suffrage or in any other zone of Political rights, but our forefathers didn't heed her advice so So then we jump forward in time a little bit between The the 1790s and 1848 there are various women who are Fighting for the right to vote in various places But what we sort of think of as the beginning of the modern Women's suffrage movement really begins in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention on the Seneca Falls Convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York It was two days of speaking on the first day of speaking and debate It was only women who were invited to attend So women from all over intellectual society of New York and the East Coast came to Seneca Falls to participate in these debates and discussions And thinking about what women wanted what they thought was appropriate for roles of women in society And how they could accomplish those things right and then the second day They open this they opened the the the day to men as well because they knew that they weren't gonna be Successful in getting the right to vote if they couldn't convince men that it was also important because men controlled our government at the time In 1848 the women's suffrage movement was very very closely aligned with the abolitionist movement Frederick Douglass was invited to attend the Seneca Falls Convention and a lot of the arguments and discussion that's had in that to those two days of speaking are About the alignment of the suffrage movement They didn't really call it that but the suffrage movement and the abolitionist movement Okay, so how can we all work together to accomplish both of these goals? And that is important because for a very long time from the 1840s up through the Civil War in the 1860s Oftentimes these two movements are thought of together and they're very often thought of in these abolitionist states like New York and Massachusetts So the names that kind of ring most true from the the Seneca Falls Convention Convention are Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Now Susan B. Anthony didn't actually attend the Seneca Falls Convention She was too young but her mother and her sister did and it's really from this convention And then in the years that follow that Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony do become close friends And they're very much aligned in their vision of the suffrage movement They are both fairly affluent women. They have money that they can invest and spend They have patrons who support the movement that they are trying to accomplish And so these two women do things like publish pamphlets of the speeches that they give They go on speaking tours and they try to speak to large groups probably like this one To convince them that women's suffrage is important and that this is something that we should all be working towards And they also do things like start a newspaper and I'll talk about newspapers a little bit more later But really what they're trying to do is they're trying to spread the word and they're trying to figure out How they can convince people in different states to support this movement So one of the things that we need to think about and you know that governor and mrs. Evers mentioned in their remarks is who was this a movement for and I started by saying that the Seneca Falls convention Very much aligned the suffrage movement with the abolitionist movement, but this is a pretty long movement, right? So 1848 all the way up to 1920 and we don't actually see alignment with the abolitionist movement or African-american civil rights after the Civil War for the entirety of the movement I mean there are sort of splinters and things that happen and part of the story is telling the story of all of these different Movements that were happening simultaneously So one thing that it is important to acknowledge is that for the most the majority of time of the suffrage movement We are talking specifically about the right for white women to vote We're not necessarily talking about the right for African-american women to vote and that was one of the splinters within the suffrage movement so african-american suffrage is is There are women fighting for african-american suffrage right alongside some of these big movers and shakers that are trying to fight for White women's suffrage, but they're having a much harder time of it. So we have women like Sir Jernar truth and Mary Church Terrell, Ida B. Wells, Frances E.W. Harper who are African-american women who are all Trying to progress their movement at the exact same time that these white women's suffrage groups are also trying to To spread their movement and sometimes there is alignment I don't want to make it sound that they're completely separate for the entire thing, but one of the things that does happen actually pretty early on is after the Civil War and after the Civil War ends and we have the 14th 15th and 16th amendment that ends slavery Give african-americans the rights of citizenship and give african-americans the right to vote Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Katie Stanton actually Split with the mainstream on their support for those amendments So Elizabeth Katie Stanton and Susan B. Anthony do not support the 15th and 16th amendment And that is because they really want those amendments to include language about women and they don't include language about women So they decide that they can't support the amendment, right? So they kind of come down on the wrong side of history when it comes to what we think those amendments stand for And their rationale at the time was that they don't include women So I'm not going to support it because we think it's really important for them to support women But it is a great example about how the movement for African-american suffrage and women's suffrage begin to diverge after the Civil War so You decide that you want women's suffrage and you got to get organized, right? Because getting organized and figuring out how you're going to propel this movement forward is What's going to get action to take place and you have to remember that this is the 19th century So we don't have the internet and we don't have computers and we don't have television and we don't have radio We don't even have the telegraph for most of it or part of it And so we have to spread information in a different way And so what ends up happening is you have women that organize through the women's clubs movement so the Wisconsin women's suffrage association was founded in 1869 by a woman named Laura Ross Walcott who invites Susan B. Anthony and some speakers to come to Wisconsin in 1867 they give speeches in Madison and Milwaukee And when they leave the the WWSA is sort of founded and coalesces as a group That's going to fight for women's suffrage so They're focusing primarily on issues of temperance and suffrage and these groups also Criticized the state for women's property rights Which are pretty interpreted narrowly by the court and they're also just trying to fight for sort of Like welfare systems that women were sort of allowed to partake in so things regarding children things regarding prison reform And education were the most common things that women were kind of allowed to have an opinion on when it comes to politics So those are kind of the things that they kind of engage with the most and the way that they do this is by Forming their clubs, right? It's an uphill battle They're forming their clubs. They're forming their groups And I think this slide shows some of the different groups So there's lots of different groups all over the place So there's the Wisconsin women's suffrage association the Wisconsin suffrage association the national association of colored women's clubs the national women's suffrage Association the national American suffrage association so you can see that there's lots of different groups And they all have close to the same name, but they're slightly different and if you would have been living in the 19th century You may have known the difference between all of these groups because they all had a slightly different political bend Or I'm gonna talk a little bit in a few minutes about all the different strategies that were in place Trying to get suffrage because while all of these groups agreed that women should have the right to vote They didn't necessarily agree on what that right meant And they also didn't necessarily agree on the best strategy to win to get there, right? So they all had different strategies So it's an uphill battle. So how are we gonna how are we gonna figure this out? So one of the things that I mentioned already is the importance of spreading information and the newspaper Becomes the primary vehicle for spreading information in the 19th century So this is a picture of Lucy stone and Alice stone Blackwell And they are early suffragists not from Wisconsin who are kind of Known as these early newspaper women. So they start early newspapers and they are Newspapers devoted to the suffrage movement that they're trying to spread across the country Elizabeth Katie Stanton also Starts a newspaper called the revolution which is one of the early women's suffrage newspapers And they're writing articles about a wide range of things Newspapers in the 19th century look a little different than newspapers now They do include news items and advertisements, but they also tended to include more things like poetry literature more opinion pieces so you would have seen lots of Speeches reprinted in the newspaper or people writing letters to the editor Well-known figures might write an article about their particular perspective on a particular issue So there's these women all over the country that are trying to get these newspapers printed in Wisconsin our best example Of this is Theodora Wynton-Yomans Theodora is probably one of the best known suffragists in Wisconsin partially because of this picture which gets used a lot But she was from the Waukesha area She wrote for the Waukesha Freeman and she's one of the first Female journalists in Wisconsin. That's not writing for an exclusively female paper Which is one of the things that makes her kind of interesting. So she begins writing for the Freeman in The 1890s and at first she's kind of relegated to covering topics that were sort of appropriate for women So women's issues those things that I mentioned before things like education and domestic life She was able to write a few things about travel as well But then in the 20th century she starts writing a column completely devoted to suffrage So she's writing a suffrage column in the Waukesha Freeman And really her suffrage columns are some of the best History that we have for how the suffrage movement was progressing in Wisconsin and what the issues were because she had this weekly Column that she was writing every week about what was happening in the movement And so we get a good sense of what the temperature was in Wisconsin and how people felt about this issue from her writings She's also a leader in the women's club movement. She was elected to be district president of the Waukesha women's club and she was on the Wisconsin Federation of Women's Clubs in 1896 through 1898 and then as we move into the 20th century She is able to serve on some political boards as well because she as a journalist She kind of catches the attention of the governor and is she's able to be appointed to some of these early political boards representing women on those So you've heard me mention Temperance a couple of times maybe so the temperance movement is an important You know like the abolitionist movement is aligning with the suffrage movement in the 1840s through the 1860s We see the temperance movement align with the women's suffrage movement in beginning in the 1880s really and so the temperance movement is the idea that we should limit or more strongly regulate or eliminate the consumption of alcohol and so one of the sort of common Myths about women's suffrage is that it was women voting that resulted in Prohibition and the passage of the Volstead Act, but that's actually not true The Volstead Act was passed before women got the right to vote so the men did it to themselves really But part of the reason why that's a common myth is because of This woman her name is Francis Willard and her alignment of the temperance movement with the suffrage movement so Francis Willard believed in a policy of home protection and she wrote about it often and She was the president of the women's Christian Temperance Union Which was one of the largest temperance organizations in the country and she would talk often about a women's role to promote temperance Because of this idea of home protection So men have been telling us for centuries that a woman's role is in the home and that a woman is Sort of the master of the domain of the home that women are regulated to this zone So Francis Willard says well if you're going to regulate me to this zone Then I'm going to say that it's very very important for me to be able to protect that zone If I'm in charge of it it's my job to protect it and if I'm going to protect it then I'm going to say that there's no alcohol allowed in my home, right? Because alcohol is in their mind, you know in the in the 1880s in the 1890s It's the number one vice in the United States, right? It leads to abuse. It leads to death. It leads to health problems It leads to a lack of a job And if you're relying on a breadwinner to help pay for your children and your children's education You can be more successful if there's no alcohol in your home, right? So she argued that this idea of home protection was a woman's realm and the only way to ensure home protection Was for women to have the right to vote because the government is who regulates alcohol The government is who passes the laws related to the home And if women are going to be in charge of the home then you have to give us the right to vote So that's how the temperance movement and the suffrage movement align Do you think that it worked well in Wisconsin? No, it did not work well in Wisconsin so Wisconsin with its strong German heritage and being considered a tavern state Did not really like the idea of the temperance movement the temperance movement is wildly unpopular in Wisconsin And so we find that Wisconsin women actually have a really hard time Aligning themselves with the temperance movement and suffrage together So most Wisconsin women are trying to find different ways to argue for suffrage that is not temperance But Francis Willard is so successful in other states and so much of the suffrage literature Mentioned temperance that it's really hard to get away from and so part of the reason why we have that Cartoon of that woman pushing the boulder up the hill Especially in Wisconsin was because the temperance movement because it didn't work very well here so this is Amelia Bloomer Amelia Bloomer is one that I like to mention Because we talk about all the different ways the different strategies the different things that that people thought suffrage meant So some women thought that women's suffrage was talking about the right for all women to vote Some people thought it was only white women to vote Some people were interested more broadly in gender reform and Amelia Bloomer is one of those people Amelia Bloomer invents the bloomers And you can see her actually wearing them and so she She starts advocating that women should be allowed to wear pants or bloomers or some modified version of us of a skirt Because dresses are dangerous so we start to see We start to see we start to see all these different sort of subcategories of Of the suffrage movement and what women's activism looks like in the 19th century It's not a straight line and actually at one point a lot of the suffragettes Suffragists think that she's too radical and they kind of say come on Amelia Like come back come back more close to center like let's work on this together, right? So so sometimes she's successful and sometimes she's not she also uses the newspaper to advocate for her point of view So she created a newspaper called the lily To support her her issues and the things that she was trying to accomplish Okay, so what works what which of these strategies works how are all these things fitting together So one thing that's important to remember about our government is that there's a federal government There's a state government and there's municipal and local governments, right? and how we fight for women's suffrage is different on all of those levels and the most basic difference is that Getting a federal suffrage Amendment would have taken coordination by all of the states You have to get the amendment through the legislative body and then it has to go to the states to be ratified And 36 states have to ratify the amendment in order for it to become added to our constitution That's a really big thing to do. It's not easy So what the women of the United States decide to do is they decide to start at the state and municipal level I mean so be between the 1830s and the 18 and really 1900 the early 1900s we have what we call the state-by-state movement Which is where women locally are working to get a state suffrage or partial suffrage So the first state to actually grant women any suffrage at all is Kentucky in 1838 Kentucky allows women to vote in school elections So that is all they're only allowed to vote in school things related to school school matters like school boards and things like that But the real first accomplishment and the one that people often cite is Wyoming so Wyoming in 1869 writes into their Constitution that women can have the right to vote at the state level so state local and municipal elections women can vote in They actually write it into their Constitution when they go from being a territory to being a state And it was partially because the men of Wyoming thought that that was a good idea But it was also because they really needed women in Wyoming So they were trying to find a way to attract women to Wyoming and if you're a Farmer out in Wyoming You're willing to let women have the right to vote if it means more women will come there So they they have they write it into their Constitution that that women can have the right to vote And then other states slowly catch on They allow women to vote in state elections or they will do things like allow women to vote Particularly on temperance issues so in some states we see that women are allowed to vote on liquor licenses Or they're allowed to vote in municipal elections and This is a trend that continues throughout the end of the 19th century So one of the things that is most interesting about the temperance movement, and I like this map because it helps demonstrate it Is that anything that is white? Any state that's colored white women have equal state suffrage as men Any state that is gray has partial suffrage and any state that's filled in with black Has no suffrage for women at all If there's a question mark in the state it means that there's still a question of suffrage that hangs out there This map was printed in 1912, and I'm gonna talk about 1912 in a few minutes Okay, so one of the trends that you can see with this map is that this is a political movement That is successful in the West and not successful in the East Which is the opposite of how we often think of political movements in the United States, right? And actually it's the opposite of how I started my talk. I started my talk talking about New York and Seneca Falls and Boston But those states actually there's a lot of Hardline men in those states that are not willing to budge on where they stand politically And so those states actually have some of the hardest The hardest sort of battleground areas to try and get women's rights They're they're successful in some ways like those municipal elections or partial suffrage is granted in some some of those states But for most states we only see the Western states successfully allowing women to vote in all state elections So that's one thing that makes the suffrage movement unique is that it's a West moving East kind of movement So how does this fit into Wisconsin? So you can look at that map you see Wisconsin is gray and Wisconsin has a question mark And so I'm gonna talk about those things next so the first real test that we get is in 1887 The air in 1886 Wisconsin passes a referendum that allows women to vote in elections in school matters But the legislature didn't do a very good job of writing the referendum And so it's very unclear what school matters means and so in 1887 a woman named Olympia Brown This is Reverend Olympia Brown from the Racine Kenosha area She decides to put this to the test. It's a brand-new new referendum that's passed We're gonna see what women can do and she decides that you say we can vote in school matters Well, the school board obviously has a connection to school matters But you know the mayor of my town makes a lot of decisions about school matters with a county executive and the County treasurer and really all of the municipal elections. They all have some say on school matters So I'm just gonna vote for all the municipal elections, right? okay, so she goes to the polling place and she attempts to vote for all the municipal elections and They seize her ballot and they don't let her vote And she has to take her case to the Wisconsin Supreme Court and so she takes her case to the Supreme Court and the Wisconsin Supreme Court says Yeah, we didn't think this through very well and you can't vote you can't vote because there's lots of problems one We need to define what school matters is and two We're gonna have to print a completely separate ballot for the women because right now We're only printing one ballot and voting is anonymous And if I hand you the ballot and then you turn it in how do I know you didn't vote for president? You know so they they they have all these problems that they have to fix and so she loses her case to the Wisconsin Supreme Court and Women are effectively not allowed to vote for a very long time because it takes until around 1900 or 1901 So from 1887 all the way up to 1901 Before the legislature fixes the problem and women are actually able to vote in school matters So we we take a step forward and then we take a big step back in Wisconsin, right? So so they're trying to sort of figure this out And then at the exact same time that they're trying to do some of this stuff Wisconsin is trying to get a statewide Referenda past so there's lots of different Things that are happening and and what so this is another national figure This is Victoria Woodhaw with Victoria Woodhaw was the first woman to try and run for president. She is not from Wisconsin but she also She tries to run with an African-American running mate She is much more of a free thinker and sort of Very some people consider her more eccentric. She's more skewed to the far end of the spectrum She has a very radical publication and in 1870 her and her sister start the publication in Tennessee called Woodhaw and kelvin's weekly The publication gave the sisters a place to express their ideas on social reforms including women's suffrage birth control and free love And the journal was also the first to publish Carl Marx's Communist Manifesto So you can see how it's a very extreme publication, right? She was a strong supporter of women's rights and she often spoke publicly on behalf of women's suffrage and so she sought to be more politically active and have involvement in politics, but she was very harshly treated by mainstream politicians and the media and So eventually she is sort of unsuccessful and she kind of drifts off into the background a little bit But these are all the different Movements that are happening. We often call from the failed Olympia Browns failed attempt to vote up until 1910 are kind of considered the dull drums of the suffrage movement or there's these women that are really trying to get things done But they're not getting a lot of traction and part of the reason why they're having such a hard time is because Getting state suffrage in Wisconsin is not an easy task. So this is what the women of Wisconsin were trying to do They had to get a bill introduced to the state legislature in one year And it had to pass and then in the next year the same bill had to be introduced again And it had to pass again and then once it passed the second time two consecutive years Then it went to the state The voting populace of the state to be voted on as a referendum and it had to pass as a referendum in order for women to have statewide suffrage, okay? So in 1912 after many many failed attempts We see that Wisconsin is finally successful in getting the bill through twice So it goes through in 1910 and 1911 and then in 1912 We have the referendum to see if women will be given the right to vote in Wisconsin One of the women who is very involved in advocating during the 1912 referenda process is Ada James Ada James is a suffragist from Richland Center And she is really what we kind of consider a grassroots activist So whereas Elizabeth Cady Stanton or Bell case Lafollette are out giving speeches on the backs of trains and trying to you know Emotionally get people involved in the movement Ada James is you know behind the typewriter. She's in the background making sure that it's all organized, right? She's contacting people in all these different towns. She's helping organize women's clubs She's organizing events and trying to get this referendum passed. So she So she's working really really hard in 1912 to try and get the 1912 referendum passed and she Unfortunately is unsuccessful. So in 1912 the the bill goes to our male voters for Referenda to vote on and the men of Wisconsin vote very clearly that they do not want the women of Wisconsin to vote They vote the bill down two-thirds to one-third So it's a hundred and thirty five thousand seven hundred and thirty six votes for the referenda and 227 and 54 votes against the referenda. So Wisconsin have kind of Wisconsin it was really really really disheartened by the failure of the 1912 referenda and really you know if I back up a little bit to this map this question mark that I said I would come back to so Wisconsin and Michigan and Ohio all have Referendas on the ballot around the same time and the national movement was really watching Wisconsin and Michigan and Ohio at that time because they thought especially the East Coast They were really watching us because all of these women in these eastern states that are all black They really thought that you know, it's a Western phenomenon. We're not going to be successful We're failing and we have to come up with a new strategy and we don't know what the strategy is But if Wisconsin or Michigan if they can do it then there's hope for the East Coast because they saw That the politics of Wisconsin and Michigan more closely aligned with the politics of happening on the East Coast And they thought that if they could convince the voters in Wisconsin and Michigan that they could also convince eastern voters And then we told them that we couldn't we couldn't convince Wisconsin voters to do it. So So it's it's a it's a sad time but like all women in life men and women in life you just pick yourself up and you keep going and so one of The things that we see is that there's a change in strategy in around 1912 There's a big change in strategy on how to advocate for women to get suffrage And what we see in Wisconsin actually is that a lot of the women in Wisconsin who had been so pivotal in the suffrage movement women like bell case the fall it and Kate Carrie Chapman cat and Jesse Jack Cooper they kind of stop working on that state-by-state work that I was talking about they stop trying to get Women in Wisconsin the right to vote and they kind of abandon ship and they jump up to that federal argument because they start to Think that the only way that we're going to accomplish this really is if we get it done at the federal level And so they start to work on a strategy to get Suffrage at the federal level and that strategy takes on a couple of different a couple of different motivations So around this time is when World War one starts and World War one really changes the landscape of How women can advocate so one of the things that we see with World War one is that the United States? Political sphere starts being thrown into the same political sphere as Europe and one thing that women in the United States are able to Do is they're able to look to countries like France and Great Britain and they can say the women in France and Great Britain Can vote and they are allies and you're not letting us vote And so that's part of the argument that they use Another part of the argument that they use related to World War one is the peace movement So we have to remember that World War one is called the Great War It was meant to be the war to end all wars and they thought that when World War one ended that we would move Into a time of peace and prosperity and that there would be no more war after that and they and The world really saw women as the peacemakers. They saw women as the people who would bring peace to the world Because they thought that it was just inherently part of our nature Yes, it's very funny so so They some countries and some areas Successfully use that argument to give women suffrage and so we see a lot of these Organizations like the peace and equality League are formed and these are women's organizations that are centered around the idea of peace and equality working together and it's one of the things that Eventually leads to the formation of the UN right is you know The these tenants and ideas of peace and equality eventually are sort of built into the policies and the foundation of the United Nations So so that's really important the other strategy that World War one brings out is this idea that all the men are Overfighting right it's this classic kind of we call it the Rosie the Riveter in World War two But it's the same idea in World War one all the men are off fighting And who did you leave behind to you know run the factories and man the farm and raise the children and make sure that everything was still Happening all the women are in the United States And so what they do is they start to say that you would not Successfully be winning this war if it wasn't for the women of the United States and you think that women Can stay out of this political sphere you think that the domestic sphere and the political sphere are two separate things But they're not they cross over in lots of ways and you wouldn't be winning this war if it wasn't for the women of the United States So we have women like Alice Paul who helps to Organize women around this idea of our role in World War one So Alice Paul and Carrie Chapman cat who is a Wisconsinite work really closely together to kind of Come up with this strategy of aligning the women's clubs across the United States to all get behind this idea of war work and women's work and women's suffrage all go together, okay? And they start organizing these massive rallies Where women show up and they wear their sashes and they wear yellow and they wear white and they march down Pennsylvania Avenue in 1913 to tell the president that you know when are you gonna vote on suffrage? We want to vote on suffrage and Teddy Roosevelt is the first presidential campaign earlier to Run on a pro-suffrage Platform and but President Wilson wins the presidency on an anti-suffrage platform so so we We have to convince President Wilson of this idea that women's role in World War one is important enough to Support to support suffrage So Alice Paul is the main organizer of what we call these Silent Sentinels, so these are women who in January of 1917 There were a thousand of these what they called silent sentinels. They they began an 18th month Picket outside the White House. They would stand at the gates with signs that says mr. President How long must we wait for liberty? They endured verbal and physical attacks. They were arrested Some of them went on a hunger strike You know they threatened to put them in insane asylums and things along those lines for these for these marches But eventually they are successful. So this is Alice Paul And eventually they successfully use this this World War one argument to get women the right to vote so they change they change President Wilson's mind in September of 1918 he says I regard the concurrence of the Senate and the constitutional amendment proposing the extension of suffrage to women as vitally essential to the successful prosecution of the Great War of humanity in which we are engaged so so President Wilson changes his mind and he puts forward the amendment for women to have the right to vote so There's Carrie Chapman cat so she was very closely Aligned with Alice Paul on this strategy of aligning the movement with World War one and she is sometimes called the the sort of the Coming up with the successful plan. She's often given credit for coming up with the successful plan Okay, so The president sends the bill to the legislature in May of 1919 Congress votes And it gets sent to the states in June So governor and mrs. Evers alluded to the fact that Wisconsin was the first state to ratify You need 36 states for the proposed amendment to become an amendment to the Constitution and as it so happened It was a budget year So Wisconsin's legislature was in session Over time that year because they hadn't come up with a budget some things never change and So because we happen to be in session in June of 1919 Wisconsin is one of the first states that actually even has the opportunity to vote on it because many other states their legislators aren't in session so in June of 1919 Wisconsin's legislature votes on it and There's a lot of women in Madison who are watching it very closely Including Ada James who's from Richland Center not too far from Madison. Her father was a former State legislature and he had been watching the movement very closely and he had advocated for them to vote on it that day So there's a bunch of women that are in Madison outside the Capitol waiting to hear if they vote on it waiting to hear if it passes They hear that our legislature votes on it and it passes But they also receive word that Illinois voted before us and they're kind of disheartened that Illinois voted before us They're like, oh, no, we wanted to be first and Illinois beat us and then somebody very smartly points out You know, it doesn't really count until you turn your paperwork into the State Department in Washington So if we can get our guy there first We're first So David James, he's 76 years old. He's a retired state legislature. He gets legislator. He gets a special Like proclamation from the governor giving him permission to be Wisconsin's courier and take the materials to Washington He didn't have a suitcase with him. He didn't have anything with him His daughter Ada hands him her pocketbook and says go dad and he gets on a train and he goes to Washington and He gets everything turned in first and was he actually is very smart He says I'd like a receipt that says that Wisconsin Turned this in and that we were first So he waits while they give him a letter that signed by the State Department that says yes, Wisconsin turned in their paperwork first And then they're outside. So this picture here is taken I'm shortly after he turns it in there There's a number of women from the I think it's from the League of Women Voters in DC and Wisconsin women who had been In DC because of all the politics maybe with their husbands who are politicians And he asks them to meet them outside and they take some pictures and this is him Holding the piece of paper that gave him the it's not the receipt actually It's the piece of paper that gave him the authority to take the documents to Washington And so the story that's printed here that you can't read but the story after he gets home And they print the story in the newspaper. He says yeah We were outside taking pictures and we saw the messenger from Illinois run in He puts his papers down and he said I would like to proclaim that Illinois is the first state to ratify the 19th Amendment And then the article said that they all just stood there and laughed because they thought it was so funny All right, so Wisconsin is the first the the Amendment does go pretty quickly through the States it takes 36 states to ratify Tennessee is the last state to ratify to make it count as being official and they ratify in August of 1920 it then goes back to the federal government and is enacted and added to the Constitution on August 26th of 1920 so the 1920 election is the first election that women have the right to vote in and we help elect President Warren G. Harding For what it's worth So that's me So this summer we held a big event in in Madison Governor and mrs. Evers were there to help us kick off our centennial year of celebrating the women's suffrage movement This is Wisconsin's copy of the 19th Amendment so every state was issued a copy of the amendments that we would have the official language to vote on and This is we brought the document to the Capitol and there was a day of speakers and celebration in June And we're hoping that there will be another big day of celebration across the state in August to help us Celebrate women and getting the right to vote So one of the things that comes out of this movement right as we have these women who have been Organizing and getting things done for 70 years right trying to accomplish this goal and one of the things that comes out and becomes very obvious as More states start to ratify the amendment is what are we going to do now? We're going to have the right to vote. So what are we going to do now? And so we have the foundation of the League of Women Voters and that is founded Is it it's 1920 or 1921 that the League of Women Voters is founded and they're promoting education across voter education across the country trying to get Women to the polls and know what voting means know how voting works and and making sure that they know what their right is And then we also have the Equal Rights Amendment which is introduced in 1921 and has recently made the news again. So the Equal Rights Amendment was first introduced in 1921 Wisconsin is the 17th or the 15th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. We ratify it in 1972 I believe and but Wisconsin is one of the first states to come up with a state Equal Rights Amendment and we passed our state level Equal Rights Amendment in 1921 shortly after the Amendment was introduced and so this these are Wisconsin women at a Women's Rights Rally that says Wisconsin the first state to have Equal Rights because we're the first state to pass our state level Equal Rights Amendment And then like we were talking about earlier and like Governor and Mrs. Evers mentioned It is important to realize that the Suffrage Amendment does not give everyone in our country the right to vote So there are still lots of groups that are left out of voting Native American women aren't guaranteed the right to vote until 1924 with the Indian Citizenship Rights Act and A lot of African American women are not given the right to vote until 1965 with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 so what the 19th amendment does is it opens the door for these struggles To be sort of laid out and and have that work continue in a different vein So on the other sort of big amendment that has to do with voting rights is the 26th amendment So when women passed the 19th amendment in 1920 it would have been women over the age of 21 who had the right to vote and it's the 26th amendment that changes the voting age to 18 Because of the draft in the Vietnam War And so the other thing that you know, we just wanted that we like to sort of think about when it post 19th amendment post 1920 is how are we using our voting rights? You know, what does that mean this the amendment opens the door for a lot of women to participate in politics and a lot of different ways So this is kind of a little you know montage of women around the state women like Vell Phillips who's the first African American woman to To serve as a justice and to be on the Milwaukee City Council And there's lots of different milestones that come up one of the things that's really interesting is that Getting the right to vote and political involvement are not the same thing So women get the right to vote in 1920, but we don't really see women entering political office for some time after So, Wisconsin has its first state female state legislatures in the late 1920s in 1926 But there are very few women that are actively participating in politics until the 1970s and then in the 1970s We see the numbers do start to grow and they they sort of peak in around 1993 in 1993 if we take a snapshot of women's involvement in politics one-third of public offices are being held by women in 1993 these are numbers based on as of 2016 So women make up 51% of the population, but we make up between 25 and 30 percent of government Depending on what level of government we're talking about So this you know one of the things that we like to think about is you know how do we use our vote vote how does voting and political involvement go together and What is the work that still needs to be done? And I think there's a lot of people who would say that 51% of the population but one-third percent of the government is not equal So thinking about what the struggle means a hundred years later is a lot different than the hundred years before So that is my presentation