 This is a re-recording of Petitions, Protest, and Persuasion, women's voices in the records of the National Archives, a webinar for educators that was offered on Thursday, March 28, 2019. The goal of this program is to share primary sources and activities for teaching the women's suffrage movement from the National Archives' holdings. As we approach the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 2020, the records of the National Archives can play an important part in telling the story of how women achieved the right to vote. After all, government has played a role in both limiting and expanding our rights. Throughout our nation's history, people have challenged the government to gain recognition of their rights, often through petitions and protest. Today we are going to examine how primary sources from the National Archives' holdings show how women use petitions, protest, and persuasion in the fight for suffrage. I will also connect you to resources you can use in your classroom to help students analyze the women's suffrage movement from multiple perspectives. I should note the records of the National Archives do not tell the complete story of the women's suffrage movement. Our role as the government's record keeper means we are missing pieces related to events that happened at the state and local and organizational levels. Additionally, due in part to the exclusionary nature of some of the organizations that targeted the government, we are missing the voices of important minority activists. However, what we do have can help your students evaluate the different methods of the women's suffrage movement and understand why women wanted the right to vote. We will highlight stories of some of the major players in this fight and also connect you to primary sources that share lesser known but important voices in this decade's long effort. Let's start with petitions. The Center for Legislative Archives, part of the National Archives, has the official records of the House and Senate, starting with the records of the First Congress in 1789. The records of Congress can help tell an important part of the 19th Amendment story. The First Amendment of the Constitution provides citizens with the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances. The greatest volume of congressional records we have were not created by Congress or government agencies, but by the people writing to Congress exercising their First Amendment right to petition. Among the tens of thousands of petitions related to women's suffrage are petitions from individuals and others signed by thousands of people. They are petitions from famous historical figures as well as from ordinary citizens about whom little is known today. Their letters reveal much about their world, their strategies and the reasons they wanted the right to vote. We can use petitions to help students answer some of these questions. What were the methods of the women's suffrage movement? Why did women want the right to vote? How did women and men organize? How have individuals exercised their rights to bring about societal change? Let's take a look at some examples of petitions from the National Archives Holdings. After the Civil War, but many questions remained regarding the future of freed women and men, questions that invited constitutional clarification. Advocates for women's rights were determined to make women's voting rights a part of that conversation. On January 29, 1866, this petition was presented on the floor of the House. It was among the first of several hundred petitions like it asking for universal suffrage. The petitioners wrote, The undersigned women of the United States respectfully ask an amendment of the Constitution that shall prohibit the several states from disfranchising any of their citizens on the ground of sex. In making our demand for suffrage, we would call your attention to the fact that we represent 15 million people, one half the entire population of the country, intelligent, virtuous, Native-born American citizens, and yet stand outside the pale of political recognition. One of the interesting features of this particular petition is the group of notable women from New York who signed it. At the top we can see the names of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Next there is the signature of Antoinette Brown Blackwell, who was the first woman-ordained minister in the United States. Lucy Stone was an early advocate for women's rights and was famous for keeping her maiden name when she married to show she was independent from her husband. She was supposedly the first recorded woman to do this. And Ernestine Rose, a Jewish abolitionist and suffragist born in Poland who spoke out for women's rights in Europe before emigrating to the United States. We can use a petition like this one to help students think about why did women want the right to vote and what methods did they use. This document also serves as a nice example of what a petition is for students at the elementary level. We can break it down into parts looking at the form, the title, and the signatures. Up next we have a petition from the American Equal Rights Association to Congress. The American Equal Rights Association was a coalition of men and women, black and white, dedicated to fighting for racial and gender equality. This petition is from 1867. At the bottom of the petition we can see the leadership of this organization included such figures as Lucretia Mott, Theodore Tilton, Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony. This was a short-lived organization. After the 14th Amendment inserted the word male into the Constitution and it looked like the 15th Amendment would only prohibit states from denying suffrage based on race. This group divided over support for the 15th Amendment and strategy on how to secure the right to vote for women. Some, like Anthony and Stanton, chose to speak out against the passage of the 15th Amendment and actively worked against it. Others saw the 15th Amendment as an important step to universal suffrage. Out of the AERA two organizations would form in 1869. The National Women's Suffrage Association would seek to achieve women's suffrage through federal amendment. The American Women's Suffrage Association would pursue suffrage via a state-by-state strategy. Eventually suffragists agreed that the strongest strategy did not include divided efforts so the organizations merged into the National American Women's Suffrage Association in 1890. Petitions like this one can provide insight into the organization of different groups of the women's suffrage movement and also add to our understanding of why women wanted the right to vote, the types of arguments that were being made for universal suffrage at this time. In the 1870s, the National Women's Suffrage Association would lead a campaign for a 16th Amendment. This amendment would be modeled on the 15th and the intent of this proposed amendment was to specifically ban disenfranchisement on account of sex. Their petition here emphasized the importance of widespread petitioning campaigns. If we look a little closer at this petition, we can understand how these were organized. The National Women's Suffrage Association is encouraging that women gather petitions throughout the country and then submit them all to the main office in Washington, D.C., where they will be compiled and submitted to Congress. In response to this appeal, many petitions poured in. This particular petition that we're looking at was submitted by 12 women and 15 men from Colorado in 1877, which is noted at the top of this page, probably when it was received. It was presented to Congress and it was one of 20 similar petitions signed by more than 6,000 individuals introduced to the House on this day alone. A year after this particular appeal was submitted, an amendment for women's suffrage was introduced to Congress for the first time. So again, petitions like this one provide insight into the structure and methods of the National Women's Suffrage Association, how they're trying to exert a national leadership. African-American suffragists also played a crucial role in the struggle for women's voting rights while facing racism and segregation that existed within the country and within the suffrage community. Frederick Douglass, a leader within the abolition movement, was also an important voice in the women's suffrage movement and his activism was shared by members of his family. This is a petition from a drive organized by the National Women's Suffrage Association. This petition is from African-American residents of Washington, D.C. with separate columns for men and women signers. It is signed by Frederick Douglass's adult children, Frederick Douglass Jr. and his wife, as well as Frederick Douglass's daughter, Rosetta Douglass, who signed it under her married name, Mrs. Nathan Sprague. Her husband also signed the petition. These petitioners asked Congress to prohibit states from disfranchising United States citizens on account of sex. In addition to petitions organized by national coalitions, we also have petitions that provide insight into the organization of women at the state and local level. This next petition helps us take a look at that state story. In May of 1916, many Fisher Cunningham submitted this petition on behalf of the Texas Women's Suffrage Association. It shows the kind of organizing that was happened at the state level. The letter had provides insight into the different positions and how the organization was run by these women. When this petition was written, 12 states had granted women full suffrage and others had given women partial voting rights. But women's suffrage had also been met with repeated resistance, particularly throughout much of the South where voting rights for African American men had been greatly restricted. This petition reflects what's going on at this time. It notes that women's suffrage would not threaten this form of voter repression in Texas. These women were working to extend the right to vote to women. Texas laws preventing people of color from voting would not be threatened, which is what this last paragraph gets at. This is a good reminder that just because women supported suffrage or voting rights for women, they did not necessarily want to support universal suffrage. The National American Women's Suffrage Association admitted some African American members, but at the same time limited membership and participation in national conferences. The national organization also prioritized the suffrage of white women in its work. However, African American women did work with national organizations, but they also formed their own clubs. These clubs played an important role in the women's suffrage movement. Here we have an example of a petition from the Rhode Island Union Colored Women's Clubs showing their support for women's suffrage. This particular petition also looks at the rest of the world, noting that the women of Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Canada and European countries are now able to vote, whereas the United States is not. A petition like this from a state or local organization can also be a great starting place for students to learn more about suffragists from their own state and perhaps spark a research project to learn more about who these women are and what role they played within their communities. The last petition we're going to highlight in this program is a little different from the other ones we've looked at. There were many large organized petition campaigns as we've seen, but also individuals who wrote to Congress supporting suffrage for very specific and personal reasons. If we look at this letter from Hattie Bordewicz, we can see she is a cashier from the letterhead at the Olivia State Bank in Olivia, Minnesota. In this letter, she describes her political disability. She explains that she has been supporting herself since she was 18. She pays taxes. She can vote in school meetings and for the county superintendent of schools, a good reminder that there were places where partial suffrage existed at this time. This demonstrates her civic involvement. However, she notes that there are many men who do none of these things and may vote indiscriminately. This working woman wants equal suffrage rights and asks the Minnesota congressional delegation for help. Sometimes written documents can be challenging for students to analyze. So we've created two sets of document analysis worksheets to help students in this process. By reading primary sources, students engage in the activities of historians. They make sense of the stories, events, and ideas in the past through document analysis. And documents involve students in the process of historical inquiry when they ask questions, discover evidence, and participate in debates over interpretation. Each document analysis worksheet walks students through four different sections. They start by meeting the document, just starting with their initial observations. Then they observe its parts, so breaking down the document into who wrote it or created it, who received it, where is it from, when is it from. Then they try to make sense of it. Thinking about what does this document talk about? How would they summarize it in one sentence? Why did the author write it? What evidence from the document supports that? What else is happening in the time when this document is created? Finally, students use the document as historical evidence, thinking about what have they learned from this document that they might not learn anywhere else, or what other documents are historical evidence will they need to help understand this event or topic. We have sets of these worksheets for each different type of primary source of record. We have in our holdings, photographs, political cartoons, posters, artifacts artwork, sound recordings, and so on. And we also have a worksheet for novice or younger students as well. Petitions helped personalize these issues. And these worksheets can help students dive into these petitions and find out that women didn't just want the right to vote because they felt like it was unjust. The lack of representation hurt them in very real ways. Looking at different petitions together, whether it's in a gallery walk or another activity, can give students a chance to analyze arguments and think about how women make their case. What elements of persuasive writing do they employ? There's also value to sharing petitions with the students to help them forge that connection to real people in the past and show examples of how people from the past demonstrated civic responsibility and made a difference by participating. Now, I do have one last petition I want to share with you in this program, and that is this one. Now, as we mentioned, not all women supported universal suffrage and not all women supported suffrage for women in the first place. This next petition comes from the National Association Opposed to Women's Suffrage and helped provide students with insights into why some, especially women, might oppose voting rights for women in the first place. This letter provides insight into this organization that provides a platform at the top of the letter. We can see that the list of vice presidents and board of directors are all prominent women at this time. This letter makes the case that against a federal amendment saying that voting is a state issue and should be resolved by the states. And on the second page it gets into the heart of an argument, one argument against extending voting rights to women. It says it would be an endorsement of nagging as a national policy and that if feminism can be put through by pestering regardless of the world of people, so can pacifism, socialism, and other isms. So it's the spear not of this woman voting but of other women voting, of people immigrating to the United States, of people with ideas who might be seen as different than what these women are used to. So this petition is one of many examples we have in the holdings of the National Archives that looks at some arguments against women's suffrage. It also shows us when it comes to women's voting rights there are a lot of different perspectives on this issue. Alright, up next we, well first we've seen the National Archives has petitions that span the entirety of women's suffrage movement and provide an excellent look at the methods and reasons for why women wanted the right to vote. Women just didn't just use their words though, they also showed up garnering the attention of the media, public, and elected officials. We're going to take a look at some photos from the National Archives holdings and these photos can be used in the classroom to again get at that issue of the methods of the women's suffrage movement to help students think about how individuals have exercised their rights, help practice those evaluating visual information skills, and make connections between the past and present. So start with this one photo, let's just take a look at it and think about what we see, what we notice first, how would we describe what's happening. In the 20th century suffragists began staging large and dramatic parades to draw attention to their cause. This was, this picture comes from one of the most consequential demonstrations. It was a March held in Washington D.C. on March 3rd, 1913, the day before Woodrow Wilson's first presidential inauguration. More than 5,000 suffragists from across the country paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue from the U.S. Capitol building to the Treasury building. The rowdy, mostly male crowd watching the parade pressed in on the demonstration, at times leaving barely enough room for the marchers to get by. Many women reported that they were verbally and physically assaulted while some of the police stood by either unwilling or unable to control the crowd. There was public outrage over the violence and disorder. This resulted in a congressional investigation into the lack of police protection for the marchers, and it helped increase sympathy for the women's suffrage movement. These photos actually come from that congressional investigation. This march set a precedent for future marches, but it also brought controversy. The National American Women's Suffrage Association said that all women and men were welcomed to march. However, March organizer Alice Paul attempted to exclude African-American women from participating because she feared white women would not want to march alongside them. Ultimately, the NAWSA forced Paul to allow African-American women to join the procession, but there was a segregated section for African-American women. However, some women of color, such as civil rights crusader Ida B. Wells Barnett and lawyer Mary Louise Battenew Baldwin, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, bucked this attempt to racially segregate the parade and joined the parade walking alongside white women. We have Mary Louise Battenew Baldwin's personnel file within the Holdings of the National Archives. She was a prominent advocate on behalf of Native American women. She served as a clerk in the Office of Indian Affairs and later went on to become a lawyer. This photo provides a nice entry point into talking about her story and her role in the women's suffrage movement. So again, we can use these photos to look at the methods of the women's suffrage movement, thinking about how women exercise their rights. And also, looking at photos is a good reminder that they don't always tell the full story. Sometimes we need some additional contextual information to learn about what happened before or after the photos were taken. Those are also a great place to start a class discussion because they give students a chance to weigh in starting with their observations, what they observe. They can be just a simple see, think, wonder activity. It's a great place to start with these photos. We also have photos of the silent sentinels in front of the White House. Many of us are familiar with these photos. These women were the first Americans to pick at the White House, bringing their message straight to the President. They kept it going for six days a week for nearly two years. These women were viewed as more militant suffragists, and they were controversial, even within the mainstream suffrage movement. Women who picketed in front of the White House were arrested for exercising their first amendment rights, and the arrest and treatment of the picketers won public sympathy and placed additional pressure on the White House. These women attempted to call out the hypocrisy of fighting a war to make the world safe for democracy. When women who were engaged in that war effort were denied their full citizenship rights at home. However, many women were criticized for protesting the White House during this time of war. So far in this program, we've examined how women made the case for the right to vote through petitions and protest. We can also use National Archives records to take a closer look at another strategy. I'm going to take you through documents that can help students understand how women tried to make a constitutional argument for the right to vote after the passage of the 14th Amendment. So in the 1870s, women asserted that they had the right to vote, and then went out and voted. This strategy evolved at the local level. We have examples of women across the country trying to vote in the Reconstruction Era. Missouri suffragists Francis and Virginia Minor put forward a constitutional argument that the 14th Amendment guaranteed the right to vote to women. They just had to exercise it. The National Women Suffrage Association embraced this idea and championed it as a new national suffrage strategy. This became known as the New Departure Strategy that encouraged women to test this argument by voting. A legal test with a court ruling that the Constitution already secured the right to vote for women could circumvent the fight for legislation. While this is championed as a national strategy, it's built on these grassroots efforts. In 1868, there were about 172 women in Vineland, New Jersey who vote. We have examples of women across the country attempting to vote. In 1871, Mary Ann Chubb-Carrie attempts to register in Washington, D.C. In 1872, Sojourner Truth attempts to register and vote in Battle Creek, Michigan. In 1872, Susan B. Anthony is joined by 14 women in Rochester where they register and then vote in the election. While Susan B. Anthony isn't the first woman to vote, the digitized records related to her arrest, trial, and fine provide an account of this constitutional argument and present an opportunity for students to evaluate the arguments themselves. To explore the story, we can use the Susan B. Anthony the transcript of her hearing. This is a helpful document to see how elected officials originally were against registering or election officials were against Anthony registering to vote and then to explore Anthony's rationale for why she should be permitted to register and to vote. We can also take a look at the joint resolution proposing the 14th Amendment. It's section one that says all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of the United States. They tried to use this section, those who are fighting for women's suffrage, as justification for women having the right to vote. If we consider voting to be a right of citizenship, then laws denying women the right to vote are violating the section of the 14th Amendment. Now, the judge will ultimately rule against Susan B. Anthony and find her guilty of voting illegally and she'll be fined $100, which she will never pay. Another document we have is a petition to Congress for the remission of the fine imposed on her. This document provides additional details from Susan B. Anthony's perspective of her case and how she was treated during this legal proceeding. Anthony's case will not make it past this point. However, Virginia Minor's case will make it all the way to the Supreme Court. And in Minor v. Happerset, the Supreme Court will find that the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon anyone and that the laws that prohibit voting in these states are okay. So here we have these documents that can help students analyze this argument to think about the methods of the women's suffrage movement, how effective were they, how effective was this argument. This case can also help students think about the role government plays in expanding and limiting rights and also give students a chance to tackle this question themselves, should voting be a right of citizenship. This activity, these documents are available in an activity on docsteach.org that you can share with your students. The last resource I want to highlight in this program is the popular topics page on Docs Teach for Women's Rights. So I'm going to switch over to sharing my screen. Okay, here we have the popular topics page for women's rights on Docs Teach. On this page you will find curated collections of primary sources for teaching a variety of topics related to the women's suffrage movement and beyond, including sections for different petitions, sections on women in the workforce, women's role during the wars, as well as teaching activities that you can share with your students to look at some of the questions we've been talking about today. Why did women want the right to vote? How did the process of ratifying the 19th Amendment unfold? And then evaluating the new departure strategy takes the documents we just looked at and puts them together in an activity that you can have your students complete. Now if you're registered for a free Docs Teach account, you can save this activity and then share it with your students and actually observe their responses within Docs Teach. So here we have a suggested teaching instructions for this page just for you. And if we click Start Activity, this is the link you can share with your students to have them go through these different documents, think about these different questions, and then share their responses with you. This page, this women's rights landing page is a great place to start exploring to see all the resources the National Archives has to offer for teaching this topic of women's suffrage. So I encourage you to start exploring. Links to all the resources shared in this webinar are available in the description below.