August 19, 1995 - Episode 386 - Women of Achievement and Herstory A six-volume History of Woman Suffrage was begun by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mathilda Gage, and Susan B. Anthony about 1870 and finally completed shortly after the 19th amendment was ratified in 1920 by a number of other women. Without this remarkable set of books which contains first-hand reportage, professional investigation, and original documents, much of women's labor in the largest civil rights movement in the history of the United States would have been lost. In fact, look at what has been forgotten about the day we won the vote, namely August 18, 1920 in Nashville, TN. Starting on page 616 of Vol.VI: "RATIFICATION. When the Legislature of Washington in March, 1920 ratified the Federal Woman Suffrage Amendment making the 35th (state with 36 needed for ratification), there came an absolute stop. The southeastern States had rejected it and it had been ratified by all the others except Vermont and Connecticut, whose Governors refused to call special sessions .... There was every reason to believe that the Legislature of Tennessee would give this one if it were not prevented by a clause in the State constitution." (However, a decision had just been handed down on another matter that stated the Constitution was the supreme law of the land and superseded the Tennessee law that was preventing a special session. ) In face of the decision, President Woodrow Wilson telegraphed Tennessee Governor Roberts asking him to call a special session. "Allow me to urge this very earnestly," Wilson wrote. Roberts did so in face of telegrams from many influential Democrats. It was an election year. He called the legislature into session for August 9, 1920. Roberts appointed Mrs. Leslie Wagner to organize a committee for ratification with more than 100 members from all parts of the state. Marjorie Shuler, chair of publicity of the NSA, assisted and they all urged Carrie Chapman Catt to come to Nashville to head up the final push. She arrived in the middle of July. Afterwards she would write of the following six weeks: "Never in the history of politics has there been such a nefarious lobby as labored to block the ratification in Nashville. In the short time that I spent in the capital I was more maligned, more lied about, than in the thirty previous years I worked for suffrage. I was flooded with anonymous letters, vulgar, ignorant, insane. Strange men and groups of men sprang up, men we had never met before in the battle. Who were they? We were told, this is the railroad lobby, this is the steel lobby, these are the manufacturers' lobbyists, this is the remnant of the old whiskey ring. Even tricksters from the U.S. Revenue Service were there operating against us, until the President of the United States called them off ... They appropriated our telegrams, tapped our telephone, listened outside our windows and transoms. They attacked our private and public lives. I had heard of the `invisible government.' Well, I have seen it work and I have seen it sent into oblivion." WOA-->> Continued tomorrow: Part 3 of 11 of the way it really was in 1920 when women's suffrage was one state short of ratification ... the unbelievable happenings in Tennessee to get to the vote on August 18, 1920, and to its certification, which the Governor of Tennessee mailed at noon August 24, 1920. The certification was received by Secretary Colby on the morning of August 26, 1920,0 when he immediately proclaimed the Federal Suffrage Amendment a part of the Constitution of the United States ... 08-19 Anniversaries ........................................... B. Aug. 19, 1743, Jeanne Becu, Comtesse duBerry, (Madame DuBerry) mistress of King Louis XV of France. Guillotined for actively aiding royalists during French Revolution. E. Aug. 19, 1812, Lucy Brewer disguised herself as a male, George Baker and fought aboard the "Constitution" in its naval battle with the "Guerriere." B. Aug. 19, 1814, Mary Ellen "Mammy" Pleasant, known as the mother of civil rights in California. Much of her life is clouded in legend which says that she freed slaves held illegally in free California. Very little is factually known of her life but her civil rights actions are part of the black folklore of California. B. Aug. 19, 1874, Mary Belle Harris, prison administrator. She was appointed director of the newly created prison for women by Katherine Bement Davis were 700 women were crowded into 150 cells. After successful reforms built on common sense she became superintendent of the State Reformatory for Women in New Jersey (1918), and then was appointed head of the newly authorized Federal Industrial Institution for Women in Alderson, W.Va. She helped plan the structure so that it resembled a girl's boarding school rather than a pile of rock. It became known as a "community of women working together under the guidance of other women." She often spoke about the need for women to "build within them a wall of self-respect: and to learn employable skills which would free them from being dependent on a man or a be burden on the community." B. Aug. 19, 1946, William J. (Bill) Clinton, 42nd President of the United States. Clinton has appointed more women to high government positions than any other President. B. Aug. 19, 1948, Tipper Gore, activist wife of Senator, later Vice- President Al Gore. Her interests are the environment and pornography in modern music lyrics. ....................... * ........................ The FTPs for Women of Achievement and Herstory archived by William Affleck-Asch, are: ftp://ftp.eskimo.com/u/f/feminist/ (or NCFTP open ftp.eskimo.com cd /u/f/feminist/) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- >>(C) 1995 Irene Stuber, PO Box 6185, Hot Springs National Park, AR 71902, 501-624-5262 for direct fax or voice mail ID #300, irenestuber@delphi.com for comments and suggestions. Distribute verbatim copies freely with copyright notice for non-profit use. We are accepting *limited* donations (only what can be spared) to help offset the online costs of posting WOA-H.<<