Civil Rights Leader

Sarah Mae Flemming, the forerunner of Rosa Parks, for many years remained an unsung hero in the annals of civil rights. It was a little-publicized civil-rights case involving public transportation in Columbia, SC that helped Rosa Parks and her lawyers prevail in a lawsuit challenging segregation on buses in Montgomery, Alabama…this case became the Flemming legacy.

Flemming was born on June 28th, 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression, the eldest of Mack and Rosetta Flemming’s seven children. The granddaughter of slaves, Flemming grew up on her family’s own land – 130 acres, five miles north of what is now downtown Eastover. She would eventually die of a heart attack on that same land, just shy of her 60th birthday.

Flemming slipped into history the morning of June 22, 1954 when she, a black maid, took a front seat on the then segregated city bus operated by South Carolina Electric and Gas (SCE&G). The line dividing the races on South Carolina buses served as one of the most visible daily reminders of segregation. Enforced by bus drivers vested with the powers of a deputy sheriff, the line was inscribed into a body of state laws that had for three generations separated blacks and whites. On Columbia buses, the color line shifted, depending on whether more black or white people were riding. One thing remained firm- whites never sat behind blacks.

On that historic morning Flemming took a seat in what she deemed an appropriate area.
After taking her seat, a white Columbia bus driver humiliated the 20 year old black woman from Eastover, blocking her with his arm and accusing her of sitting in the “whites-only” part of the bus. She was ordered by the bus driver to give up her seat in the front of the bus. She refused and the bus driver called the police. Sarah was arrested and subsequently sued South Carolina Electric and Gas, the owners and operators of the bus system in Columbia. She also claimed that she was hit by the driver as she exited the bus. This incident, occurring 17 months before Rosa Parks took her stand against segregation on city buses in Montgomery, Alabama- Flemming challenged segregation on SCE&G buses in Columbia. Sarah Mae did not reach the fame of Mrs. Parks, but she did find success in her fight for equality for African Americans and all citizens of the United States.

Sarah Fleming claimed her rights under the fourteenth amendment of the United States constitution had been violated by the driver’s actions. The 14th Amendment states that any person born in the United States is automatically a citizen of this country. This amendment states all citizens have the right to due process under the law and gives all citizens equal protection. It goes on to state that no citizen should be deprived of their life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness.

Phillip Whittenburg, a young white lawyer, originally took the case. Later he was joined by Thurgood Marshall and Matthew Perry. The NAACP sponsored the suit on behalf of Mrs. Fleming. Although the US Supreme Court had already ruled that segregation on city buses was against the law, the South Carolina Public Service Commission decided to uphold the South Carolina state law which supported segregation. The Fleming case was brought before Justice Timmerman, the judge for the eastern district of South Carolina, on February 16, 1955. Although the suit was based on the same principles as that of Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled that separate was not inherently equal, the judgment declared that Fleming’s claim failed to meet the requirements for relief and the case was dismissed. Justice Timmerman put forth that the Plessy v. Ferguson decision held that separation on public transportation was legal. The fight for equality on South Carolina buses did not end there.

Mrs. Fleming, the NAACP, and her lawyers appealed the ruling and the decision was reversed. The State Court of Appeals stated in their December 14, 1955 decision that Brown vs. Board did indeed cross all levels of society, including public transportation. The justices stated that “separate but equal” could not be fair and equal treatment of citizens in the United States. This outcome was not the end of the road however, as South Carolina Electric and Gas appealed the State Court’s decision. The US Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit dismissed the appeal on April 23, 1956 and the US Supreme Court upheld the Appeals Court decisions on November 29, 1956. The ruling was widely ignored, but is cited in the decision on the far-better publicized Rosa Parks case – which led to the end of segregated buses.

In 1955, Flemming’s win in court was big news in black newspapers across the country. The bigger news is that this young woman, in the face of southern Jim Crow politics took a step that forever changed the face of civil rights in the South.

An amazing story isn’t it? I think the MOST amazing thing is that I didn’t even know about any of this until after my aunt passed away, by the way, I was married with children of my own! I told you that the women in my family didn’t toot their own horn, but really Aunt Kitty, you never even mentioned this story not once…go figure, lol! And yes, that was THE Thurgood Marshall, first African-American Supreme Court justice, who was one of my aunt’s lawyers. As you can imagine, I am one proud niece. Her story sounds like a scene from the movie “The Help”. Hey I may someday write a screenplay, who knows! She is definitely our family heroine, a true inspiration, one of many who silently fought behind the scenes so we ALL could have equality. Thank you Aunt Kitty for trailblazing the way by showing us all how to do ourselves well! A big horn toot for you!!

*Excerpts taken from “South Carolina African-American Calendar” and “Teaching American History in South Carolina”

Who in your life has been an inspiration and heroin/hero to you?

Having a blast serving Him !

xoxoxo
Michell @Prowess and Pearls

The presidential candidates for the upcoming 2012 November election are scrambling to win the women’s vote. But relatively few  people nationwide actually know what it took to win the franchise. When the real story is told, women generally take voting much more seriously. And this perspective represents the thinking of New Mexico Women Who Rocked the Vote, the group organizing the New Mexico event. The August celebrations are an official events of the New Mexico state centennial (1912-2012).

New Mexico women owe their right to vote to the hard work of many activists before and after statehood. One of these is Adelina Otero Warren. Her story will be highlighted in two northern NM events on August 23 and 26, 2012 in Española, NM that are part of the statewide centennial celebration (1912-2012), currently underway. 

Three large banners showing women campaigning to win the right to vote are hanging from the ceiling of the Española Library during the month of August in order to bring attention to these special programs featuring the long and difficult struggle by women for the franchise.  New Mexico women campaigned for the right to vote before and after statehood. They won the right to vote after the state legislature ratified the 19th amendment in 1920.

“Mujeres Presente: New Mexico Women Who Rocked the Vote” is a special program scheduled for Thursday, August 23, 2012, 1 p.m. at the Española Library and then again on Sunday, August 26th, 1 p.m., at the Galeria Santa Cruz y el Espresso. The program features a cast of women who will present storytelling and a first-person historical characterization of Adelina Otero Warren, a Votes for Women activist and one of the first women in New Mexico to hold high public office. There will also be a display case at the Española Library during August 2012 featuring “Great Women in History” paper dolls decorated by Konweniahesen Lavina Gray, a fifth grade student at the Santa Clara Pueblo.

Residents of northern New Mexico will also participate in these two August programs by telling their own family stories of strong grandmothers, great grandmothers, and great-great-great grandmothers who either worked to win the right to vote or lived beyond the expectations of their time. The history of tenacious women and the vote has implications for the present-day and the urgent need for women to step into leadership roles in their own communities, exercise their right to vote, and participate in the democratic process.

A voter registration table will be available during the two “Mujeres Presente: New Mexico Women Who Rocked the Vote” presentations. A display case in the Santa Fe Library, La Farge branch (1730 Llano Street in Santa Fe), during the month of August also highlights New Mexico women and their campaigning to win the vote.

For more information, contact New Mexico Women Rock: nmwomenrock.wordpress.com or nmwomenrock at gmail.com

Part 2

2012 marks the 95th anniversary of New York women winning the right to vote on November 6, 1917. Here is the second part of a brief summary of what New York suffragists actually did to win in 1917, adapted from the text of “Winning the Vote: The Triumph of the American Woman Suffrage Movement” by Robert P. J. Cooney, Jr.

“A Million New York Women Want the Vote”

An enormously ambitious house-to-house canvass was the main feature of the 1917 campaign in New York. The tactic was diplomatically chosen, Mary Peck noted, because “it demanded service from every worker, did not offend sensitive patriots as more spectacular efforts would have done, and reached into individual homes as meetings never could.”
To answer charges by opponents that most women did not want to vote, suffragists spent more than a year going door-to-door in nearly every city and town in the state, collecting the signatures of over one million women who said that they wanted to vote.
Organizers climbed thousands of tenement stairs, walked country lanes, and visited the homes of the rich and poor. The result was the largest individually-signed petition ever assembled, eventually totaling 1,030,000 names, a majority of the women in the state. For comparison, there were 1,942,000 registered male voters. Suffragists then publicized their remarkable feat as widely as possible.

New York suffragists climaxed their wartime campaign by taking to the streets on October 27, 1917, carrying placards listing the names of over 1,000,000 state women who said they wanted to vote.  It was a compelling refutation of opponents’ claim that “most women didn’t want to vote.”  Male voters in New York approved woman suffrage on November 6, 1917 by 54% – over 100,000 votes.  New York’s political weight helped carry the 19th Amendment through Congress to ratification on August 26, 1920. 

A Patriotic “Woman’s Parade”

On October 27, in a powerful show of pre-election strength, a Woman’s Parade of 20,000 filled New York’s Fifth Avenue led by officers of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and honored guests carrying American flags.
The parade dramatically reflected the impact of the war and the depth of women’s involvement. Divisions of wives and mothers of servicemen marched along with women doing war related work, industrial workers, professional women, and male supporters. Anna Howard Shaw and Carrie Catt led the parade, which included 40 marching bands and took three hours to pass.
The dignity and grandeur of the wartime demonstration made a powerful impression on bystanders. “The men on the sidewalks were visibly moved,” Mary Peck remembered. “It was not half as long as the mammoth parade of 1915; it did not have to be. Women had taken on a value which nothing but war seems to confer on human beings in the eyes of men.”

An emotional Procession of the Petitions served as the centerpiece of the Woman’s Parade. After collecting over a million signatures of women who wanted to vote, Woman Suffrage Party members mounted the petitions on huge pasteboards and carried them up Fifth Avenue, putting the plea of women for democracy directly in front of voters.

Each placard was carried by two women marching eight abreast while banners gave the totals in all the upstate districts. The petitions from New York City were transported in 62 ballot boxes, each one representing an Assembly district and resting on a decorated platform carried by four women. The petition section alone covered more than half a mile and involved over 2,500 women.

City Voters Put New York Over the Top

Huge street banners were hung in all the large cities before the November election. Suffragists held an estimated 11,000 meetings across the state and distributed some eighteen million leaflets, posters, buttons, and novelties. A burst of newspaper advertising climaxed the final weeks with suffrage arguments appearing almost daily in over 700 morning and evening papers, including many in foreign languages.

On November 6, 1917, with over 6,300 women serving as poll watchers, New York voters passed woman suffrage by a 102,353 majority, 703,129 to 600,776. Outside of New York City, the measure lost by 1,510 votes but city voters more than made up the difference. Suffragists were overjoyed and felt confident that winning New York would open the way to certain victory in the U.S. Congress.

Suffragists’ “Big Victory” in New York shared front page headlines on November 7 with other election and war news. One factor contributing to the victory was the decision shortly before the election to keep “hands off” the measure by Tammany Hall politicians, many of whose wives and daughters had become active in the Woman Suffrage Party.

In addition, New York suffrage leaders spent more campaign funds in 1917 than ever before. While in 1915 they had less than $90,000 for the entire state, two years later they raised almost $700,000. “This, at a time when the country was at war, was an achievement which can scarcely be measured. To it suffragists everywhere contributed,” noted Gertrude Brown.

During the campaign, Woman Suffrage Party head Vera Whitehouse and treasurer Helen Rogers Reid decided to raise money the way political parties did – from wealthy men. They succeeded in convincing ten men, including Men’s League stalwarts James Lees Laidlaw and Samuel Untermeyer, to give $10,000 each, and won pledges for lesser sums from many others. In addition, the first payment from the endowment left by publisher Miriam Leslie came in February 1917, adding $50,000 to the campaign fund.

The Political Landscape Transformed

Suffragists across the country were ecstatic that metropolitan, influential New York, with its 43 electoral votes and 43 representatives in Congress, had actually been won. National enfranchisement was finally in sight because of the tremendous energy and resources devoted to the New York campaign.

The number of full suffrage states had not actually changed since 1914, but with presidential suffrage the total electoral votes women had a say in had increased from 91 to 172. New York added another 43. Seven states had passed presidential suffrage during the year, adding to the new sense of momentum.

The night after the election, a Victory meeting in the Cooper Union was “jammed to suffocation with an ecstatic multitude,” according to Mary Peck. When Carrie Catt opened with the words “Fellow Citizens,” the crowd went wild and it was some time before she could continue. Then she urged the state organization to turn without pause to supporting the Federal amendment.

Following the meeting, a New York Times editorial blasted women for “bulldozing Congress to pass the Federal Amendment at once.” An unrelenting opponent, the Times criticized suffragists for going to Washington to lobby for their rights because it “interfered with the vital work of the nation.” Failing to distinguish the moderate Woman Suffrage Party from the National Woman’s Party, the paper further claimed that “it is but a more dangerous form of picketing which these sorely misguided women are about to undertake. . . . Power brings to them no sense of responsibility. They win this state only to browbeat Congress and to seek to impose suffrage on unwilling states.”

Regardless, suffrage lobbyist Maud Wood Park immediately noted a different feeling in Washington D.C. “The carrying of New York was accepted by the politically wise as the handwriting on the wall,” she observed. Politicians as well as suffragists realized that a major turning point had been reached. The enfranchisement of women had become a national issue which even the war could not entirely overshadow.

In two short years, suffragists had helped secure dramatic changes in the political landscape. With new power and renewed hope, NAWSA focused its attention on Congress to finally take up the Federal amendment.

Using similar political skills at the national level, suffragists leveraged their state victories into passage and ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution on August 26, 1920.

© 2012 Robert P. J. Cooney, Jr.

Adapted from Chapter 15 of “Winning the Vote: The Triumph of the American Woman Suffrage Movement,” by Robert P. J. Cooney, Jr. (American Graphic Press: 2005). This excellent, profusely illustrated history was named one of the “Five Best Books” on the subject by The Wall Street Journal. Order from the National Women’s History Project, www.nwhp.org. The author can be reached at agp@ebold.com.

2012 marks the 95^th anniversary of New York women winning the right to vote on November 6, 1917.  The suffragists’ spectacular electoral campaign, waged during the trials of World War I, changed American history and led directly to passage of the 19^th amendment and the enfranchisement of women nationwide.

This election year, we can appreciate anew the determination, perseverance, and skill of these New York suffragists – particularly after being defeated just two years earlier.  We also pay tribute to the far sighted, multi-cultural men of New York who passed the measure.

This election marked a bold chapter in American history and was a key part of the history of the Empire State.  Ultimately, it was a mutual victory where motivated women won equal rights for all women and regular men – male voters, not politicians – recognized the justice of their demand.  The woman suffrage movement offers us one of the best examples of Americans’ love of democracy and dedication to the ideals of liberty and justice for all.

Here is a brief, two-part summary of what New York women actually did in 1917, adapted from the text of “Winning the Vote: The Triumph of the American Woman Suffrage Movement” by Robert P. J. Cooney, Jr.Ÿ          Ÿ          Ÿ          Ÿ          Ÿ

Suffragists in New York State campaigned throughout 1916 and 1917 to win over the most economically powerful and politically influential state in the nation.

After their defeat in 1915, women’s groups throughout the state reorganized into the New York State Woman Suffrage Party (WSP).  Determined to try again, suffragists, as required, won the approval of two successive state legislatures to submit the measure to the voters, which in itself was a remarkable accomplishment.

The war in Europe helped define the theme of the campaign. Suffragists emphasized women’s patriotic contributions and the logic of establishing at home the democracy America was fighting to defend abroad. Still, the suffrage drive took place in the midst of deep anxieties about the war, with citizens experiencing a vast national mobilization which demanded tremendous energy and personal sacrifice.

“The war had cut across the picturesque propaganda activities which had enlivened the 1915 campaign,” noted Mary Peck, and it drew countless women from suffrage work. Gertrude Brown remembered that the suffrage campaign “seemed at its lowest ebb” during the early summer of 1917 but, “as summer waned and election day came nearer, enthusiasm again began to flame up.”

Restructuring the Woman Suffrage Party

Vera Whitehouse led the state Woman Suffrage Party, with Harriet Burton Laidlaw as vice-chair and Helen Rogers Reid as treasurer.  The WSP in New York City, led by Mary Garrett Hay, formed the backbone of the state effort. Under Hay, the WSP built up its own structure modeled on Tammany Hall, the powerful Democratic machine that controlled the city. Party members were organized by Assembly districts and election precincts, each of which had its own captain. In the city alone there were five borough leaders and 2,080 precinct captains.

Learning from their experiences in 1915, suffragists concentrated on strengthening support and weakening opposition in New York City. To that end, Hay appointed numerous women connected to Tammany Hall politicians to positions in the WSP. Organizers also reached out to working families and immigrant communities, heeding Rose Schneiderman’s advice that the way to the working man was through the working woman.

Winning Upstate Voters

Outside of the metropolitan area, over 80 organizers were active in upstate New York, holding thousands of meetings.  NAWSA paid four field workers who, with countless volunteers from New York and other states, spoke at military camps, circularized voters, and prepared special literature for churches.  These field workers crisscrossed the state constantly during 1917, speaking and seeking endorsements as well as collecting signatures. The pace was often exhausting, with long distances to cover between meetings. Suffragists were especially active in Rochester, Syracuse, Buffalo, and other major cities where they advertised on billboards and street cars, and used large electric signs to flash their message at night.

 Trade unionists and settlement house workers were zealous in promoting the suffrage amendment in New York City’s working class and immigrant neighborhoods in 1917. Even though the main suffrage organizations tended to be run by the city’s social elite, support for the measure was strong among Jewish and other northern and eastern European immigrants, and among others who had fled to the U.S.

Woman suffrage was officially supported by all of the state’s political parties but suffragists still had to deal with wartime challenges, major party rivalries, the liquor industry, the prohibition concerns of male voters, and the virulent opposition of anti-suffragists.

Women’s War Work

Like its counterparts in other states, the New York State Woman Suffrage Party established a War Service Committee in 1917 to implement NAWSA’s wartime plan.  Party members sold Liberty Bonds, worked with the Red Cross and YMCA, and helped conduct a statewide military census.  Suffragists also knitted garments and supplies, and planted gardens to raise food for the war effort.

“In order to do all this work and more, we have had to lay aside much of our suffrage work,” reported WSP head Vera Whitehouse in August. However, “The change in sentiment in regard to women, because of the assistance they have given the government at war, has been enormous.”

Anxious not to lose such favorable support, the WSP publicly condemned the picketing of the White House by Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party. Carrie Catt and others felt that the picketing alienated supporters, harassed the president, and confused the public. NAWSA and the WSP were constantly disassociating themselves from the “disloyal” NWP pickets and never objected to the government’s harsh and illegal treatment of the women during the year.

Still, similar arguments were made by both groups. Like the pickets, The Woman Citizen repeatedly argued that “suffrage for women is a part of that complete democracy so aptly named by Mr. Wilson as the object of this war.”  President Wilson did voice his support during the New York contest.

Harsher Opposition during Wartime

Patriotic appeals linking equal suffrage with the war effort were not enough to silence critics. Anti-suffragists kept up their active opposition, spending tens of thousands of dollars and increasing their personal attacks after the war began. Opponents accused Carrie Catt, Anna Howard Shaw, and other suffragists of having pro-German sympathies and claimed it was disloyal and unpatriotic to work for suffrage in wartime.

Groups like the Manhood Suffrage Association Opposed to Political Suffrage for Women advertised against the initiative, characterizing woman suffrage as an “irreparable calamity.”  Association president Everett P. Wheeler claimed that “Rome fell because her women entered public life.”

After a while, “absurd sallies and misstatement of facts grew tiresome,” recalled Gertrude Brown. “It was not those who labeled themselves anti-suffragists who delayed the coming of suffrage,” she emphasized.  “The dangerous opponents of woman suffrage, those who manipulated legislatures and engineered fraudulent elections, did not label themselves.”

With such powerful yet largely invisible opposition, the election was very much in doubt. Even in the fall, when Mary Garrett Hay predicted victory, Catt confided to Maud Wood Park, “I think Molly’s crazy; for she really believes we’ll win, though so far as I know she is the only person who does.”

Coming Soon  Part 2: “A Million New York Women Want the Vote”

Ÿ          Ÿ          Ÿ          Ÿ          Ÿ

© 2012 Robert P. J. Cooney, Jr  Adapted from the text of “Winning the Vote: The Triumph of the American Woman Suffrage Movement”

This tradition was carried on later in the early 20th century by radical libertarian Suzanne La Follette. Though she is the author of the first full-length book on libertarian feminism in existence, Concerning Women, a book which her colleague, friend, and mentor, essayist Albert Jay Nock, called “superb,” she is almost unknown among feminists today. Out of print until 1972 when it was reprinted in the Arno Press “American Women” series, an excerpt titled “Beware the State” appeared in The Feminist Papers, an anthology edited by Alice Rossi.

Born in 1893 on a ranch in western Washington, La Follette moved with her family to Washington, D.C., where her father, the cousin of Senator Robert La Follette, served in the House of Representatives for eight years. She and her brother Chester recalled that the adults in the family were all “good feminists.”

After finishing college in Washington, D.C. in 1919, La Follette plunged immediately into the world of politics with a job on the staff of the Nation. When Nock, whom she had met there, founded his libertarian magazine, the Freeman in 1920, she joined him as one of the editors for the four years of its existence. She continued as an editor and journalist the rest of her life.

After the demise of the Freeman, La Follette began work on Concerning Women, which was published in 1926. Its libertarian theme is aptly summarized by Rossi: “On issue after issue La Follette comes down on the side of the least degree of state interference in the lives of men and women and a consistent belief that it is only through full economic independence and personal autonomy that sex equality will be achieved.”

The economic independence of women is one of the major themes of La Follette’s book. Though not an anarchist, she agreed that the State was the natural enemy of women. Believing that the subjection of women, like chattel slavery or “industrial slavery,” had its basis in economics, La Follette declared that the primary way in which the State hurt women was through legally imposed economic disadvantages.

Another major theme is La Follette’s book is opposition to state-regulated marriage. Like the 19th century anarchist feminists, La Follette did not approve of State control of marriage. Institutional marriage was, in her opinion, simply a way for the State, the Church, and the community to interfere with a personal and private matter: “Marriage under conditions arbitrarily fixed by an external agency is slavery…”

The Church also came under La Follette’s attack. She considered marriage and divorce laws to be impositions of Christian morality, which were in her view, anti-woman, hypocritical, and puritanical. Both in her book and in various later articles, La Follette struck out against hypocritical morality, condemning censorship, laws against prostitution, and laws limiting reproductive freedom. Her radical analysis of motherhood out-of-wedlock anticipated modern feminist thinking. Speaking out strongly against the rejection of the so-called illegitimate child, she saw unwed motherhood as a defiance of the idea of male proprietorship. She herself never married nor had any children.

La Follette’s book received little attention. Though La Follette attributed it to a decline in interest in women’s issues, it is likely that a more significant contributing factor was her iconoclastic views on government and feminism. Only a handful of people carried on the libertarian tradition in the 1920’s and 30’s, a time when socialism was more favored by the intellectuals and individualism increasingly frowned upon.

After the publication of Concerning Women, La Follette turned her humanistic sensibilities to the field of art. “All art,” she declared, “serves humanity by the simple fact of its existence.” Her interest in art, first publicly evidenced by a series of articles in the Freeman, led her to write a second book, again at Nock’s suggestion. Art in America was published in 1929—”just in time for the market crash.” Nonetheless it became a classic of art history, and was reprinted in 1968 by Harper and Row.

La Follette’s approach to art was as individualistic as her approach to feminism and to politics. Writing in the H.L. Mencken’s American Mercury in 1925, she proposed endowing individual artists rather than institutions. “The salvation of humanity,” she declared, “never yet lay in the hands of any institution, not even in the hands of the Church. It is and always has been the individual who has cleared the path of human progress.”

Not only an art historian but—briefly—a poet too, La Follette published two poems in 1927, “Ulysses” and “Wind on the Heath.” Ulysses was reprinted  in The Best Poems of 1928.

La Follette briefly edited a revival of the Freeman, titled the New Freeman, but coming as it did at the eve of the Great Depression in 1930, it didn’t last long. It was, unfortunately, the last public place in which she ever commented on feminist issues. Her relatives and colleagues didn’t recall hearing her discuss feminist issues as such again after the magazine folded. But her brother Chester pointed out that she would have been unlikely to talk about such topics with people who agreed with her.

During the 1930’s, La Follette continued to decry statism, especially New Deal welfare programs and growing totalitarianism abroad. These essays appeared in magazines such as the New Republic, the Nation, Current History and Scribner’s Magazine.

In the late 1930’s, one of La Follette’s most important accomplishments was overseeing John Dewey’s “Preliminary Commission of Inquiry into the Charges Made Against Leon Trotsky in the Moscow Trials.” The purpose was to examine the charges against Trotsky brought by Stalin. The Commission exonerated Trotsky of the charges against him, accusing Stalin of a frame-up. The final report, Not Guilty, co-authored by La Follette and Dewey, was published in 1938. The investigation stripped away any sympathy for the Soviet Union that La Follette may have had; anti-communism was to be a major theme of her writings after this report.

La Follette and her colleague John Chamberlain briefly revived the Freeman in 1950 as a mostly anti-communist publication. When it failed, it was sold to the Foundation for Economic Education, which continues it in a different form today.

In 1955, La Follette became a founding editor of National Review and worked as its managing editor until her retirement in 1959. In those days, recalled her Chamberlain, there was no place for a libertarian to publish except a handful of conservative journals. But, Chamberlain added, La Follette was “not a traditional conservative…we were all anti-statists.”

La Follette retained her feminist views throughout. In 1964, when the New York Conservative Party, of which she was a co-founder, came out in favor of anti-abortion laws, she demanded that her name be dropped from the Party’s letterhead—and it was. “She may not have said ‘I’m doing this as part of the feminist cause,”’ her grandniece Maryly Rosner told me, “but she believed in things that were part of the feminist movement.” La Follette’s colleagues in later years recall that she would not tolerate sexist remarks. “Suzanne would not take any putdown because of sex,” said Priscilla Buckley. Chamberlain remembered that “she didn’t like people criticizing women.”

La Follette passed away in 1983 but is remembered vividly by her friends as a beautiful and cultivated woman, “opinionated,” “overwhelming” but “perfectly gracious,” “extremely kind” and loyal. Her iconoclastic courage to go against the rising tide of a different approach to feminism virtually alone in the early 20th century, standing firm for her ideals, deserves our admiration no matter what our views.

References:
Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, & Paul S. Boyer. Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary, Vol. 5. Cambridge MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004.

Suzanne La Follette. Concerning Women. New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1926 (Arno Press reprint, 1972, in the series  “American Women: Images and Realities”).

Art in America. 1929. (New York: Harper & Row, 1965.) “Beware the State,” in Alice Rossi, ed., The Feminist Papers. New York: Columbia University Press, 1973; New York: Bantam, 1974.

Sharon Presley, “Suzanne La Follette: The New Freewoman,” accessed on June 12, 2012 at http://www.alf.org/lafollette.php

Submitted by Sharon Presley, www.sharonpresley.com

Lillian Moller was born on May 24, 1878 in Oakland, California. She earned a B.A. in literature at the University of California at Berkeley in 1900 and in 1902 she obtained a master’s in literature there. She met her husband, Frank Gilbreth shortly after that and they were married in 1904. Lillian helped Frank in his construction consulting business and soon became his partner. They moved to Rhode Island and Lillian earned a doctorate in psychology from Brown University in 1915 – while having four children.  She eventually had six sons and six daughters.

The Gilbreths concentrated their business on efficient time management. Frank studied the technical properties of managing workers while Lillian focused on the human element. Their famous Motion Studies tracked the movements workers did to complete tasks. Their work in office furniture design helped pioneer the field of ergonomics. Lillian pioneered the psychology of work – workers’ mental and physical health, the effect of stress and fatigue, and worker incentives.

Lillian continued working in efficiency-management after Frank’s death in 1924. She became a professor of management at Purdue University in 1935, the first woman in the engineering department. She consulted with businesses such as General Electric to improve the design of kitchens. Lillian focused on physically disabled people and created innovations to help them do household tasks. She served on Presidential committees and wrote books. She toured the world speaking at conferences and lecturing on management efficiency.

Lillian received numerous awards throughout her life, including the prestigious Hoover Medal in 1966. The citation reads:

Renowned engineer, internationally respected for contributions to motion study and to the recognition of the principle that management engineering and human relations are intertwined; courageous wife and mother; outstanding teacher, author, lecturer and member of professional committees under Herbert Hoover and four successors. Additionally, her unselfish application of energy and creative efforts in modifying industrial and home environments for the handicapped has resulted in full employment of the capabilities and elevation of their self-esteem.

(From “Memorial Tributes: National Academy of Engineering, Volume 1 (1979) by the National Academy of Engineering, p. 89 to 94, by James N. Landis (accessed from the NAE website, www.nae.edu ))

Lillian earned several “Firsts:”

• First female commencement speaker at University of California at Berkeley, 1900
• First woman admitted to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 1926 (cited as 1921 and as second woman in some sources)
• Recipient of the first award of the Gilbreth Medal created by the Society of Industrial Engineers, 1931
• First honorary member of the Society of Women Engineers, 1950
• First woman elected to the National Academy of Engineering, 1965

Lillian Moller Gilbreth died on January 2, 1972 at the age of 92. There is a moving tribute to her in the National Academy of Engineering, Memorial Tributes, Volume 1 (1979) by James N. Landis, p 89 to 94, accessible from the NAE website, www.nae.edu.  Her portrait hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, and a U.S postage stamp was issued in her honor in 1984.

Resources and Further Reading:

“Frank and Lillian Gilbreth Web Site” in the Archives and Special Collections of Purdue University, http://www.lib.purdue.edu/spcol/manuscripts/fblg/

Lillian Moller Gilbreth page at the San Diego Supercomputer Center website: http://www.sdsc.edu/ScienceWomen/gilbreth.html )

The Gilbreth Network: http://gilbrethnetwork.tripod.com/front.html

1955 Interview with Lillian Gilbreth: http://blogs2.startribune.com/blogs/oldnews/archives/285

Paper Presented by Lillian Gilbreth: http://www.worksimp.com/articles/widening%20horizons%20-%20gilbreth.htm

Submitted by Jeanne Robinson, www.jeannerobinson.com

Here at Flocabulary, we use hip-hop music to make learning exciting and accessible to students. We recently created a song all about the history of women’s rights, and we couldn’t wait to share it with the NWHP community. Using our Women’s Rights Song as a jumping off point, this lesson plan allows students to focus in on key moments in the history of women’s rights and create a kinetic timeline of famous women in history. At the end of the lesson, students will use historical examples to support a plan for the future of women’s rights.

The Lesson Plan

1. Listen to Flocabulary’s Women’s Rights song. As students are listening, ask them to note down the different rights that women fought for throughout history, as well as current issues that women face. These issues are:

• Equal rights in the home
• Inability to own land
• Prohibition from voting
• Women being sent back to the home after WWII
• Educated women being bored at home
• Unequal pay
• Women currently owning 1% of land worldwide
• Women not being allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia
• No American head of state.

Explain to students that they will be learning more about the fight for these rights relate to periods of history through a research project and a creative presentation.

2. Break your class into 6 groups. Assign each group one of the time periods in history:

1. The French Revolutionary Era
2. The Civil War Era
3. Early 1900s
4. Post World War II
5. 1960s-1980s
6. The Modern Era

3. Each group should research and answer the following questions for its time period. They can begin research by clicking on the lyrics of our Women’s Rights song, and then using other online research techniques to find more:

• What major historical events happened in that period? How did these events affect women?
• What major rights issues were women facing during that period?
• Who were famous women during your time period who led the fight for specific rights?
• What were major women’s rights accomplishments during your time period? What important limitations still remained?
• From the beginning of your time period until the end, what changed for women?

4. After students have been given time to research, each group should create a skit that explains the answers to the questions. Give the groups time to write and practice their skits.

5. Started with the French Revolution group, have each group perform for the class while other students take notes. At the end this kinetic timeline, ask students:

Based on the successes and failures of historical women in their fight for rights, how do think current women’s rights issues should be addressed?

You can use this question as a basis for class discussion or as an essay prompt.

Like this song and lesson? Visit Flocabulary.com to access hundreds of songs, videos and lessons like these. 

“As Americans, ours is a legacy of bold independence and passionate belief in fairness and justice for all. For generations, this intrepid spirit has driven women pioneers to challenge injustices and shatter ceilings in pursuit of full and enduring equality. During Women’s History Month, we commemorate their struggles, celebrate centuries of progress, and reaffirm our steadfast commitment to the rights, security, and dignity of women in America and around the world. …While we have made great strides toward equality, we cannot rest until our mothers, sisters, and daughters assume their rightful place as full participants in a secure, prosperous, and just society.”

-Barak Obama

Many of those pioneers in education are recognized and honored in the 2012 Gazette publication by the National Women’s History Project.  Representing hundreds of women whose countless hours of work remain uncounted for, these honorees lead the way in improving education for all young women in America over the centuries.  The efforts made by these individuals changed the course of history–or more appropriate herstory.

These Honorees include:

• Emma Hart Willard (1787–1870) – Women Higher Education Pioneer

• Charlotte Forten Grimke (1837 – 1914) – Freedman Bureau Educator

• Annie Sullivan (1866 – 1936) – Disability Education Architect

• Gracia Molina de Pick (b.1929) – Feminist Educational Reformer

• Okolo Rashid (b.1949) – Community Development Activist and 
Historical Preservation Advocate

• Brenda Flyswithhawks (b. 1950) – American Indian Advocate and Educator

Written by:

Kimberly Roush
Blog Manager