DC -- Capitol Hill -- Sewall-Belmont House and Museum:
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SEW_120826_004.JPG: From June to December 1917 members of the National Woman's Party were imprisoned for picketing the White House to publicize the struggle to win the vote for women. Those incarcerated in the District of Columbia's workhouse in Occoquan, Virginia suffered horrible conditions and mistreatment, including being given rancid, insect-laden food: to protest some went on hunger strikes and were brutally force-fed. The 72-year campaign for women's suffrage ended in 1920 with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution.
These concrete steps are the only two architectural elements remaining from the demolished women's workhouse.
SEW_120826_008.JPG: The Sewall-Belmont House & Museum, one of the oldest residential properties on Capitol Hill, has been the historic headquarters of the National Woman's Party since 1929. Named after Robert Sewall, the original owner of the site, and Alva Belmont, the president and benefactor of the National Woman's Party, this house has been at the center of political life in Washington for more than two hundred years. Today, the Sewall-Belmont House seeks to educate the public by sharing the inspiring story of a century of courageous activism by American women.
SEW_120826_011.JPG: Residence of Albert Gallatin, Peace Negotiator and Secretary of the Treasury 1801-1814, who negotiated the treaty of Ghent, 1814. When the British marched on Washington in the summer of 1814, some American patriots with Commodore Joshua Barney and his men from this house offered the only resistance. This property was partly burned as was the Capitol and the White House.
Placed by The National Society United States Daughters of 1812 8th January 1962 Commemorating the 75th anniversary of their society.
SEW_120826_024.JPG: Emmeline Pankhurst
by Alice Morgan Wright, 1912
SEW_120826_033.JPG: Trowel presented by Charlotte Woodward Pierce to the NWP in 1925. Pierce was the only signer from the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention to live to see the Nineteenth Amendment passed in 1920.
SEW_120826_040.JPG: "Deeds, Not Words"
Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, Harriot Stanton Blatch, Inez Milholland, and many other women spent time in Britain where they learned from, and participated in, the militant wing of the suffrage movement. The Women's Social and Political Union, founded by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia, engaged in heckling, window smashing, and rock throwing to force the government to act on women's right. Paul and Burns, who were deeply involved in such actions, experienced prison sentences, hunger strikes, and force-feedings before they returned to America in 1912. Although the National Woman's Party never fully adopted the British militancy, its policy of holding the political party in power responsible, and maintaining pressure on the government through public spectacle and intense lobbying, led to passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.
SEW_120826_057.JPG: Jail door pin:
Modeled after the British suffragette pin known as the Holloway brooch, Alice Paul created this jail door pin for NWP members who were imprisoned for picketing the White House. Eighty-nine pins were presented to the women on December 9, 1917 at a meeting held at the Belasco Theatre in Washington, DC. This pin belonged to Betsy Graves Reyneau, arrested for picketing on July 14, 1917, and sentenced to three days in District jail.
SEW_120826_072.JPG: This broadside is from Emmeline Pankhurst's visit to the United States in 1916 with the former Secretary of State for Serbia, Cedomilj Mijatovic, whose nation was at the center of fighting at the start of World War I. Together they raised money and urged the US government to support Britain, Canada, and other allies. Two years later, after the United States entered the war, Pankhurst returned to America, encouraging suffragists who had not suspended their militancy to support the war effort by sidelining activities related to the vote.
SEW_120826_080.JPG: "In Honor of the Past, In Pledge to the Future"
Clad in a flowing white cape astride a white horse, Inez Milholland led over give thousand marchers down Pennsylvania Avenue on March 3, 1913, the eve of President Woodrow Wilson's inauguration. They marched to the steps of the Treasury Building, where they viewed an elaborate pageant in which women and children portrayed female historical figures such as Joan of Arc and ideals such as Liberty, Justice, and Peace. Both parade and pageant were tactics to generate renewed publicity for the suffrage movement, as well as attract new members and support. The National Womans' Party (NWP) continued to produce compelling, imaginative events throughout the suffrage movement and the flight for the Equal Rights Amendment. Utilizing parades, pageants, art, print media, textiles, and photography, the NWP conveyed political messages in a versatile and modern way.
SEW_120826_088.JPG: The vivid purple, white, and gold colors on the 1913 parade program, the herald sounding her horn, and the motto "Votes for Women" were the first indicators that the suffrage movement would be different from then on. Imagery became an important tool utilized by the NWP to draw public attention and support for the revitalized suffrage movement. The parade and succeeding pageant did not disappoint.
SEW_120826_099.JPG: White metal photographic printing plate attached to woodblock:
Used to print the cover of the 1913 program, this printing block is one of the few tangible artifacts that remain from the parade that reinvigorated the suffrage movement.
This printing block and the cover illustration were used to make the official program of the Woman Suffrage Procession (shown on the opposite side of the case) held March 3, 1913.
SEW_120826_110.JPG: Frederick Douglass, December 1878
SEW_120826_114.JPG: Desk that belonged to Susan B. Anthony, c 1860-1880
SEW_120826_117.JPG: Chair that belonged to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, c 1850-1860
SEW_120826_124.JPG: New York State instructional automatic voting machine, c 1890-1900:
New York was the first state to allow the use of automatic voting machines. This machine contains the paper label inserts with the question "Should women be allowed to vote?" Voters rejected the proposition and woman were not permitted to vote in New York until 1917.
SEW_120826_128.JPG: "All men and women are created equal..."
On a warm July day in 1848, more than three hundred women and men attended the first Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. After two days of discussion, one hundred people signed the Declaration of Sentiments, making a public commitment to work together to improve women's political, social, and economic status. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Frederick Douglass, and soon Susan B. Anthony joined together with thousands of woman in a seventy-two year battle for women's equality. After the Nineteenth Amendment passed in 1920, granting women the right to vote, Alice Paul turned to the Declaration of Sentiments to determine which women's equality issues to pursue next. Inspired by the pioneering women before them, the National Woman's Party honored them in print, ceremony, and spirit.
SEW_120826_148.JPG: "Democracy Limited"
The National Woman's Party (NWP) believed in holding the political party in power fully responsible for the passage of woman's suffrage. To that end, the NWP targeted members of Congress and exerted pressure directly upon President Woodrow Wilson. NWP members also testified at congressional hearings; monitored and worked to shape legislative action; and launched a series of transcontinental automobile trips, speaking tours, and petition signings to gather support for their cause. In 1914 and 1916, NWP members traveled to the fully enfranchised western states to educate the public about the need for national women's suffrage. They urged people to vote against incumbent congressional candidates to express their displeasure with the ongoing battle for an amendment. During the 1919-1920 ratification campaign, the NWP exerted constant pressure on undecided state legislators to support the federal suffrage amendment.
SEW_120826_156.JPG: Tricolor sash:
The Tricolor sash, a common accessory for NWP members, and worn to everything from speaking engagements to pickets in front of the White House.
SEW_120826_159.JPG: "Proof of Imprisonment"
Natalie Gray sewed these three pieces as a way to remember her arrest on August 17, 1917. Lavinia Dock, Madeleine Watson, Lucy Ewing, Catherine Flanagan, Edna Dixon, and Natalie Gray were arrested and sentenced to thirty days at the Occoquan Workhouse in Lorton, Virginia.
SEW_120826_165.JPG: "The young are at the gates."
In January 1917, with their tricolor banners swinging in the wind, National Woman's Party (NWP) members marched to the White House gates, the first protest group ever to the do so. Eventually, more than two thousand women from thirty states joined them. In June, after the United States entered World War I, attacks on the women began. Crowds, who had quietly observed for months, suddenly viewed picketing as unwomanly, and more importantly, unpatriotic. Over the next two years, approximately 500 women were arrested and charged with obstructing traffic: 168 served prison sentences from three days to six months in the District jail or the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia. While in prison, the suffragists endured horrid conditions and brutal treatment. In protest, they went on hunger strikes and endured violent force-feeding by order of prison officials. The NWP used these experiences in prison to generate enormous public pressure on President Wilson and Congress to take action on the federal suffrage amendment.
SEW_120826_168.JPG: Metal skeleton key smuggled from the District jail where many of the pickets were imprisoned between 1917 and 1919.
SEW_120826_189.JPG: "A vigorous campaign of propaganda work."
Through a sustained campaign of mass propaganda, the National Woman's Party (NWP) successfully garnered support for the federal suffrage amendment. The organization shrewdly created and utilized cartoons, posters, billboards, pamphlets, and banners in order to educate the public, influence politicians, and fight back against long-established media hostility toward the suffrage campaign. Central to this strategy, "The Suffragist" newspaper, published from 1913 to 1921, recorded lobbying efforts, demonstrations, and arrests, and featured compelling photographs and clever illustrations. Additionally, members wrote editorials, essays, and poems to advocate for the federal suffrage amendment. When NWP members were arrested for picketing the White House in 1917 and 1918, this type of propaganda became essential to defending their actions and gaining public sympathy.
SEW_120826_192.JPG: "The Suffragist", July 7, 1917:
This issue was published two weeks after police first began making arrests. On July 4, 1917, Independence Day, ten women were arrested and sentenced to three days in jail.
SEW_120826_199.JPG: "President Wilson Says, 'Godspeed to the Cause' "
November 3, 1917
by Nina Allender
SEW_120826_204.JPG: These wood printing blocks were used to print the images and masthead for NWP publications. Typically the publishing company removed the metal plates from the blocks and reused them for other print jobs. The NWP, however, requested the return of these printing blocks from the publishing company because of their unique historical value.
SEW_120826_213.JPG: "The Deadly Political Index"
The National Woman's Party (NWP) kept detailed records about every elected official they lobbied throughout the suffrage and equal rights movements. Developed and maintained by Lucia Voorhees Grimes and Maud Younger, the Congressional Voting Card Index documented personal details about representatives families, hobbies, religion, political views, voting records, and attitudes toward suffrage. NWP members in home congressional districts contributed additional information. By the 1920s and 1930s, lobby slips became an important way to include thorough notes from meetings between lobbyists and elected officials. NWP members preparing to lobby members of Congress checked an individual's cards to ensure they were well informed about the person. Armed with these details, the index became a powerful, persuasive tool in the NWP's fight for the federal suffrage amendment, as well as later women's rights legislation.
SEW_120826_217.JPG: "We can only express ourselves by action."
The National Woman's Party (NWP), originally known as the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, injected renewed vitality into the American suffrage campaign. Inspired by their British counterparts -- but frustrated by lack of progress -- founders Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, and thousands of other women engaged in radical and oftentimes dangerous tactics to publicly challenge and pressure male politicians opposed to women's suffrage. Focused on securing a constitutional amendment to give women to vote, the NWP demanded rights women were entitled to as citizens. As the first American civil rights group to successfully use sustained, nonviolent resistance, the NWP designed a campaign that combined traditional lobbying with innovative militant actions, and set the stage for the next phase of the women's equality movement in the United States.
SEW_120826_220.JPG: "It is not merely a headquarters for our party that we plan..."
In 1921, the New York Times called the newly purchased headquarters of the National Woman's Party (NWP) opposite the US Capitol, the "watch tower to keep close supervision of Congress and its doings." From Cameron House on Lafayette Square to the Alva Belmont House on Capitol Hill, the NWP strategically and purposefully chose each location. A desire to be in direct proximity to the seat of power within Washington DC represented the organization's immediate and long-term goals for women's equality. While lobbying for the federal suffrage amendment, the NWP focused its effort son President Wilson and the White House. In 1921, the NWP gave up its Lafayette Square headquarters to move to the Old Brick Capitol, across the street from the US Capitol and Congress, where it launched the campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment.
SEW_120826_241.JPG: Florence Bayard Hilles
by Betsy Graves Reyneau
SEW_120826_248.JPG: Elizabeth Selden Rogers
by Fopryhoff, 1925
SEW_120826_250.JPG: Elizabeth Cady Stanton
by Adelaide Johnson, 1892
A mother to seven children, Elizabeth Cady Stanton became an abolitionist and leader of the US women's suffrage movement. One of the first women to argue that the right to vote was the key to gaining complete equality for women, her collaboration with Susan B. Anthony built the foundation for future organizations to complete their efforts toward women's equal rights.
SEW_120826_263.JPG: Alva Belmont
by Adelaide Johnson, 1922
As the primary financial benefactor to the National Woman's Party, Alva Belmont devoted her life to women's rights causes. A brilliant strategist and officer for the NWP, Belmont helped craft the organization's agenda during the suffrage movement and became the NWP president in 1920 until her death in 1933.
SEW_120826_278.JPG: Lucia Voorhees Grimes and daughter Emily
by Besty Graves Reyneau
SEW_120826_282.JPG: Alice Stokes Paul
by Avard Fairbanks, 1981
Militant suffragist, strategist, Equal Rights Amendment author, and activist for women's rights worldwide, Alice Paul single-mindedly pursued women's equality for more than half of her life. Paul founded the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage in 1913, the National Woman's Party in 1917, and the World Woman's Party in 1938.
SEW_120826_291.JPG: Maud Younger
SEW_120826_303.JPG: Eunice Dana Brannan
by Betsy Graves Reyneau
SEW_120826_317.JPG: There are very few pieces of furniture that are considered significant to the National Woman's Party: The Susan B. Anthony desk; the Elizabeth Cady Stanton chair; the table where the World Woman's Party incorporation appers were signed, and this desk. Said to have belonged to Henry Clay, it was brought over from the Old Brick Capitol headquarters. Alice Paul, Abby Scott Baker, Anita Pollitzer, and many NWP leaders used this desk to manage the campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment.
SEW_120826_324.JPG: "We have a long, long way ahead of us."
At its convention in 1921, the National Woman's Party (NWP) tallied women's rights still to be won: property rights, divorce and custody rights, the ability to enter into contracts and serve on a jury with their peers, equal pay, the right to retain earnings, equal education opportunities, and more. Accordingly, the NWP initiated a massive campaign to remove legal barriers against women. In 1923, Senator Charles Curtis and Representative Daniel Anthony of Kansas introduced the Equal Rights Amendments (ERA), drafted by Alice Paul. Introduced in every session of Congress from 1923 to 1972, the amendment finally passed in 1972 and went to the states for ratification with a seven-year deadline. Despite an extension through June 1982, the amendment fell three states short of the thirty-eight required to ratify. Since that time, the ERA continues to be reintroduced in every session of Congress.
SEW_120826_332.JPG: "It does not work to equality, but oppression."
From its introduction in 1923, the ERA set off a windstorm of opposition. In the 1920s and 1930s, several women's groups argued against the ERA, stating that it threatened protective labor legislation that had improved conditions for working women. The NWP countered that such legislation restricted women's wages and placed limits on women's employment and advancement opportunities. In 1972, when ratification seemed imminent, a highly successful grassroots campaign to mobilize public opinion against the ERA took shape. Led by Phyllis Schlafly's organization STOP ERA, opponents contended that women would lose important rights such as child support, alimony, and widow's benefits if the ERA passed. Women would be forced to serve in military combat; the broader social policy would be impacted, including legalizing abortion and same-sex marriages. Ultimately, they argued, the ERA would take away power from the states and redistribute too much authority to the federal government.
SEW_120826_346.JPG: ERA cuff braclet, c 1970-1980
These mass-produced bracelets were popular during the ERA ratification campaign.
SEW_120826_352.JPG: Lola Maverick Lloyd
by Enzo Scrafini
SEW_120826_359.JPG: Jeanette Rankin
by Mary Theresa Mimnaugh
SEW_120826_367.JPG: "Whether we win or lose, we win."
"I may be the first woman member of Congress," Jeanette Rankin observed upon her election in 1916, "but I won't be the last." Since then, more than 270 women have been elected or appointed to the US Congress, but this comprises only 2.1 percent of members ever elected. In 1924 and 1926, the National Woman's Party (NWP) ran a "Women for Congress" campaign in Pennsylvania. Designed to raise funds and encourage members to support qualified women candidates, the campaign built the foundation for organizations working today to broaden women's role in government. Women, however, remain significantly under-represented at every level. Today, efforts continue to echo the spirit of the NWP to recruit qualified women to run for office and increase their political involvement in local, state, and federal government.
SEW_120826_387.JPG: "Women should have the same right to vote as men have."
-- Jose Marti
SEW_120826_403.JPG: The campaign to pass the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) necessitated a broader approach than the suffrage campaign. Members worked actively toward women's equality on multiple fronts -- state, federal, and international. They drafted more than six hundred pieces of legislation in support of equal rights for women on the state and local levels, three hundred of which were passed by state legislatures.
"Our greatest strength and best ally is the vote for four million women enfranchised in the West. One hundred women in the West, who can vote, have more political strength than ten thousand in the East."
SEW_120826_416.JPG: Banner Poles, c. 1915-1920:
Thousands of women picketed the White House, their banners hung on these poles. Painted black with gold filials, these thin wooden poles were often the only defense against attacking crowds and police officers. Banners were torn away, but the picketers proudly bore the banner poles as a symbol of their fight for equality.
"Suddenly one of the banners disappeared; another and another until six of them were destroyed; the bare poles proceeded on their way however."
-- Inez Haynes Irwin, The Story of the Woman's Party
SEW_120826_421.JPG: "Great Demand" Banner, c 1913-1917:
This is a reproduction of the original banner carried between 1913 and 1917 by suffragists. The original banner remains in the NWP collection. Thought to be carried during the "Grand Picket" at the White House on March 4, 1917, the day before President Woodrow Wilson's second inauguration. Over one thousand women marched around the White House for several hours in icy, pouring rain waiting to meet with President Wilson. The gates to the grounds were locked and President Wilson and his wife left the White House, driving through the picket line, without acknowledging the suffragists.
SEW_120826_439.JPG: Leading Ladies
by Bill Mack, 1999
Bonded Sand Sculpture
This sculpture pays tribute to five first ladies, Eleanor Roosevelt, Nancy Reagan, Hillary Clinton, Betty Ford, and Lady Bird Johnson, all significant leaders in their own right.
Three original bronzes were donated to the Clinton Presidential Library, the Gerald R. Ford Museum and the National Women's History Project. The fourth model made of bonded sand, was donated to the Sewall-Belmont House & Museum in 2009.
SEW_120826_456.JPG: Ratification:
On June 8, 1919 Congress passed the 19th amendment, giving women the right to vote. While the National Woman's Party celebrated this victory they knew there was one final step: the amendment must be ratified by 36 states to become part fo the Constitution.
Alice Paul said "We enter upon this final stage of the campaign joyously, knowing that women will be enfranchised citizens of this great democracy within a year."
The battle for state ratification had begun.
The National Woman's Party (NWP) and the National American Woman's Suffrage Association (NAWSA) agreed that momentum needed to be maintained and ratification must occur within a year, to allow all women to vote in the presidential election of 1920.
For the next fourteen months, women from the NWP and NAWSA lobbied governors and state legislatures to ratify the 19th amendment in time for the election of 1920.
SEW_120826_459.JPG: State Ratification of the 19th Amendment:
Wisconsin and Michigan were the first states to ratify the 19th amendment on June 10, 1919. Tennessee, the thirty-sixth and final state officially ratified the amendment on August 24, 1920, just over a year later. Alabama and six other states defeated the suffrage amendment during the ratification campaign, but once signed into law the 19th amendment gave all women the right to vote.
SEW_120826_465.JPG: State Ratification
Alice Paul and the NWP launched a series of lobbying campaigns across the country to encourage state legislatures to ratify the 19th amendment. The existing state and local branches of the NWP mobilized to lobby local elected officials and encourage their state representatives to vote for the amendment.
The biggest obstacle to ratification was the state legislatures themselves. In the summer of 1919 many state governments had adjourned for the year and few had plans to gather before the next election. in order to women to be permitted to vote in 1920, the NWP had to convince the governor to each state to call a special session of the state legislature to vote on the suffrage amendment.
While twenty-eight states offered women at least partial suffrage, the NWP knew that getting thirty-six states would take work.
SEW_120826_472.JPG: Ratification Banner:
The tricolor flag in these photographs was known as the Ratification Banner. The NWP sewed a new star on the banner each time a state ratified the 19th amendment.
In August 1920 after the 36th star was added, Alice Paul draped the banner over the railing of their headquarters and toasted the victory.
The banner itself has been lost since its unveiling in 1920. It is not part of the collection at the Sewall-Belmont House & Museum, nor is it in any other major institution. It may be tucked in someone's attic or it may be lost forever. Today it exists only through the images that remain.
SEW_120826_482.JPG: Tennessee Ratification:
In April 1920, thirty-five of the thirty-six required states had ratified the 19th amendment, six states had defeated it and seven states were left to decide its fate.
Tennessee became the next state to call a special session on August 9th, 1920 to vote on the 19th Amendment. Both suffragists and anti-suffragists poured into the state to sway the vote.
After several days of debate the suffragists knew the vote would be very close. The first two ballots ended in a 48-48 tie. On the third vote, Harry Burn, the youngest member of the House at age 24, changed his vote and allowed the amendment to pass.
When asked later why he changed his vote, Harry Burn produced a letter encouraging him to "Hurray and vote for Suffrage and don't keep them in doubt" signed "with lots of love, Mama." Having been on the fence and initially voting against the amendment, Burn decided to listen to his mother and finish the fight for suffrage.
SEW_120826_485.JPG: Women's Equality Day:
On August 24, 1920, Tennessee became the thirty-sixth and final state needed to ratify the 19th amendment. Two days later on August 26th, Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby signed into the law the federal suffrage amendment, giving women across the country the vote and moving them another step forward in the continuing struggle for equality. That fall in the election of 1920, 37 million American women were, for the first time, finally permitted to have a voice in their government.
The work for equality did not end with the ratification in 1920. Alice Paul and the NWP continued to lobby for complete equality for women and encouraged women to run for political office.
While the battle for equality continues, the seventy-two years of effort by the NWP and others to achieve suffrage is celebrated annually on the anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment.
SEW_120826_491.JPG: Since 1971, August 26th has officially been Women's Equality Day. Declared first by Congress, it is celebrated every year with a presidential proclamation highlighting the anniversary of the 19th Amendment and the continuing struggle for women's equality.
This year's proclamation is available online through the White House website ( www.whitehouse.gov ).
SEW_120826_501.JPG: The Thinking WOman
by Edith Odgen Heidel
Edit Odgen Heidel, the artist, and a student of Augustus Saint-Guadens at the Art Students League in New York became the first woman instructor of modeling at the Corcoran School of Art in 1901-1902. Heidel gave this sculpture to the National Woman's Party on March 2, 1922 as the first gift for their intended Woman's Gallery of Art at NWP headquarters in the Old Brick Capitol.
SEW_120826_524.JPG: "American Women: 'Is It Not Enough?' "
April 27, 1918
SEW_120826_557.JPG: Lucretia Coffin Mott
by Adelaide Johnson, 1892
A Quaker minister, lecturer for abolition and women's rights, and one of the organizers of the 1848 Seneca Fall women's rights convention. Lucretia Mott tirelessly challenged intolerance and prejudice throughout her life. In 1866, she became the first president of the Equal Rights Association.
SEW_120826_562.JPG: "Drafted to Fight for Democracy -- The Girl He Left Behind Him"
by Nina Allender
September 1, 1917
SEW_120826_579.JPG: Anna Kelton Wiley
Betsy Graves Reyneau
SEW_120826_587.JPG: Alice Paul
Helen Daggett
SEW_120826_595.JPG: "I had this marvelous feeling that I was no longer alone..."
Beginning in 1929, when the NWP purchased the Belmont House, up through the early 1990s, the NWP headquarters also functioned as a hotel and second home for some members. Hundreds of women stayed in this house and the two additional townhouses (now demolished) along 2nd Street, NE for a few days to several months. NWP members, non-members -- even some men -- paid six dollars per night for accommodation, and additional fees for meals and personal phone calls. A domestic staff, including a maid, cook, house manager, and gardener maintained the house. Many women, including Alice Paul, stayed in this room, also known as the "Chairman's Room."
The women who lived and worked here thought of themselves as a family and often referred to the Belmont House as their "clubhouse." The headquarters became a place where they provided each other with emotional and financial support, and encouraged each other's intense commitment to the women's equality movement, for many until the final years of their lives.
SEW_120826_601.JPG: "Frightfulness! Dear Donkey!"
August 26, 1916
SEW_120826_614.JPG: "Lest We Forget"
February 15, 1915
SEW_120826_659.JPG: "The Last Trench"
October 26, 1918
SEW_120826_670.JPG: "American Justice"
June 1, 1918
SEW_120826_676.JPG: "Changing Fashions -- She Used to be Satisfied with So Little"
March 13, 1915
SEW_120826_686.JPG: "Denmark Strengthens Women in Time of War"
June 12, 1915
SEW_120826_696.JPG: "Fairy Godmother Wilson"
December 4, 1915
SEW_120826_713.JPG: "Our Hat is in the Ring"
April 8, 1916
SEW_120826_719.JPG: "Insulting the President?"
June 2, 1917
SEW_120826_726.JPG: "Training the Animals"
February 1, 1920
SEW_120826_734.JPG: "Government Plums"
March 24, 1923
SEW_120826_741.JPG: "Call to the Women Voters: 'Stand By Your Disenfranchised Sisters!'"
September 26, 1914
SEW_120826_748.JPG: "May We Not Suggest Victory for Liberty in the United States"
May 10, 1919
SEW_120826_758.JPG: "The Inspiration of the Suffrage Workers"
June 13, 1914
SEW_120826_763.JPG: "We Shall Fight for Democracy at Home"
October 6, 1917
SEW_120826_769.JPG: Deed to the NWP headquarters at the Old Brick Capitol, First Street, NE, signed by Alva Belmont, September 28, 1922.
SEW_120826_777.JPG: This twentieth century cylinder desk is among the many pieces of furniture given to the National Woman's Party by Alva Belmont.
SEW_120826_783.JPG: "Victory Stars"
August 9, 1919
by Nina Allender
This cartoon celebrates the ratification of the 19th Amendment in three more states: Nebraska, Montana and Arkansas. Georgia sites in the background, having rejected the amendment.
SEW_120826_789.JPG: A Woman Speaking on Women: The Political Art of Nina Allender:
"Political cartooning gives you a sense of power that nothing else does."
-- Nina Allender
She was a feminist, a suffragist, and an artist. She had a shrewd sense of humor and an innovative perspective on women. Her drawings changed the course of one of the most important civil rights movements in the history of the United States. Her name was Nina Allender.
Born Nina Evans in Auburn, Kansas in 1872, Allender spent her early years in Washington studying painting at the Corcoran School of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. In early 1913, Allender received a visit from Alice Paul, founder of the National Woman's Party, asking her to contribute money and time to the suffrage cause.
From 1914 until her final cartoon appeared in 1927, Nina Allender contributed over 150 cartoons to the woman's suffrage campaign. The drawings were primarily created for The Suffragist, the weekly publication of the National Woman's Party from 1913 until 1921, and later its successor, Equal Rights, published from 1923 until 1954. The National Woman's Party was the only suffrage organization to boast an "official cartoonist."
Allender's work altered public opinion. Her drawings presented the suffragists as political, powerful, and in control -- an innovative approach to drawing women. Women were shown with their hands on their hips, standing proudly above the crowd, unafraid of the repercussions of their new public persona, or finally being attacked while steadfastly holding their banners high. Allender cartoons reflected the new spirit of the suffrage movement -- suffrage first and now. These were women who would not back down from their end goal: the right to vote. Her cartoons were "quick, vivid headlines" that captured the news of the week and the spirit of the cause.
This exhibit of Allender's work offers a glimpse at the political perspective of one of the women's most important artists. Today she is considered one of the most influential artists of the era, capturing the spirited struggle for women's rights as it happened and providing a unique window into this intense chapter in women's history.
SEW_120826_792.JPG: Jehanne au Sacre, of Joan of Arc:
Prosper d'Epinay, 1902
Alva Belmont received this statue as a gift from her husband, Oliver Belmont, who felt she had many of the same attributes as Joan of Arc. The original sculpture is located at the Cathedral of Reims, in France. The "patron saint" of the suffrage movement, Joan of Arc represented a militant woman with single-minded determination to fight and die for the cause she believed in.
SEW_120826_797.JPG: The Business of Suffrage:
The "Votes for Women" slogan emblazoned on china, and the "suffrage tea" served at luncheons and meetings, rallied supporters of women's suffrage. The National Woman's Party and the National American Woman Suffrage Association "sold suffrage" by branding the movement with colors, images, and experiences that proclaimed dedication to female disenfranchisement. Products were designed to express beliefs, promote the movement, entertain viewers, fundraise, and more importantly, visually confront opponents. Often, newspapers like "The Suffragist" or "The Woman's Journal" promoted the cause and marketed suffrage merchandise through advertising. Campaign souvenirs such as soap, jewelry, paperweights, buttons, clothing, playing cards, fans, flowers, and even valentines engaged new audiences and tied in to the modern consumer culture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
SEW_120826_800.JPG: "Votes for Women" playing cards, c 1915
Wikipedia Description: Sewall-Belmont House and Museum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Sewall-Belmont House and Museum, located in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C., United States, is a historic house and museum of the U.S. women's suffrage and equal-rights movements.
It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1974.
It was built on a tract of land originally granted to Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore by King Charles I of England. The property was divided several times, and it was Daniel Carroll who ultimately ceded much of the land to the United States as a site for the new capital. After Washington was laid out, Carroll bought a small parcel of land and in 1799 sold the property to Robert Sewall. According to his tax records, Sewall built the main house in 1800. He attached it to a small one-room farmhouse believed by some experts to date from 1750. Tradition has it that British troops set fire to the house during the War of 1812. It is believed that gunshots from or behind the Sewall residence provoked the attack.
The house has undergone several architectural changes and restorations. The house remained in the possession of Sewall descendants until 1922, when it was purchased by Senator Porter H. Dale of Vermont. In 1929, Dale sold it to the National Woman's Party, and it has been the party's headquarters ever since.
Today, the house is also a museum that houses many banners, documents, pieces of furniture, and other artifacts of the women's suffrage and equal rights movement, as well as sculptures and portraits of women involved in the movements.
The Sewall-Belmont House is located at 144 Constitution Ave., NE. It is open Wedneday through Sunday from noon to 4:00 pm. Guided tours begin at noon, 1:00 pm, 2:00 pm, and 3:00 pm. The nearest Metro stop is Union Station.
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I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com
and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
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2012 photos: Equipment this year: My mainstays were the Fuji S100fs, Nikon D7000, and the new Fuji X-S1. I also used an underwater Fuji XP50 and a Nikon D600. The first three cameras all broke this year and had to be repaired.
Trips this year:
three Civil War Trust conferences (Shepherdstown, WV, Richmond, VA, and Williamsburg, VA),
a week-long family reunion cruise of the Caribbean,
another week-long family reunion in the Wisconsin Dells (with lots of in-transit time in Ohio and Indiana), and
my 7th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including side trips to Zion, Bryce, the Grand Canyon, etc).
Ego strokes: I had a picture of Miss DC, Ashley Boalch, published in the Washington Post. I had a photograph of the George Segal San Francisco Holocaust memorial used as the cover of Quebec Francais (issue 165). Not being able to read French, I'm not entirely sure what the article is about but, hey! And I guess what could be considered to be a positive thing, my site is now established enough that spammers have noticed it and I had to block 17,000 file description postings for Viagra and whatever else..
Number of photos taken this year: just below 410,000.
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