Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Happy 90th to the 19th!

Tomorrow, August 26th, is the official 90th birthday of the 19th constitutional amendment to the United States Constitution guaranteeing the extension of suffrage to women. You may have seen other articles trumpeting this fact in the last week, but tomorrow is the day that it actually became an official part of the Constitution. But getting the right day is not the important thing for me. Highlighting this turning point in history allows us to think about some of the joys and frustrations of studying history in general. Whether or not one “celebrates” this day on August 18 or August 26, or just in 2010 is not the point. One of the poor ways many teachers teach history is through the “done-deal” approach of history. “All right everyone, in 1920 women secured the right to vote. It is called the 19th amendment. It will be on the quiz on Friday.” ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!! While those facts are very pretty on the proverbial shelf (and correct) we need to take these dates off the shelf and remember the mess of how this fact got born. It’s like teaching about World War I and announcing to class, “Okay, boys and girls, remember that World War I began in 1914 and then concluded in 1918. Now we know everything about the war!” I have seen some history classes nearly that pat about the past.

Remembering this particular moment in history allows us to marvel at the 70+ year slog towards this moment when a female U.S. citizen could cast a vote in a federal election. It is a reminder of the frustrations that mount as supporters pursue something that seems to us today so mainstream and logical. In 1848 a little over 100 representatives gathered in Seneca Falls, New York to discuss how to press lawmakers for an amendment to the Constitution that would guarantee women the right to vote. What else do you wonder about this meeting besides the place and the date? Who attended? Did any men attend? (Actually nearly 40 men attended) Did they argue? How did the press cover this event? Did lawmakers feel a sense of urgency about this? How come it took so long? And we’re just getting started at the wondering about the rocky road to the 19th amendment! It was a slog. It was frustrating. It probably felt as if it would never happen.

Over those 70+ years there were 277 referendum campaigns for states to include women in the enfranchisement. And that was after hundreds of campaigns to get legislatures to submit suffrage amendments. For 19 successive Congresses there were campaigns every session to secure this right.

It seems the U.S. Senate was the roadblock for several generations. So the women’s rights supporters went state by state, through all 48 states eventually, to amend state constitutions to allow women to vote in state elections. The redoubtable Susan B. Anthony spent months and months in South Dakota alone, urging the men in this new state to extend the right to vote to their womenfolk. Finally they voted in favor of this bill. Anthony rejoiced, declaring, “It’s coming sooner than most people think!” She pronounced this in 1895, just 25 years before it finally became the law of the land.

Finally in the summer of 1920 it was winding down to just a few state assemblies left to vote. There are stories of some representatives who left hospital beds for the chance to cast their vote supporting women’s suffrage. By August it came down to one state left to decide, the state of Tennessee. It all hung in the balance with the vote of Tennessee. Supporters knew it was going to be close—they figured they had one vote in the margin of support. But then one Tennessee lawmaker up and changed his mind, changed his yes to a no! If you go back and look at the editorials of the day, most men who opposed the amendment did so because they worried what women would do with the vote.

On the day of the vote, August 18th, one of the Tennessee men who had announced he would vote no changed his mind. The story goes that his mother told him “to be a good boy” and vote so women could vote. Twenty-something state assemblyman Harry Burn cast the deciding vote in support and announced publicly, “I know that a mother’s advice is always the safest for a boy to follow” switching sides. How interesting how narrowly this amendment passed, how so many people still voted against it. It would be intriguing to learn more about Mrs. Burn and if she had been a suffragette, or just had an eye toward the arc of history. What happened to young Harry Burns’ career? Don’t forget that this is Tennessee, and just five later a young twenty-something teacher named John Scopes would be fired for teaching his biology class about scientific evolution.

Anyway, I celebrate the 19th amendment tomorrow not just as a marker on the path toward voter freedom in the United States, but as a reminder of how to dig into history, and marvel at how messy History is. There are so many voices to hear, all clamoring to point the way toward progress and stability and truth, and facts that eventually seem so simple were born out of a process that would have been frustrating and probably frightening. I like to think of my grandmothers, the amazing Martha and Alta—both born in the first decade of the 20th century. Imagine that as little girls they did not probably entertain the prospect that they might vote, could be an actual citizen in the USA and CHOOSE the leaders to guide the country. But with the passage of this 19th amendment this all changed. As soon as they turned 21, young Alta and Martha could cast votes equal with the votes of male citizens.

I will be having breakfast tomorrow with a family friend named Edna, born in 1917. By most standards Edna is old (albeit a very healthy and peripatetic nonagenarian) but not so old that she was born within the confines of the 19th amendment. When she was born (in the same year as Leonard Bernstein and John F. Kennedy) that push for women’s rights had still not yet secured that right to vote. Maybe I will ask Edna when she first voted and if she was excited by that prospect to help America tick.

This may be in the category of “does it really fit the topic?” but on Monday as my father and sister and I played the game “Apples to Apples” with nephew Jack and niece Emma, the category was “Elderly.” You have to put down a word/phrase card from your hand with the hope that your word/phrase choice is the winning choice the leader might select. The leader then reads the choices aloud and goes through the selection/evaluation process. One card seemed a little strange for the choice. Jack had put down the card with the word, “Flag.” When we asked him why that had been his choice, he said logically: “Simple. Betty White made the first flag and she’s old!” Betty White is indeed old, and she is ubiquitous! But as a history teacher, it does remind us how many facts are out there in the History Jungle, and how confusing that mess is!

1 comment:

Me and My Son said...

Too Funny! Betty White made the first flag...then following, George Costanza must have been our first president and Alabama has to have been the first state because it comes first in the list. I love it!