PBS Adirondacks Suffrage Centennial Video
Special events were held this summer to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the passage/ratification of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote. As our Jack LaDuke tells us, the celebrations paid homage to the Women’s Suffrage Movement and one of its heroes from here in the Adirondacks, Inez Milholland.
In 1916 suffragist Inez Milholland went up against President Woodrow Wilson who, like many men of the time, saw the possibility of women voting as a threat. With one of the most important voting days in our lifetime right around the corner, I talk with filmmakers who’ve made both narrative and documentary films about Inez and her fight to make sure every American has the right to vote. Join me, Amy Walker, Jessica Graham, and Martha Wheelock.
NWHM Programming for August 26, 2020
On August 26, 2020, the National Women’s History Museum will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment with a full day of free programming and the launch of its new non-partisan voter engagement initiative, Women Vote, Women Win. Programming includes two virtual “Determined to Rise” panels, several film screenings, and a concert and rally to increase votes by and for women before the November election.
August 26, 2020 • 11 a.m. ET
The earliest suffrage victories were in the west. The territory of Wyoming granted women the vote in 1869, the same year as the founding of the two national suffrage organizations. When Wyoming became a state in 1890, the new government continued to allow women to vote. Three years later, Colorado became the next woman suffrage state. Utah and Idaho followed in 1896. Suffragists from all over the country traveled to states considering new suffrage laws to advocate for their cause and, in turn, informed the woman suffrage debates that were occurring in the east.
August 26, 2020 • 2 p.m. ET
Finding Justice: The Untold Story of Women’s Fight for the Vote tells the story of how a 2,000-pound bronze bell became a celebrated symbol of the women’s suffrage movement. The creation of suffragists in Pennsylvania who were agitating for the right to vote, the Justice Bell helped rally support around the cause in the last crucial years leading up to the passage of the 19th Amendment. Rosie Rios, 43rd Treasurer of the United States, will join filmmaker Amanda Owen for a discussion after the film.
August 26, 2020 • 4 p.m. ET
The conditions for African Americans in the 1890s were very challenging. Following the abolition of slavery in 1865, a prosperous period for the new emancipated slaves started during which African Americans acquired new civil rights, notably the right for Black men to vote. However, in the increasingly racist society of late 19th-century America, womanhood failed to emerge as a universal category. Although instances of interracial collaboration existed within the women’s rights movement, the club movement—so integral to African American women’s activism at the time—was not an integrated experience since African American women were officially excluded from white women’s clubs. Inherently, the position of Black women within the women’s rights movement involved far more complex issues of sexism, racism, and class bias. Join Drs. Hendricks and Philips for a discussion on African American women’s activism in the suffrage cause and the importance of the club movement in their mobilization.
August 26, 2020 • 8 p.m. ET
Inez Milholland – Forward Into Light and Into Light Film Screening and Discussion
Join this free virtual preview screening of two short films about suffragist Inez Milholland: Inez Milholland – Forward Into Light and Into Light. The films will be followed by a panel discussion with actress Amy Walker, producer Martine Melloul, and Forward Into Light filmmaker and advisor Martha Wheelock. Inez Milholland – Forward Into Light, will introduce you to Milholland, the woman who rode the white horse as a Joan of Arc on March 3, 1913. This film will be followed by Into Light, which takes us to Blanchard Hall in Los Angeles, on October 23, 1916, as Milholland addresses 1,500 cheering and curious attendees. The outcome of that evening would be an inspirational and emotional impetus for the final push for woman suffrage.
August 26, 2020 • 9 p.m. ET
Women Take the Stage Concert and Rally
The National Women’s History Museum is pleased to partner with top musicians, changemakers, and activist icons for Women Take the Stage: a free, livestreamed multi-ethnic concert and rally to increase votes by and for women before the November election. Join Gloria Steinem, Dolores Huerta, Alicia Garza, Vanessa Williams, Idina Menzel, Lily Tomlin, Billie Jean King, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Indigo Girls, BETTY, Dance Brigade, Pura Fé, DGLS, B-52s’ Kate Pierson, poet Staceyann Chin, founder of The Representation Project Jennifer Siebel Newsom, HBCU president Ruth Simmons, 3rd CTO of the U.S. /shift7 CEO Megan Smith, Time’s Up CEO Tina Tchen, ERA Coalition CEO Carol Jenkins, National LGBTQ Task Force’s Kierra Johnson, Native Action’s Gail Small, disability activist Mia Ives-Rublee, trailblazing transgender politician Andrea Jenkins, and N.Y.’s groundbreaking Attorney General, Letitia James.
Join the National Women’s History Museum and filmmaker Amanda Owen on August 26, 2020 at 2 p.m. ET for a free screening of Finding Justice: The Untold Story of Women’s Fight for the Vote. This short documentary tells the story of how a 2,000-pound bronze bell became a celebrated symbol of the women’s suffrage movement. The creation of suffragists in Pennsylvania who were agitating for the right to vote, the Justice Bell helped rally support around the cause in the last crucial years leading up to the passage of the 19th Amendment.
Register here in advance for your free ticket.
Rosie Rios is the CEO of Red River Associates, a real estate consulting firm. She was the 43rd Treasurer of the United States where she initiated and led the efforts to place a portrait of a woman on the front of U.S. currency for the first time in over a century. Upon her resignation in 2016, she received the Hamilton Award, the highest honor bestowed in the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Rosie was the longest serving Senate-confirmed Treasury official beginning with her time on the Treasury/Federal Reserve Transition Team in November 2008 at the height of the financial crisis. Following her tenure, she was appointed as a Visiting Scholar at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University with a focus on Millennials and Post-Millennials.
Rosie is a graduate of Harvard University and was selected as the first Latina in Harvard’s 384-year history to have a portrait commissioned in her honor. She currently serves on the board of American Family Insurance, Fidelity Charitable Trust, the Schlesinger Council at Harvard, the Advisory Committee for Artemis Real Estate Partners and was previously a Trustee with the Alameda County Employees Retirement Association (ACERA). Most recently, she was appointed as a member of America 250, a Congressional Commission to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding in 2026. Her personal passion includes EMPOWERMENT 2020, an initiative that facilitates the physical recognition of historical American women. She remains active in real estate finance and is consulting on several transformational projects in the Bay Area under her “RESCUE” initiative: Real Estate for Socially Conscious Urban Empowerment.
Amanda Owen is an author and an independent scholar of women’s history, specializing in the American women’s suffrage movement. She is a co- founder and the executive director of the Justice Bell Foundation. With a background in social work and a 25-year practice as a consultant, writer and speaker, Owen has been presenting lectures and workshops since the mid-90s.
Owen is currently writing a book about the Justice Bell’s role in the American women’s suffrage movement.
“What an interesting story! Symbols matter. The forgotten story of the Justice Bell affirms the importance of the campaign to win the vote for women as well as the ongoing need to document and honor women’s history.” — Susan Ware, author of Why They Marched: Untold Stories of the Women Who Fought for the Right to Vote
“Finding Justice tells the inspiring story of a forgotten grassroots movement of Pennsylvania women fighting to gain the right to vote. This film helps us learn and appreciate the history of the brave women who insisted on their full citizenship.” — Alison M. Parker, author of Articulating Rights: Nineteenth-century American Women on Race, Reform, and the State and Unceasing Militant: The Life of Mary Church Terrell
Inez Milholland – Forward Into Light & Into Light Special Preview Screening and Panel Discussion
Join the National Women’s History Museum on August 26 at 8 p.m. ET // 5 p.m. PT for a free special preview screening of two short films about suffragist Inez Milholland: Inez Milholland – Forward Into Light and Into Light. The films will be followed by a panel discussion with actress Amy Walker, producer Martine Melloul, and Forward Into Light filmmaker Martha Wheelock.
Wheelock’s short documentary, Inez Milholland – Forward Into Light, will introduce you to Milholland, the woman who rode the white horse as a Joan of Arc on March 3, 1913. This film will be followed by Into Light, which takes us to Blanchard Hall in Los Angeles, on October 23, 1916, as Milholland addresses 1,500 cheering and curious attendees. The outcome of that evening would be an inspirational and emotional impetus for the final push for woman suffrage.
HOW TO JOIN THE INTO LIGHT/FORWARD INTO LIGHT VIRTUAL SCREENING
AUGUST 26, 2020 • 5 PM PT/8 PM ET
CLICK JOIN:
Once you are on the event page, click the “join now” (or, if in the room more than 15 minutes before the event, “get ticket”) button on the right hand side of the screen to join the event.
PLEASE NOTE:
Please note, if you would like to ask a question by video or chat, you will need to create a Cya Live account. All that is required is your name and email address. Headphones are required if you’d like to ask your question by video. If you just want to watch the programming, you do not need to create an account.
On August 26th, our Justice Bell replica made its official debut in a celebration and artists reception at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum in the Historic Landmark Building in Philadelphia where It had been in exhibition from August 12 to 25.
Our replica Justice Bell was made at the historic Traction Company in Philadelphia by sculptors Erin Addie and Gary Pergolini, alumni of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA). Rob Roesch, world-renowned sculptor and Chair of the Sculpture Department at PAFA, oversaw the project. Although lightweight and made of a resin material, it looks like the real bell and is the same size. See details below.
Our Replica Justice Bell is going on tour in 2020!
The replica Justice Bell will visit schools in 2020 as part of our Justice Project Education Initiative and will also accompany our film screenings for “Finding Justice: The Untold Story of Women’s Fight for the Vote.”
If you are interested in the replica Justice Bell traveling to your city, please contact us here Contact
Learn about all of our events, including our plans for 2020 here: Justice
As the 19th Amendment turns 100, three exhibitions in Washington explore the contentious — and unfinished — struggle for voting rights.
In the summer of 1919, shortly after Congress passed the 19th Amendment, the Smithsonian acquired a few relics from the nearly century-long struggle for women’s suffrage.
Susan B. Anthony’s red silk shawl and the table on which Elizabeth Cady Stanton had drafted the Declaration of Sentiments in 1848 were among the donated items. A year later, after the amendment was ratified by the states and became part of the Constitution, theywere put on view along with some documents, teacups, brooches and other objects in a modest display bearing the offhand title “An Important Epoch in American History.”
Today, there’s a bit more excitement. The yearlong centennial of the 19th Amendment is being commemorated with exhibitions, parades, conferences and new historical markers across the country, many timed to various states’ ratifications of the amendment. And in Washington, three major exhibitions are now open at the National Portrait Gallery, the Library of Congress and the National Archives.
Together, these shows — all curated by women — make up one of the richest explorations of women’s history yet assembled in the capital, or anywhere else. But they also offer a lesson in the messiness, complexities and compromises involved in any movement for social change — and the fraught politics of historical memory itself.
Exhibits in Washington, DC
To celebrate the centennial anniversary of women’s suffrage in the United States, Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence, is open at the National Portrait Gallery March 29, 2019 – January 5, 2020. Votes for Women features more than 120 portraits and objects spanning 1832 to 1965 that explore the American suffrage movement and the political challenges women faced.
Dear Wild West Women,
In 1911, the West led the way to winning the vote. Today thousands of women are joining together to celebrate the 19th Amendment Centennial. 1920 ~ 2020.
A small group of amazing persistent women has set their Centennial goal on a “Votes for Women” float in the Tournament of Roses Parade on January 1, 2020. They have invited each of us will be a part of this historic event.
The entire country will see this glorious, inclusive float marking the beginning of 2020 ~ the year of the Women’s Suffrage Centennial. The float theme is Years of Hope, Years of Courage . It is going to be 60 feet long and 30 feet high. The nation will a see a spectacular portrayal of our long history to earn the right to vote featuring central women in the campaign.
Floats and parades were a major tool in bringing attention to women’s right to vote. Cities both large and small learned about suffrage as women in automobiles, on floats and in parades spread their message across the country. The 2020 float and presence in the Tournament of Roses Parade will be a remarkable continuation of our legacy illuminating the importance of the VOTE.
Your donation will make you part of this float and parade.
Hundreds of women have begun sending $25 – $100.
It truly is a WOMEN’S FLOAT!
Join the excitement today.
CLICK TO MAKE YOUR CONTRIBUTION.
Remember to always celebrate suffrage with your VOTE,
Martha.
One hundred years ago this week, on June 4, 1919, the U.S. Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would guarantee women the right to vote, and sent it on to the states for ratification (which took another 14 months). The battle for women’s suffrage in the United States had been taking place for years—in Congress, in the streets, and at home—with supporters organizing demonstrations, petitions, parades, and speeches, and coordinating with fellow activists in England, France, and other countries. Gathered below, images of some of the brave women who worked tirelessly for years to demand equal rights, and finally succeeded by having them written into law.
