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Living Section of the San Bernardino SUN March 14, 2004 Issue 
Founding Sisters and the Nineteenth Amendment Eleanor Clift 
Remembering
'the Ladies' "Remember the ladies and be more favorable to them than your ancestors," wrote Abigail Adams in 1776 to her husband John while he was at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia drafting the Declaration of Independence. "Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could," she continued. "If particular care and attention are not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion and will not hold ourselves bound to obey any laws in which we have no voice or representation." Although John Adams had enormous respect for Abigail he did not heed her warnings and rebellion women did foment, albeit decades later. The women who lead the suffragist movement did not feel bound to obey laws in which they had no representation. The struggle for women's vote was a long and arduous climb up a steep hill reminiscent of the huge rock Sisyphus was condemned to push up a hill for eternity. But in difference to Sisyphus, every time the rock of women's suffrage rolled back, women - dauntless and indefatigable - pushed it up higher than it had been before eventually reaching the top of the hill triumphant. March is International Women's History Month and March 8th is International Women's Day. Although honoring women has its beginnings in the turbulent labor history of the United States, it is only in this democratic country that March 8th is not a national holiday and a day off work. For the most part, the U.S. pays only lip service to celebrating women during that month. It is frightening to realize that generations of women and girls assume the women's vote to have been there since time immemorial and are oblivious to the blood, sweat and tears it has cost. "Founding Sisters and the Nineteenth Amendment" by Newsweek's contributing editor Eleanor Clift should be read by everyone and should be made required reading in high school history classes. It fills the enormous vacuum existing in basic U.S. history texts about the story of half of the population of this country. Along with the detailed history of the women's suffragist movement, the book also gives portraits of its leaders and underscores the debilitating restrictions placed on women. "When Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated president in March 1913," the author points out, "a married woman was considered the property of her husband. Women couldn't serve on juries or in the event of divorce gain custody of their children." Neither did women have the right to keep their earnings. The list goes on ad infinitum. The women who rebelled against this tight control over their lives were considered pariahs. Lucy Stone, who decided not to take her husband's name, was forced to add to her signature "married to Harry Blackwell" and had her furniture confiscated when she refused to pay property taxes because she maintained, that was taxation without representation. In 1873 Susan B. Anthony was found guilty for voting in a rigged trial. She had tested the applicability of the Fourteenth Amendment to women. To the leading suffragists at that time, its gender-neutral language suggested that as citizens women too should be able to vote. In 1872 Victoria Woodhull ran for president. Only the "free love" stance of her platform was noted. "I have an inalienable, constitutional and natural right to love whom I may love, to love as long, or as short a period as I can, to change that love every day if I please," she said. Ophelia Georgiev Roop Library Director San Bernardino Public Library |
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