All WILPFers Invited to Three Free Virtual Events on the Complex History of Women’s Suffrage: October 21 & 22

Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner will deliver virtual presentations on women’s suffrage on October 21 & 22.

By Marguerite Adelman
Burlington Branch

October 2020

With support from a WILPF US mini-grant, the Burlington Branch of WILPF has partnered with the Vermont Suffrage Centennial Alliance and the League of Women Voters of Vermont to host three free virtual presentations on women’s suffrage with Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner on October 21-22, 2020. Four additional programs with Dr. Wagner are being offered to high school students and teachers in Vermont. 
 
Dr. Wagner is a nationally recognized lecturer, author, and storyteller of women’s rights history. One of the first women to receive a doctorate in the United States for work in women’s studies (UC Santa Cruz), and a founder of one of the country’s first college women’s studies programs (CSU Sacramento), Dr. Wagner has taught women’s history for forty-nine years. She served as a historian in PBS’s “One Woman, One Vote,” and appeared as a “talking head” in Ken Burns’ documentary, “Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony,” and penned the accompanying faculty guide. Her Women’s Suffrage Anthology, published by Penguin Classics last year, is an intersectional exploration of the 19th century women’s rights movement.
 
All WILPF members are welcome to attend one or all of the three public programs described below and to invite others to attend. There will be time for discussion with Dr. Wagner at the end of each program, drawing connections to voting suppression issues today. And we'll be emphasizing that people register to vote, get out to vote, and report voting suppression. The timing for these programs couldn't be more inspirational.
 
October 21 (Wednesday): 7 - 9 pm EST – Presentation at St. Michael’s College
Women Voted Here: Before Columbus

While white women were the property of their husbands and considered dead in the law, Haudenosaunee (traditional Iroquois) women had more authority and status before Columbus than United States women have today. Women of the Six Nation Iroquois Confederacy had the responsibility for putting in place the male leaders. They had control of their own bodies and were economically independent. Rape and wife beating were rare and dealt with harshly; committing violence against a woman kept a man from becoming Chief in this egalitarian, gender-balanced society.

October 22 (Thursday): 2:00 - 3:30 pm EST – Presentation at Community Colleges of Vermont
Women's Suffrage: The Rest of the Story

 “I am sick of the song of suffrage”, Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote to Matilda Joslyn Gage in the 1880s. Gage concurred. These two women had begun to think differently than Susan B. Anthony, their co-leader of the National Woman Suffrage Association, who believed the movement should concentrate on getting women the vote. We already have that right, Gage contended. We need to look at the larger issues, Stanton and Gage agreed. Those issues were: creating a system of cooperation, not competition; ensuring that every child born was wanted and women were the “absolute sovereigns” of their bodies; rebalancing economic disparity while gaining equal pay for women, and demanding a “true” religion, one that fostered freedom and equality for all.

October 22 (Thursday): 5:00 - 6:30 pm EST – Presentation at University of Vermont
POWER, PRIVILEGE & THE VOTE: Focus on Women, Culture & Herstories of Suffrage

This presentation explores important influences in the US Women’s Suffrage movement that are often forgotten. Who were the women presidential candidates in the 1800s? What were the challenges they faced? How did the indigenous people influence ideas of women’s suffrage and rights? Who was not included in the US suffrage movement and why? As we approach the 2020 election, how can the herstories of the women’s suffrage movement provide a lens through which to explore the ongoing creation of democracy in our country?

Singer and historian Linda Radtke will open and close all three programs with music which was essential to the movement: each state convention of suffragists began and ended with songs. Linda, a Vermont high school teacher for 31 years and a classically trained singer, will perform these suffrage songs.
 
These programs are partially funded by WILPF US, Vermont Humanities Council, Anne Slade Frey Charitable Trust, Vermont Federal Credit Union, Walter Cerf Fund of the Vermont Community Foundation, Northfield Savings Bank, St. Michael’s College, University of Vermont, and Community Colleges of Vermont.