Related Resources • The Long Road to Suffrage • The End of the Battle • Biographies - Stanton, Anthony, Howe, Stone, Paul and other suffragists • Woman Suffrage Timeline - United States • International Woman Suffrage Timeline • Suffrage Photos • A Case For Suffrage • A Case Against Suffrage • Temperance and Prohibition • More on Woman Suffrage • Jeannette Rankin

From Other Guides • Seneca Falls Convention

Elsewhere on the Web • Suffragists Oral History Project • Nineteenth Amendment • Seneca Falls Convention - July 19-20, 1848 • Documents of Women's Rights, 1848-1876

In the early 1970s a group of women researchers recorded interviews with twelve women who had been active in working for woman suffrage, culminating in the passage of the 19th Amendment more than 50 years earlier.

These twelve women, some leaders in that movement and some rank-and-file workers, tell their stories in these interviews, now published by the University of California on the Net.

The women interviewed were aged 74 to 104 at the time of the interviews. Several died within months of the interviews. We are fortunate to have these voices, these words, on paper.

I've spent many hours reading these interviews, and I can't say clearly enough or strongly enough how touched I've been -- by their words, by the efforts of the interviewers in the 1970s, and by the efforts of those responsible more recently for converting the interviews to be read on the Net.

Whether you're a professional scholar of women's history, or, like me, an avid lover of the field for its inspiration and fascination -- even if you have a history paper you have to write -- you'll find these interviews, I think, a great gift.

Do remember, of course, that these are recollections of many years, and there are some factual inconsistencies in them. They are more useful for understanding the motivations, backgrounds, and emotions of those involved in the struggle for women's vote, and in many struggles after that battle was won.

Most of the women included in these interviews were from the more militant side of the later suffrage movement, the National Woman's Party (see related article on this site).

As I read through the interviews, I felt I had been invited to take tea with these women. Sometimes they were reflective and profound. Sometimes they were downright catty. In a word: real.

In these interviews, you'll meet Alice Paul, known well as the leader of the militant faction, who became known in the 1970s again for her later and long battle for the Equal Rights Amendment.

Then there's Jeannette Rankin, first woman seated in the US Congress. She makes clear that she wants to be remembered more for her work for peace. She especially wants us and future generations to know she didn't do what she calls "women things" in her Congressional career: she won her points by hard work and organizing, not flirting and manipulating. She explains her votes in Congress against entering both World War I and World War II.

History too often makes its actors and actresses into roles instead of real people. Mabel Vernon's chatty details about activities and people brought them alive for me.

And Sara Bard Field! I had heard the name before, but had little idea who she was. She tells her life story here with some of the poetic voice that she developed over her lifetime. From conventional beginnings as a Baptist missionary wife, to her gradual evolution intellectually, emotionally and spiritually, to the love of her life (C.E.S. Wood), her work for suffrage and birth control become one part of a moving and fulfilling life.

And there are others. Burnita Shelton Matthews explains that protective labor laws for women, fought for by many of the reformers, often worked against women's economic equality. she details the long 50 year struggle for the Equal Rights Amendment (which ultimately failed, after the time of these interviews).

And Helen Valeska Bary, who tells of the work for suffrage in California, and then her later work in government with the Children's Bureau, the Social Security Board and other agencies.

Rebecca Hourwich Reyher tells of her life as a single mother and a professional, an anthropologist and writer, as well as her deep and abiding commitment to suffrage and feminism. Her friend Nancy Halliman contributed a moving introduction, further introducing us to the vibrancy of a very real woman.

The Feminist History Research Project conducted many interviews in capturing the oral history of those who worked and fought for woman suffrage. Those described above, plus the shorter but equally fascinating interviews with other women, are worth far more than a quick look online.

These interviews, like the work for suffrage, peace, and other social reforms, were clearly works of love, gifts to new generations, acts of generosity. Enjoy them, savor them.

Text copyright 1999-2002 © Jone Johnson Lewis. All rights reserved.

The Interviews

Suffragists Oral History Project
New! From the University of California, Berkeley: interviews with 12 suffragists including Alice Paul, Jeannette Rankin.

The Women

Bary, Helen Valeska

The interview

Field, Sara Bard

The interview

Matthews, Burnita Matthews

The interview

Paul, Alice

The interview
More About Alice Paul

Rankin, Jeannette

The interview
Biography, picture, and links
Biography, from the clerk of the US House of Representatives; the shorter version includes a picture.
In the National Statuary Hall (US Capitol Building)
In the National Women's Hall of Fame
Putting Her Professional (Social Work) Ethics Into Practice

Vernon, Mabel

The interview

Reyher, Rebecca Hourwich

The interview

More interviews

Interviews: The Suffragists: From Tea-Parties to Prison

Author: Jone Johnson Lewis
Title: "Voices of 1920 Heard Today"
This URL: http://womenshistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa030199.htm

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