Democracy and Education: Women’s Suffrage
Ronald G. Helms
Wright State University
The genesis for this article is a new general education course designed by a committee of the College of Education and Human Services. The committee’s design was an outgrowth of a project for the National Network for Educational Renewal. John Goodlad's recommendation (29) to provide future educators with multiple experiences in classroom settings further emphases the need for various experiences and learning in democracy and education.
Political scientists and historians have long observed the necessary role of education in a democracy. While it is logical for educators to discuss democracy and education, it seems that few colleges of education have taken the opportunity to provide a general education course on democracy and education. At a recent National Network for Educational Renewal conference, the author (presenter) asked a large audience if any other universities provided a general education course on democracy and education; the answer was a resounding “no” (Finegan and Helms, 2005). In New York City at a National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in American Higher Education the author (presenter) found the same response (Helms, 2005). In Baltimore at the84th Annual Conference of The National Council for the Social Studies the author (presenter) again found the same response (Helms, 2004). It is vital that students realize the importance that a single person of group of people may have in changing American society.
Historically, women have always been involved in leadership in America. One can explore the prehistoric Native American matriarchies to the historical Native American matriarchies to revolutionary times to find evidence of women’s influence and leadership. Joseph Ellis in Passionate Sage explains influence of women in democracy with the historical letters of John and Abigail Adams. Fisher Ames noted “that the good Lady his wife (Abigail) has often been as talkative in a similar strain, and she is as complete a politician as an Lady in the old French Court (21).”
The influence of Abigail Adams has been well documented by historians. During the Jefferson presidential campaign both Adams argued that Jefferson has placed party above principle. Joseph Ellis in Founding Brothers (210-211) summarizes the Adams’ view as follows:
We can be reasonably sure that Abigail was speaking for her husband as well as herself in this brief volley of letters. The Adams team, then, was charging Jefferson with two serious offenses against the unwritten code of political honor purportedly binding on the leadership class of the revolutionary generation. The first offense, which has a quaint and anachronistic sound to our modern ears was that Jefferson was personally involved in his own campaign for the presidency and that he conducted the campaign with only one goal in mind-namely, winning the election…. His second offense was more personal. Namely he had vilified a man whom he claimed was a long-standing friend. He had sponsored Callendar’s polemics against the Adams administration even though he knew them to be a gross misrepresentation.
However much women had influence, neither the constitution nor the Bill of Rights granted women the franchise and formal political power and influence. Democracy was extended to the U.S. with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment on August 26, 1920 (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment19/). The dramatic challenges faced by Alice Paul in the ratification process are a vital component of the university’s Democracy and Education courses and the social studies method courses (http://www.alicepaul.org/alicep.htm).
Fareed Zakaria in The Future of Freedom notes, “in 1900 not a single country had what we would consider a democracy” (Zakaria, 13). The Alice Paul movement resulted in a real American democracy as well as the successful suffrage campaign that resulted in the right to vote for all American women. Alice Paul truly applied issues of race, ethnicity, class, and gender in her life’s work for social equality.
Lunardini bridges the historical gap between the suffrage movement led by Susan Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to the National American Woman Suffrage Association led by Carrie Chapman Catt, who observed in 1913 that woman suffrage would not be achieved in her lifetime to Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party (ix-xiii).
Kraditor (41) summarizes the prevailing view of Elizabeth Cady Stanton as follows:
Here is the classical natural right theory on the verge of change. Unlike the eighteenth-century Robinson Crusoe, the female Robinson Crusoe of the nineteenth century could not create her own destiny. Equal in natural right, she was unequal in condition. Her equality was in the future, not something given but rather a potential to be developed. Mrs. Stanton was demanding for woman not the right to manifest her equality but the right to become equal. For this she needed education and the vote. Hence the claim to equality; it required concrete demands for specific social and political rights.
Gurko (303) in writing The Ladies of Seneca Falls observed that the fears of Mrs. Staunton and Mrs. Catt were realized:
In later decades of the twentieth century, women were still regarded as a second sex, inferior or “different” in a sense that implied inferiority. And this in spite of the visible advances – the vastly expanded and vocational opportunities, the larger social and sexual freedoms (sic). Though the pressures were subtler, girls were still being steered into exclusive domestic lives and attitudes, or made to think that they were less than their brothers in everything from playing tennis to the capacity for abstract thought. And being less implied an automatic confinement to the kitchen or typists’ pool.
Too often both men and women of all races and classes take voting and democracy for granted. Democracy and Education courses must take care to review the vital history of women suffrage and study issues of race, ethnicity, class, and gender as core components of social justice.
Women have outnumbered men on college campuses since 1979, and on graduate school campuses since 1984. More American women than men have received bachelor's degrees every year since 1982. Undergraduate levels rose from 41% to 56% between 1969 and 2000. Issues of race, ethnicity, class, and gender are core components of a course on Democracy and Education.
The Nineteenth Amendment - Women's Suffrage Rights provides for the following:
Section 1. The right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex (http://pbskids.org/wayback/civilrights/features_suffrage.html).
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
The author found that many university students simply have little knowledge of Alice Paul and the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment on August 26, 1920. The history of American education is linked with the history of democracy in the U.S. In teaching the Education and Democracy course, the author found both men and women were fascinated with the study of Alice Paul. Many students commented in class and in private that this was the very first time that they had any idea of the 1912-1920 suffrage movement.
Sections of the recent film, Iron Jawed Angels were viewed and discussed (Iron Jawed Angels and
http://www.hbo.com/films/ironjawedangels/)
Iron Jawed Angels recounts for a contemporary audience a key chapter in U.S. history: in this case, the struggle of suffragists who fought for the passage of the 19th Amendment. Focusing on the two defiant women, Alice Paul (Hilary Swank) and Lucy Burns (Frances O'Connor), the film shows how these activists broke from the mainstream women's-rights movement and created a more radical wing, daring to push the boundaries of political protest to secure women's voting rights in 1920. Breathing life into the relationships between Paul, Burns and others, the movie makes the women feel like complete characters instead of one-dimensional figures from a distant past.
Although the protagonists have different personalities and backgrounds - Alice is a Quaker and Lucy an Irish Brooklynite - they are united in their fierce devotion to women's suffrage. In a country dominated by chauvinism, this is no easy fight, as the women and their volunteers clash with older, conservative activists, particularly Carrie Chapman Catt (Angelica Huston). They also battle public opinion in a tumultuous time of war, not to mention the most powerful men in the country, including President Woodrow Wilson (Bob Gunton). Along the way, sacrifices are made: Alice gives up a chance for love, and colleague Inez Mulholland (Julia Ormond) gives up her life.
The women are thrown in jail, with an ensuing hunger strike making headline news. The women's resistance to being force-fed earns them the nickname "The Iron Jawed Angels." However, it is truly their wills that are made of iron, and their courage inspires a nation and changes it forever.
Both female and male university students are quite engaged and thoughtful when presented with the story of Alice Paul and the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment on August 26, 1920. Perhaps the student’s interest is engaged because Iron Jawed Angels “recounts for a contemporary audience a key chapter in U.S. history.” Perhaps the plot, storytelling, and dynamic acting engaged the student’s interest.
At any rate university students may become very engaged with women’s issues, and women’s leadership roles given a thought blending of history and contemporary issues, the time to write reflective papers, and appropriate guidance in class discussion.
At best professional educators must realize that women studies and leadership programs are primarily elective courses. There is every reason to infuse the goals and achievement of Alice Paul and others into education foundations and education methods courses. The NCATE strand of diversity must include education concerning women in leadership positions. Somehow, the current cohort of teacher educators must assume their responsibility to promote and cherish the hard-won values of gender equity and female leadership into future generations.
References
Alice Paul Institute. Retrieved December 13, 2005 from http://www.alicepaul.org/alicep.htm
Ellis, J. (2001), Passionate Sage, New York: W.W. Norton & CO, 21.
Ellis, J. (2000), Founding Brothers, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 210 - 211.
Findlaw for legal professionals. U.S. Constitution: Nineteenth Amendment. Retrieved December 13, 2005
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment19/
Finegan, C. & Helms, R., (2005, October 28). Citizenship education: A tripartite responsibility.
Paper presented at theNational Network for Educational Renewal. Myrtle Beach, SC.
Goodlad, J. (1994) Educational renewal: Better teachers, better schools, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, Inc., 29.
Gurko, M. (1974) The ladies of Seneca Falls: The birth of the woman’s rights movement. New York, NY: Schocken Books.
Helms, R (2005, June 3). Tripartite Collaboration with University and the Community:
Partnerships That Support Serve Racial/Ethnic Communities. Paper presented at the 18th Annual
National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in American Higher Education (NCORE). New York, N.Y.
Helms, R. (2004, November 21). Digital diversity: The multicultural classroom. Paper presented at the
84th Annual Conference of The National Council for the Social Studies, Baltimore, MD.
Iron Jawed Angels. Home Box Office DVD, 2004.
Iron Jawed Angels. Retrieved December 22, 2005 at http://www.hbo.com/films/ironjawedangels/.
Kraditor, A. (1971). The ideas of the woman suffrage movement. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.
Lunardini, C. (2000). From equal suffrage to equal rights: Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party,
1912-1928. Lincoln, NE, to Excel Press.
PBS:Kids.org. Alice Paul’s fight for suffrage. Retrieved December 13, 2005
http://pbskids.org/wayback/civilrights/features_suffrage.html
Provenzo, G., Finegan, C., Helms, R., & Barr, L (2003). iSearch for Education, Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Zakaria, F., (2003). The Future of Freedom, New York: W. W. Norton & Co. |
