By LUCY D. SUDDRETH
The 1987 congressional resolution declaring March as National Women's History Month symbolizes the accomplishments of the "women's movement," many of which are documented in the Library's Manuscript, Rare Book and Special Collections, and Prints and Photographs divisions.
Whereas American women have been leaders, not only in securing their own rights of suffrage and equal opportunity, but also in the abolitionist movement, the emancipation movement, the industrial labor movement, the civil rights movement and other movements, especially the peace movement, which create a more fair and just society for all;
The long struggle for women's rights in America formally began at "the rights convention" of 1848 held in Seneca Falls, N.Y. The feminists of the late 19th century were interested in the political and legal rights of women, an interest that culminated in an arduous but successful movement for suffrage.
National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)
Under the leadership of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the organization's main purpose was to "agitate for a suffrage amendment" to the Constitution.
The NAWSA was formed in 1890 by a merger of the National Woman Suffrage Association with the American Woman Suffrage Association headed by Lucy Stone. The organization's records, in the Manuscript Division (26,700 items), include correspondence with such early women's rights leaders as Lucretia Mott, Anna Howard Shaw and Emma Willard; Maud Wood Park and Jeannette Rankin were active in the later years of the crusade.
The NAWSA records are combined with the Blackwell Family Papers and the Carrie Chapman Catt Papers to form a nucleus of source material that traces the evolution of woman's rights in many fields -- political, religious, medical, economic and domestic.
The Blackwell Family Collection (29,000 items) contains papers of Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman in America to receive an M.D. degree. Her extensive diaries, family and general correspondence, speeches and writings document her struggle to open the medical profession to women in the United States; Alice Stone Blackwell an advocate of women's rights and other liberal causes; and Lucy Stone, a leading antislavery and women's rights advocate.
The papers of Carrie Chapman Catt (9,500 items) reflect her steadfast dedication to two major ideals: a woman's right to vote and world peace. Her correspondence, extensive subject files and diaries reveal the suffragist tactics that she employed both home and abroad.
Susan B. Anthony
The struggle for "women's equal rights" was most visibly and successfully manifested in the suffrage movement. The library and personal papers of Susan B. Anthony reflect her great energy and intellectual power -- assets that were responsible for much of the movement's achievements. The files donated to the Library in 1903 portray her more than 50 years in the struggle for the equality of women. She sought not only women's right to vote but also the control of their property and the right to custody of children in the case of divorce.
Maud Wood Park
Having reaped the benefits of the National American Woman Suffrage Association's campaign, Park assumed her place in the women's movement. She served as the first president of the National League of Women Voters and formed a coalition of 10 national women's organizations. Her personal papers were given to the Library in 1979 by Edna Lamprey Stantial, former archivist of the NAWSA. The papers document Park's years of service, mostly uncompensated, in the cause of women's suffrage and the elevation of the status of women.
In 1900, while attending the convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in Washington, during which Susan B. Anthony celebrated her 80th birthday and retired from the presidency of the organization, Park became convinced that, in addition to the right to an equal education won for women by such pioneers as Anthony and Lucy Stone, women of her own generation should win the right of equal suffrage.
Park's most significant accomplishment was her role in securing passage of the federal woman suffrage amendment. As chairman of the Congressional Committee of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, she was primarily responsible for piloting the 19th Amendment through an often recalcitrant Congress.
In 1920, with women's suffrage an accomplished fact, the NAWSA at its victory convention voted to continue its work on behalf of women, under the aegis of the National League of Women Voters, which had functioned during the previous year as a branch of the suffrage association.
Whereas American women of every race, class and ethnic background have made historic contributions to the growth and strength of our Nation in countless recorded and unrecorded ways;
From its inception, the "women's movement" touched the lives of countless women of all races, ages, cultures, ethnic traditions and ways of life. The contributions of black feminists, who were also seeking "equal rights," is documented in the Library's collections as well.
Mary Church Terrel
Terrell was a feminist, author, lecturer, educator and staunch advocate for civil and women's rights from 1886 to 1954. Her papers (13,000 items) consist of correspondence, diaries, travel journals, printed material, clippings, speeches and manuscripts focusing primarily on her career as an advocate for both women's rights and equal treatment of blacks.
Terrell contributed much to women's suffrage, desegregation in the District of Columbia, the National Association of Colored Women and the National Women's Party. She was also active in the campaigns of Presidents Harding, Coolidge and Hoover. In 1895 Terrell was one of two women, and the first black, named to the Washington, D.C., school board. She was in great demand as a lecturer and was a master of languages. In 1904 Terrell addressed the International Congress of Women in Berlin in fluent German and French. Manuscripts of Terrell's autobiography, "A Colored Woman in a White World," and information about her terms as a member of the District of Columbia Board of Education are among her papers.
Nannie Helen Burroughs
Burrows was known as a great orator. Her papers (110,000 items) highlight some of her speeches, articles and plays. Realizing that there was much to be done to empower black women economically, Burroughs established herself as an educator, religious leader and civil and women's rights advocate. In 1909 she founded and became the first president of the National Training School for Women and Girls; the name was later changed to the National Trade and Professional School for Women and Girls.
In 1934 she launched "The Worker," a missionary magazine and teaching tool that soared to a circulation of more than 100,000 before her death in 1961. She was active in such organizations as the National League of Republican Colored Women, the National Association of Wage Earners and the 1931 President's Conference on Home Building and Home Ownership.
Other sources of feminist activities and writings related to women's suffrage and civil rights can be found in two organizational collections in the Manuscript Division:
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
This collection (1.9 million items) contains correspondence, memoranda, speeches, articles and diaries of Mary White Ovington, national secretary (1911-12) and chairman of the board (1919-32), relating to the National Women's Party. Other significant correspondence includes that of Mary McLeod Bethune, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Addie W. Hunton, Florence Kelley and Eleanor Roosevelt.
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR)
This organization was founded in 1949 to lobby for the enactment and enforcement of civil rights legislation on the national level. A coalition of more than 100 national civil rights, religious, labor, civic, professional and fraternal organizations work together to effect legislative and executive measures to ensure full civil rights protection for all Americans regardless of race. Some of LCCR's component organizations include the National Council of Negro Women, the League of Women Voters, the National Organization for Women and the National Council of Jewish Women. The records (24,000 items) include correspondence with, among others, Coretta Scott King; Patricia Roberts Harris, former secretary of the Departments of Housing and Urban Development and Health and Human Services; and women's advocate Esther Peterson.
Whereas American women have played and continue to play a critical economic, cultural and social role in every sphere of the life of the Nation by constituting a significant portion of the labor force working inside and outside of the home;
National Women's Trade Union League of America (NWTUL)
This organization, founded in 1903, improved working conditions for women in the garment industry. It lobbied for enactment of protective labor legislation, with a focus on an eight-hour day, minimum wage and the establishment of sanitary work areas. Interests broadened in later years to include civil rights, Social Security and federal aid to education. The league continued its activities until its dissolution in 1950.
Included in the records (8,000 items) is the founding in 1911 of "Life and Labor," the league's official organ.
Whereas American women of every race, class, and ethnic background served as early leaders in the forefront of every major progressive social change movement;
The 1970s "women's rights" or "women's liberation" movements can be related in one way or another to the popular women's movements of the past. Many advocates of the movement called the '70s the "second wave of feminism."
ERAmerica
Founded in 1976 as an independent national coalition, ERAmerica united more than 200 organizations in the campaign to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment: "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. The Congress shall have the power to enforce by appropriate legislation the provisions of this article."
The collection (120,000 items) is significant to the study of the modern-day "women's liberation movement." Major campaigns were waged by ERAmerica in the key states of Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, North and South Carolina, Oklahoma and Florida. In addition to evolving tactics for moving the amendment through the various state legislatures, the organization also had to contend with the problem of rescission in some of the states that had previously ratified the amendment.
The records reveal the dynamics of this major venture in constitutional reform. The extensive correspondence and speech files (1976-82) for honorary cochairs Liz Carpenter and Elly Peterson, and cochairs Helen Milliken and Sharon Percy Rockefeller, focus on the public campaign, political strategy and fund raising launched for the amendment's ratification. There were frequent contacts with representatives of the League of Women Voters, the National Women's Party, the National Organization for Women and the National Women's Political Caucus. The Equal Rights Amendment was never ratified; it obtained only 35 of the 38 states required for ratification, even though the date for ratification was extended to June 30, 1982.
Women in Politics
The pioneer credited with advancing the women's movement into national politics was Jeannette Rankin, a suffragist and the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress, in 1916. For several years Rankin was a social worker and was active in the women's suffrage movement. Montana was then one of the few states in which women could vote. In 1916 she ran on the Republican ticket for Montana's at-large seat in Congress and was elected.
A new movement to get more women elected and appointed to public office was launched in 1971. "The National Women's Political Caucus, aims to coordinate the organizing ability, courage and commitment of women and to thrust women into political power at all levels," said the group's founder, Rep. Bella S. Abzug (D-N.Y.; 1971-77). "We will settle for nothing less than equal representation in all levels of political power. We are going to become mayors, governors, members of Congress, Cabinet officers, Supreme Court justices and eventually there will be a woman president."
A meeting of the group was convened in Washington on Aug. 26, 1971. It was attended by some 300 women from 26 states. Those present were of different ages, races and economic backgrounds and included Democrats, "liberals," and Republicans and "conservatives."
The purpose was manifold, but specifically the group wanted to "rally national and local support for the campaigns of women candidates -- federal, state and local -- who declared themselves ready to fight for the rights and needs of women, and of all under- represented groups."
The women were seeking more political power and to build a nationwide, nonpartisan coalition of female voters. When the caucus was formed, in 1971, there were only 12 women in the House and one in the Senate. When the 103rd Congress convened this past January, there were 48 women in the House and 6 in the Senate.
Also on Aug. 26, 1971, at a news conference, Gloria Steinem, contributing editor of "New York" magazine and founder of "Ms.;" Betty Friedan, founder of the National Organization for Women in 1966; and Reps. Shirley Chisholm and Abzug set a new course for the women's movement.
"It will not be a joke by 1976 ... that a woman might run for president of the United States," said Ms. Friedan. As history would have it, Rep. Chisholm (D-N.Y.; 1969-83), the first black woman elected to Congress, entered her name in the 1972 presidential race and won 10 percent of the Democratic convention votes.
Now, therefore, be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that March is designated as "Women's History Month."
The National Women's History Project, supplier of the Women's History Catalog, has proposed that this year women "discover not only the world of people and events that have been neglected in the traditional telling of history, but also the 'new world' of your own life, once you are touched by the knowledge of women's history."
Some of the collections mentioned in this article are restricted, and interested researchers should write to the Chief, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC 20540 for more information.