VOTES FOR WOMEN | Turning Point Suffrage Memorial Open!

May 16, 2021—The Turning Point Suffrage Memorial was formally opened today. 

The  program was well thought out, was preceded and followed by well-executed videos, and the memorial itself was shown in an inspiring way.

I was personally pleased to see that the old feuds between the activists (Inez Milholland was proud to call herself a suffragette) of the National Woman's Party and the legislation-oriented suffragists in NAWSA were united in their support of the memorial.

Also, it was encouraging to see the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority properly represented. It was originally an offshoot of Alpha Sorority at Howard University. Its twenty-two members were allowed to join the suffrage march in 1913. A century later, the Deltas were the main participants!

Congratulations to Jane Barker and Pat Wirth for pulling this off.

Here's a YouTube video prepared for showing before and after the show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sSlMlbAEHE

Here is the Farifax County attractions listing:

https://www.fxva.com/listing/turning-point-suffragist-memorial/2080/

How the Death of Inez Milholland Sparked the Picketing that Changed Wilson's Mind and Led to the 19th Amendment

Dean C. C. Langdell

August 26, 2020—Today is the Centennial of the formal Ratification of the 19th Amendment, which made it the Constitutional right for every woman in the United States to vote in elections.

Inez Milholland was a lawyer who served as a key ally of Alice Paul in forming and advancing the National Woman's Party, the activist arm of the campaign for Votes for Women.

Milholland was admitted to the Harvard Law School in October 1909 by the law faculty, with only three dissenting votes. The story of that vote is told in a new book by Bruce A. Kimball and Daniel R. Coquilette, The Intellectual Sword: Harvard Law School, The Second Century (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2020).

Ten years earlier, the Law School faculty voted, with only one dissenting vote, to support admitting women. The holdout was Christopher Columbus Langdell, who had retired as Dean in 1895 after a quarter-century in the position. He prepared a memorandum outlining eight reasons for not admitting women, and the Harvard Corporation, which was the entity that made the important decisions, followed his recommendation rather than that of the rest of the faculty, and voted against the idea.

In a three-page letter, Inez Milholland applied for admission to Dean James Barr Ames, who replaced Langdell in 1895. (Langdell died in 1906.) She had also sought entrance to a legal education at Oxford and Cambridge, to no avail. She had already achieved a substantial degree of notoriety as a Vassar student insurgent for women’s rights, having met Emmeline Pankhurst in London and having become a follower of the Pankhurst philosophy of disruptive action—she called herself a suffragette, a militant suffragist. The President of Vassar said to her father at graduation: “Wonderful girl, Inez. I’m glad she’s gone.”

The letter to Dean Ames was circulated to the Law School faculty with information about Milholland. Early in October 1909, the faculty voted to admit Milholland, with just three professors dissenting. She paid a visit a few days later to Henry Lee Higginson, a member of the Harvard Corporation, who wrote to Harvard President A. Lawrence Lowell: “If we are to begin at all with women, we certainly can do no better than with this young lady.” However, Lowell decided that Harvard didn’t confer Harvard degrees on women, and a week after the faculty decision, the Harvard Corporation voted down the idea of allowing women to matriculate at the Law School.

Not until 1950 did the Harvard Law School admit its first female students.

Instead of going to the Harvard, Milholland attended NYU Law School in 1909-12. She helped workers in the garment industry strike in 1909 when she was in her freshman year at the Law School. In 1913 she led the Washington march for suffrage and in July married Eugen Boissevain. In 1916 she went with her sister Vida on a railway-based campaign in the western states and collapsed in Los Angeles, dying six weeks later. Her death galvanized the National Woman’s Party, which called on President Wilson in January 1917 and asked for him to support Votes for Women. He said, more or less, that (a) it was a state issue and (2) they would know that if they did their homework and appreciated  that Democrats couldn't afford to upset southern whites.

Hopping mad, the NWP initiated a picket of the White House. They were there Monday to Saturday every week. Eventually Wilson got tired of it and encouraged the DC police to end it. The “silent sentinels” from the NWP were arrested and taken to the Lorton prison/workshouse in Virginia. The arrested women went on a hunger strike and were force-fed. The painful experience was written out by Lucy Burns and her letter was released to the press. The ensuing bad publicity for Wilson induced him to  change his mind about supporting suffrage. It passed the House and the Senate. It then went to the states for ratification and the last required state, Tennessee, ratified the law on August 20, 1920. Six days later, i.e., this day one hundred years ago, the Amendment’s ratification was certified. Women had gained the formal right to vote nationally.

Suffragettes in the USA? Yes indeed.

Emmeline Pankhurst

August 11, 2020—An article last month in The New York Times leads off with a statement by Susan Ware that American suffragists never used the word "suffragette" in reference to themselves. It was used by "only their detractors." (Postscript, August 16, 2020: This statement was repeated on p. 8 of "How American Women Won the Right to Vote," a special section today of The New York Times.)

Susan Ware said (p. 9 of today's special section) she wrote to fellow Wellesley alumna Hilary Clinton to ask her not to call the women activists "suffragettes". Ware is both right and wrong.

Right, it was a British term. As Elaine Weiss notes in the conversation (p. 8 of today's special section), the word "suffragette" was initially used derisively, by journalist Charles Hands writing for the Daily Mail in 1906, to refer to the activist British women who followed Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst and created the Woman's Social and Political Union (WSPU). It was nonetheless embraced by the WSPU, who pronounced the word suffragette with a hard "g" and said that suffragettes not only wanted the vote but would get it.

Right, it was considered by American suffragists to be incorrect. Most women working for the vote were lined up doing day-to-day advancement of Votes for Women with Carrie Chapman Catt via NAWSA (the merged post-Civil War woman suffrage group, the National American Woman Suffrage Association). They called themselves suffragists. They eschewed civil disobedience and disruption, which were techniques used by the WSPU. After President Wilson capitulated, the suffrage movement sought to moderate its militancy as the ratification process moved from state to state, and suffragist became the accepted term.

But... leaders of the National Woman's Party did call themselves suffragettes. Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, Harriot Stanton Blatch and Inez Milholland Boissevain were all trained by the Pankhursts. Like the WSPU, they were critical of the slow rate of progress of traditional suffrage organizations in pursuing the vote. They were determined to be more activist and therefore embraced the term suffragettes.

When President Woodrow Wilson sarcastically rejected an appeal in January 1917 by a delegation from the National Woman's Party (NWP) to honor the 1916 death of Inez Milholland Boissevain and support the Anthony Amendment, the NWP initiated nonstop picketing of the White House. The picketers were arrested at the President's urging, and when they went on a hunger strike (in approved Pankhurst fashion) at the Occaquan Workhouse in Lorton, Virginia, they were force-fed. When word got out about the force-feeding of the women prisoners, public opinion shifted in favor of the activists. Wilson changed his mind and supported the Anthony Amendment, after which the House and Senate quickly passed the Amendment in May 1919. 

Votes for Women became U.S. law when the last needed state, Tennessee, ratified the 19th Amendment on August 18, 1920. The amendment was certified by the Secretary of State on August 26, 1920. The New York Times awarded a gold pen to NAWSA and a silver inkstand to the NWP. You could say, the suffragists and the suffragettes won the vote together.

TURNING POINT MEMORIAL | Deltas Donate $100,000!

"The Turning Point Suffrage Memorial Association wishes to extend its appreciation and thanks

to its long-time partner, Delta Sigma Theta, Inc., for its generous $100,000 gift toward construction of the memorial. In light of the loss of anticipated government grants, this major gift will allow the association to complete two major segments of the memorial that had been put on hold!"

In 1913, there were more than 5,000 white marchers and fewer than 100 Black marchers in the parade for Votes for Women headed up by Inez Milholland Boissevain. She had championed, in opposition to Alice Paul's fears about having Black women marching in the parade in segregated Washington, the inclusion of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority that had recently been created at Howard University.

In 2013, the ratio of Black to white marchers was reversed. More here: https://inezmb.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-significance-of-march-of-deltas.html.

THE VOTE | PBS, American Experience, July 6 and 7, 9 pm

Inez Milholland Boissevain's last words before collapsing in Los Angeles in 1916:
"Mr. President: How long must women wait for liberty?"

July 6, 2020—American Experience on PBS will be showing "The Vote," a two-part series on Channel 13, tonight, July 6th and tomorrow, July 7th, at 9pm. The 19th Amendment, which extended the vote to women, was ratified by the last required state (Tennessee) in August 1920. This year marks the Centennial. Through hundreds of photographs, antique video footage, and illuminating commentary, "The Vote" tells the frustrating but exciting story of the 72-year struggle by American women for political equality.

MOUNT INEZ | Town of Lewis Follows Up, A Century Later

From the Elizabethtown Post,
December 7, 1916.

October 9, 2019–Yesterday evening, the Lewis (Essex County, NY) Town Council voted to rename Mount Discovery. The new name is "Mount Inez".

The mountain is named after Inez Milholland Boissevain (1886-1916), who spent her childhood and summers here and is buried on a hill in the graveyard behind the Lewis church.

This is the fulfillment of a name change made after Inez's  death in 1916, by the then-owner of the property, John E. Milholland, her father.

The commitment was at that time apparently formalized by the then government of the Town of Lewis. It was announced in the Elizabethtown Post on December 7, 1916, and was featured on the front page of the New York Times a few days later.

However, the name change was not forwarded to and memorialized by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (USBGN), part of the U.S. Department of the Interior, or the New York State Board on Geographic Names.

Through diligent work by Nancy Duff Campbell, a century later this error was yesterday rectified as a vote was taken by the Lewis Town Council in favor of the name change. Your blogger sent the following letter to the Lewis Town Council in advance of the meeting, and to the USBGN. That evening, the Lewis Town Board formally approved the name change. The last stop in the process will be at the USBGN.

October 8, 2019 

To the Lewis Town Council, Lewis, NY 

Dear Supervisor Monty and the Lewis Town Council, 

This is to support renaming Mt. Discovery as Mt. Inez. 

I am a huge fan of Inez Milholland. She was married to the brother, Dutchman Eugen Boissevain of my grandmother (Olga Boissevain). My mother met Inez when Inez was first married in 1913 and the couple went to visit Eugen's relatives in Holland. My mother described Inez to me in great detail, how sweet-smelling she was and how she brought with her a gift of a Kewpie Doll (the doll with little wings in the back), which was the rage at the time. 

Inez proposed to Eugen on the Cunard ship Mauretania and they were married in the Kensington Town Hall in London on Bastille Day 1913. The idea was they wanted to go to Holland as a married couple, not just engaged. They were going to keep it a secret from Inez's father, John Milholland. By this time Inez was already a national figure, having led the suffrage parades in New York and Washington, DC. She was also well known in London as a disciple of the Pankhursts (she was proud to call herself a Suffragette, as the Pankhurst followers did, not just a suffragist). 

So the attempt to keep the wedding a secret was futile. It was featured on the front page of all the newspapers and that's where John E. Milholland read about it in the New York Times the next day. He wanted Inez to marry Guglielmo Marconi, the radio guy, who actually proposed to Inez on another Cunard ship when Inez was not yet in college. Inez accepted, but Marconi's Irish mother (a cousin of Eugen's Irish mother) was distressed that Inez would go to the United States and talked her son out of it. Inez later said she loved the radio but didn't want to marry it. 

In an effort to keep the memory of Inez memory alive, I wrote a play about her that was produced as a staged reading in the Lewis church where she is buried (it was also staged in six other locations). I maintain a website about her, www.inezmb.blogspot.com. I was the secretary and organizer of a national committee to pay for the restoration of the iconic painting of Inez that hangs in the Belmont-Paul building next to the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington (https://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2010/04/inez-milholland-portrait-restoration-planned.html. The Committee was headed by  members of the Boissevain (especially Al Boissevain, Eugen's nephew) and Milholland families and included Margaret Gibbs of the Essex County Historical Society. The painting was restored to the highest standards. 

A century ago, the Lewis Town Council reportedly decided to rename the mountain. It's not too late to make good on the promise. The world owns the memory of Inez Milholland, but only Lewis owns her gravesite and the mountain that your predecessors in office promised to rename in her honor. As the logline of a recent movie, "The Silent Soldier and the Portrait," puts it, "If the Universe offers you a second chance, take it."

John

John Tepper Marlin, Ph.D. (teppermarlin at aol dot com)

RIP | Ernest William Boissevain (1898-1984), by E. G. Boissevain

Jean Tennyson – fourth wife of Ernest Ernest William Boissevain (1898-1984). Feb. 21, 2017–The article that follows appeared in the Boissevain Bulletin in 2008, written by Ernst Gulian Boissevain (1924-2017), nephew of Ernest William Boissevain.  I was just informed of the death of the nephew, Ernst Gulian, and am re-posting this in his honor (with minor edits to improve the English and in one case the French).  Page 109 of the Nederland’s Patriciaat (sometimes called "the Blue Book" of Holland), 1988 edition starts the intriguing biography of Ernest William Boissevain (NP p 109).  He grew up with money, married four women, lived in high society and enjoyed several country manors. I, Ernst Boissevain (NP p 111), am probably one of the last remaining persons in our family to remember him. So... et voilà... here are a few stories about him and some photos from his own collection. Think back to beginning of the 20th century. The table is set in the large house in Trompenburgerweg in Hilversum, the Netherlands, that once belonged to my grandfather. His twelve children are already in the dining room: the children from his first marriage and the oldest two, a son and daughter, of his second marriage are already seated. The other four are eating standing at the table. A brother-in-law to be and two nannies complement the party.  Then the door opens and my grandfather and his wife make their grand entry. He is seated, reads a passage from the Bible and they all pray. Then the large soup tureen is brought in. When too much steam rises up from it, grandfather empties a large jug of water into it. At the far end of the table stands the youngest son, who was two years old in 1900. This story is about him. He is a nice lad. He will have many friends among the boys, and even more girl friends. He goes to work for an American trust company in Paris where he meets an American woman who becomes my aunt Billy in 1927, when I was three.  They visited in a beautiful car. We are allowed to come for a ride! Unfortunately the ride ends prematurely 500 meters down the road, as the car hits a tree. That had a lasting impression on me. That also goes for auntie Billy's kisses, the bright red legacies of which my father immediately wiped off at the nearest fountain. After the stock market crash in 1929 the couple went to live in London, and their visits to Holland became decreasingly frequent. The next contact that I remember clearly was in 1939. I am with my parents somewhere on the west coast of France when unexpectedly uncle Ernst walks in the door. Unexpectedly,also, he has a new lady with him: Dorothy. He has big plans for a future with her.  We return to the Netherlands, the war breaks out (September 1939) and suddenly uncle Ernst again stands before us. With Dorothy. Travel to France and England has become more difficult. They come to stay with us. But that is not on.  My father is not prepared to house them until uncle Ernst phones his wife Billy and explains his situation. He reluctantly does so. At the top of the stairways I stand, a 14-year-old boy, listening in with red ears.  After several days the pair disappears to London. Billy is uncooperative, orders meals at expensive restaurants and is angry. Finally a telegram arrives: "Am on my way to Cuba with Dorothy. Send money immediately. Ernest." It is the 9th of May, 1940 [the day before the surprise Nazi invasion of Holland].  Not until five years later [after the war is over] do we hear how this story ended. Aunt Billy took the next boat to Cuba and there they divorced. Uncle Ernst and Dorothy had some good years, but unfortunately she got a severe illness and they spent her last years in Canada, where she died. Dorothy painted and uncle Ernst learned from her how to paint.  Back in New York, he managed to make a living painting portraits of members of New York's high society. He opened an art gallery there, as far as I know under our old name Bouissavy. And he marries a young student, a marriage that lasts four years.  Then comes the grand finale, his fourth wife, Jean Tennyson. She had finished a thriving career as an opera singer, having sung in Europe in the Salzburg Festival and in many capitals and married a captain of industry who left her a fortune. She reluctantly went to a party that uncle Ernst, also reluctantly, attended. They hit it off and for 25 years their marriage was a big feast. They bought an old run-down castle of the Antinori family South of Florence. It was renovated extremely well, partly in the original Renaissance style. The ballroom was refurbished for concerts and many famous musicians performed there. Arthur Rubinstein was a very dear friend of the family. [A commenter on this blog post wrote: "I just bought the car that Ernst and Jean bought in 1959, a custom-made 1959 Bentley S1 Radford Countryman, and got curious about them. I found very little about her or him, until I found this posting. There's lots of stuff about her first husband, Camille Dreyfus, chairman and founder of American Celanese Corporation, who left her $11 million or so on his death in 1956, over $100 million in today's dollars." - JTM] [Photo: Ernest William Boissevain at his castle in Italy.] When I visited him, we drove up past the porter's lodge, between the rows of cypresses left and right. Above through an archway, a brief but hearty welcome and soon we were splashing away between the golden water fountains in the bathroom. In our guest room hung an elite selection of paintings, museum pieces. Behind the walls of most of the rooms was a system of corridors for personnel, who could thus pick up our clothes and return them within a few hours after having been washed and ironed, without being seen. Uncle Ernst gave us the grand tour. This started in the basement where around twenty of the staff — gardeners and caretakers of the vineyard among others — have their meals. Two steps above this was a table for Elisabeth, since forever auntie Jean's lady's-maid. Down below was also the kitchen. There was a fantastic cook, who baked a cake for every single meal.  Our host and hostess tended to eat a miniscule piece of these cakes; the rest went to the staff... or so they thought. After a while uncle Ernst discovered that the cook had bought a shop in Florence where he sold slices of cake! Uncle Ernst flew into a rage which made the castle shake on its foundations. The cook looked bewildered and auntie Jean had rarely had such a good laugh. [Photo: Aerial view of Villa Antinori delle Rose south of Florence (Italy).] To vary the scenery, they had a few other assets.   On Ischia island they owned a large piece of land with a residential area, a house for all the staff, a captain's cabin for uncle Ernst and a large studio for aunt Jean. She modeled there and among other things, on a commission for the United States, she made a bust of Golda Meir.  There was a beautiful swimming pool which was enjoyed by Herbert von Karajan with his girlfriend, who bathed without a suit, which made uncle Ernst raise his eyebrows. [Photo: Jean Tennyson in her period of glory.]  They had a house in Vermont and an apartment on Avenue George V in Paris. Also, a seaworthy yacht, docked in Monaco and seldom used.  Finally, an anecdote. When Polaroid introduced its camera with instant developed photos for the wider public, uncle Ernst decided to give one to auntie Jean for her birthday. At the end of that day he said that he would like to take a closer look at the camera and took it with him to his captain's cabin. The camera never came back.  Six months later it was uncle Ernst's birthday. Auntie Jean sneaked into the cabin, took the camera, wrapped it up beautifully with nice paper and a bow. ‘Here: a present for you.’ Uncle Ernst, unabashed, wrapped up the camera again six months later and again gifted it back. This remained a standing joke for another year or so. In 1982 it was time for them to slow down a little. They bought a flat at Lake Geneva and their Italian possessions were sold and auctioned off, along with the yacht. Even before the flat was fully equipped, uncle Ernst died, in 1984. Jean lived on until in 1991. –Ernst Gulian Boissevain, Apeldoorn (the Netherlands). R.I.P. 2017.