INEZ | 5A. Sept. 30–Wilson Supports Anthony Amendment

Wilson opposed the Anthony
Amendment until Sept. 30, 1917.

On this day in 1918 President Woodrow Wilson endorsed the Anthony Amendment, having opposed it during his re-election year of 1916.

The House of Representatives approved the amendment to give women the right to vote in Federal elections, the Senate had yet to vote for it. Until the amendment was passed and ratified (as it was in August 1920), it was up to each state to decide who would vote in Federal elections.

Wilson opposed the Anthony Amendment in his first term and in his re-election campaign in 1916. Inez Milholland went on a whistle-stop speaking tour with her sister Vida to get women to vote against Wilson in the western territories, where women had the right to vote in Federal elections.

She noted that Wilson had opposed suffrage for women. He may have kept us out of the war, she said, but he also "kept us out of suffrage".

Inez Milholland Boissevain died in Los Angeles in November 1916 after having collapsed on stage - exhausted by her campaign and ignoring serious illness - and a delegation of women called on Wilson in early 1917 to ask him to reconsider supporting woman suffrage because of the death of Inez Milholland. (Wilson in the White House video.)

Inez Milholland and her sister Vida conducted a whistle-
stop tour in 1916 to campaign against Wilson for not
supporting the Anthony Amendment.

Wilson scornfully dismissed the women from the National Woman's Party as being politically naive and they reacted by instituting a nonstop picket of the White House. The protests reached a crescendo when several women were arrested, jailed and went on a hunger strike. Wilson was appalled to learn that the jailed suffragists were being force-fed and he finally stepped in to champion their cause.

Rather than give any credit to the picketers, Wilson attributed his change of heart to the debt that America owed to the country’s women. In his September 30 speech to Congress, Wilson said:

We have made partners of the women in this war… Shall we admit them only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil and not to a partnership of privilege and right?

However, the bill died in the Senate and it would be another year before Congress finally passed the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote.

BOISSEVAIN | Reunion, Amsterdam, April 16-17, 2016 (Updated June 25, 2016)

The Boissevain Foundation has announced that the next Boissevain family reunion is scheduled for April 16-17, 2016.

It will be held in the Walenkerk in downtown Amsterdam. The Walenkerk is the Old Walloon Church – a Protestant church building in Amsterdam, along the southern stretch of Oudezijds Achterburgwal canal. The building dates to the late 15th century and has been in use as Walloon church since 1586. Every Sunday at 11 a.m. church services are held there in French. I visited the Church with Charles and Aviva Boissevain in February 2015.

The church is known for its excellent acoustics and is frequently used for concerts and music recordings. The building has held rijksmonument status since 1970.The painter Bartholomeus van der Helst (1613-1670) and the scientist Jan Swammerdam (1637-1680) are buried in the church. Elizabeth Timothy (1702-1757), the first female American newspaper editor and publisher, was most likely christened there. The painter Vincent van Gogh visited the church regularly in the 1870s to attend sermons delivered by his uncle Johannes Paulus Stricker.

xBOISSEVAIN–Eugen (Superseded2)

Edna St. Vincent Millay and Eugen
Boissevain on their honeymoon, 1923.

This post has been superseded by this one. A few paragraphs are left up here to preserve links and a small x has been placed in front of the name of the post to indicate it has been superseded.

This photo is IDed as Mary Pinchot. But
"Stepper" tells me this is fashion model Lee
 Miller, muse of Man Ray. She was a war
correspondent and food writer for the British
Vogue.

Eugen Boissevain, my great uncle, is cited by Nina Burleigh in her book A Very Private Woman (p. 40). This is a biography of Mary Elo Pinchot Meyer, daughter of Amos Pinchot (younger brother of Pennsylvania Gov. Gifford Pinchot) and Ruth Pickering Pinchot.

Amos and Ruth Pinchot had two daughters:

• Antoinette ("Tony") Pinchot, who married Washington Post Publisher Benjamin C. Bradlee, and



Florence Deshon and Max Eastman.



• Mary Elo Pinchot, a smart (Brearley and Vassar) and beautiful socialite who married Cord Meyer. She is alleged to have used marijuana or LSD or both with JFK in the White House. JFK reportedly wanted to marry her during his presidency. In October 1964 she was killed professionally (one bullet to the head, one to the heart, at point-blank range) walking on the C&O towpath in Washington.

Mentioned by Burleigh on the same page (40) of her book are Inez Milholland and Max Eastman. Eastman lived in the same house as Charlie Chaplin; both apparently rented from Eugen.

Eastman reportedly introduced Chaplin to Florence Deshon, who is said to have become Chaplin's lover for a while.

Also mentioned in Burleigh's book is Edna St. Vincent Millay, Eugen's second wife, who grew up in Maine. On May 19, 1985 a story by Emilie Harting appeared in the New York Times as a travel piece about Millay's days in Maine for. Here is a version on Yumpu.

BOISSEVAIN | Aviva's Urgent Appeal for a School: You Only Click Twice

Aviva Boissevain asks for your two clicks for her
proposed school.

Aviva Boissevain is the daughter of Charles Boissevain, who is the grandson of the newspaper editor who is also my mother's grandfather.

She is supporting a proposed French school in Amsterdam. I have voted for it.

She has asked me to notify relatives and friends of the Boissevain family in the USA.

The school is targeted at Huguenots and other refugees from French-speaking countries.

Aviva would like you to vote for a plan she wrote for the Amsterdam Government for the starting of such a school. The deadline is TOMORROW!

You only click twice:

1. Click on the link: http://www.onzenieuweschool.nl/plans-ideas/een-franse-school-296/vote/

2. Then click on "Like" at lower left.

Aviva says: "Many thanks in advance."

She adds: "Voting ends TOMORROW - Sunday, August 23, 23:59 Dutch time - i.e., 5:59 pm Eastern Daylight Savings time, or 2:59 pm in California."

NAACP | 5C. Former Chair Julian Bond Dies at 75 (2)

Julian Bond (1940-2105)

Julian Bond died on August 15 in Fort Walton Beach, Fla. at 75. He chaired the NAACP, whose founding Treasurer was Inez Milholland's father, John E. Milholland.

John E. Milholland had an affair with Mary Ovington, a fellow member of the NAACP board. It is referenced twice in the new play by Clare Coss, Dr. Du Bois and Mrs. Ovington.

In the long NY Times obituary of Julian Bond, his great-grandmother is described as a "slave mistress". The Times' Public Editor reports that several people have objected to the phrase, which the Times has used before.

Even though Bond himself has described his ancestor as a "mistress", to those who object to it the word connotes consensuality that is lacking in a master-slave relationship. The Times will seek to avoid the word in future in describing such a relationship.

Bond was born Horace Julian Bond. His father was Horace Mann Bond, who became president of Lincoln College. His mother was a librarian. Julian Bond was at Morehouse College when he became one of the leaders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Later, he became a founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center and was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives (four terms) and Georgia State Senate (six terms), a total of 20 years.

Julian Bond 1940-2015

by Alice Walker (The Color Purple)

Julian / The first time I sang / We Shall Overcome
Was in a circle / On the lawn of Trevor Arnett Library / At Atlanta University
And by chance / I was holding / Your hand.
We were all so young, / Julian,
And so hopeful / In our solidarity.
I stumbled over some of the words / In the new to me / Song
But you sang solemnly, / Correctly, / Devoutly,
Believing every word
You sang / With your whole / Handsome / Heart.
A friend writes / That you will be buried
At sea / And I nod
Because that is how it felt / Those years so long ago;
That we were so young, / Vulnerable,
Swimming against / An awesome tide of hatred
And despair / Definitely / At sea.
But we persevered / As so many waves
Mountains of tears / Came roaring towards, and over, us.
Martin, Jack, Bobby, / Fannie Lou
Who never said what else / They did to her / After they beat her
Body into a leathery / Stiffness / After arresting her in / That small town jail.
Julian, / The guns, / The drugs, / The miseducation,
Also aimed at all we loved.
And us somehow / You somehow / Managing to keep / Standing.
You were so young / In those days
Of tight jeans / And a young wife / “the other Alice” / I thought of her.
She who would save / Your life / When we thought you’d / Lost it.
They are saying many things / About you now
So much praise / That is well earned.
And yet, / I wonder if they can / Imagine / The young man you were
Standing in / That Circle of Life / So long ago / Holding hands
With those as fragile, / As determined, / As pure as you / Waiting for the future
We would make / With just our circle / And our song.

© 2015 Alice Walker
http://alicewalkersgarden.com/2015/08/julian-bond-1940-2015/

INEZ | 5B. Aug. 18 - Women Get the Vote [4]

Picketing Wilson's White House in 1917

On this date in 1920, 95 years ago, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, making it the law of the land.

The 19th Amendment extended the franchise to all women. Previously, some states allowed women to vote, but it was a state option.

Credit for being the state that put the Amendment over the top - 36 out of the 48 states were required - goes to Tennessee, although Connecticut was ready to vote in favor if Tennessee failed.

The so-called "Anthony Amendment", named after suffragist Susan B. Anthony, was first proposed in Congress in 1878, and in every subsequent Congress.

After Susan B. Anthony died in Rochester in 1906, young women feared that the Anthony Amendment might languish. New suffragist leaders emerged in women's colleges and some of them - including Alice Paul and Inez Milholland - trained with the suffragettes led by Mrs. Pankhurst in Britain.

Milholland energized Vassar students before her graduation in 1909. When she graduated, the harassed President, James Monroe Taylor, said to her father, John E. Milholland: "Wonderful girl. I'm glad she's gone."

In 1912 Milholland led on horseback a suffrage parade down Fifth Avenue in New York. In 1913 she led on horseback a parade from the Capitol to the White House. Three years later she campaigned against Woodrow Wilson on a single issue - his not supporting the Anthony Amendment.

Milholland died during her campaign of "pernicious anemia" - what we would diagnose today as a Vitamin B12 deficiency. She collapsed while giving a speech against Wilson in Los Angeles. She died six weeks later.

A delegation of women visited Wilson in January 1917, and he ridiculed their appeal to him in the name of Milholland's death, saying they were ignorant of politics. The women from the National Woman's Party immediately started a non-stop picket of the White House. Eventually, the District of Columbia police arrested the picketers and they were taken to a Lorton, Md. workhouse for women. There they began a hunger strike. The news reports gradually changed public opinion in favor of suffrage.

Worn down by the pickets and World War I, Wilson finally got behind the Anthony Amendment and in 1919 it narrowly passed both houses of Congress. Most Southern states opposed the amendment, and on August 18, 1920, the Tennessee legislature was in line to be the last needed state to ratify the Amendment.

The suffragists wore yellow roses in their lapels, and the anti-suffragists wore red American Beauty roses. The state legislature was tied 48 to 48. Only one legislator was undecided, 24-year-old Harry Burn, the youngest. He had been expected to vote against it, but he had in his pocket a note from his mother, which read:

Dear Son: Hurrah, and vote for suffrage! Don't keep them in doubt. I noticed some of the speeches against. They were bitter. I have been watching to see how you stood, but have not noticed anything yet. Don't forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt put the 'rat' in ratification. Your Mother.

He voted in favor and the 19th Amendment to the Constitution became law.

xBOISSEVAIN Gen 7 | Eugen (Superseded)

Edna and Eugen. They married
 in 1923. He died in 1949. She died
within the following year.

This post is superseded. It is kept up to avoid broken links. The new post is here.

Related posts:
Men's Leagues for Woman Suffrage
EUGEN JAN BOISSEVAIN Posts - Collected
Eugen Boissevain in Nina Burleigh's Book on Mary Pinchot