by Elaine Weiss
she found a storefront: White to Paul, July 24 and July 26, 1920, NWPP, LoC.
Sue White had traveled far: Sue White’s essay, written for the Nation magazine, is contained in Elaine Showalter, These Modern Women: Autobiographical Essays from the Twenties (New York: Feminist Press, 1989), 51.
As soon as ratification: “Woman’s Party to Meet to Decide Future,” Washington Post, July 25, 1920.
White wrote directly: White to Gov. Roberts, July 24, 1920, NWPP, LoC.
“Watchfires of Freedom”: Irwin, The Story of Alice Paul, 401–20; J. D. Zahniser and Amelia R. Fry, Alice Paul: Claiming Power (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 311–14; “New Years Day Protest,” The Suffragist, January 4, 1919; “While Women Go to Jail,” The Suffragist, January 18, 1919; “The Watchfire Goes On,” The Suffragist, February 8, 1919; Doris Stevens, Jailed for Freedom: American Women Win the Vote (New York: Boni and Liverwright, 1920), chapter 21.
“the most difficult thing”: White to Catt, May 7, 1919, Sue Shelton White Papers, Schlesinger Library.
At four thirty in the afternoon: Description of the protest from White, “Militant Suffragists and How They Won a Hopeless Cause,” written for the Montgomery (AL) Times, August 1919, unpublished typescript, White Papers, Schlesinger Library; “The Demonstration of February 9,” The Suffragist, February 22, 1919; Louisine Havemeyer, “Memories of a Militant: The Prison Special,” Scribners, May 1922; “Suffragists Burn Wilson in Effigy,” New York Times, February 10, 1919; Stevens, chapter 22.
“No picketing and no prison”: Havemeyer, “Memories of a Militant.”
Havemeyer’s heart was beating fast: Ibid.
“Please, Miss Burns”: Ibid.
“Of course, no one thought”: Ibid.
the grandchildren were crying: Ibid.
“the I.W.W. of the suffrage movement”: “Suffragists Burn Wilson in Effigy,” New York Times, February 10, 1919; “Doing Hurt to Cause of Woman Suffrage,” Chattanooga News, February 10, 1919.
More punishing still: “Not Connected to Militant Pickets,” Chattanooga News, February 19, 1919; “Miss Sue White with Suffragists in Washington,” Jackson Daily Democrat, February 10, 1919, White Papers, Schlesinger Library.
She became the symbol: Tennessee General Assembly House Journal, April 3, 1919, 921; “Suffrage Bill Passed by Bare Majority,” Nashville Tennessean, April 15, 1919; “Doing Hurt to Cause,” Chattanooga News, February 10, 1919.
Her own Aunt Susan had: “Sue Shelton White,” in Showalter.
Anita Pollitzer was only: Anita Pollitzer’s biographical details drawn from: Irwin; Obituary, New York Times, July 5, 1975; “Charlestonian Pollitzer a Leader in Suffrage,” Charleston Post and Courier, March 22, 2013; Mabel Pollitzer interview, June 16, 1974, part of Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); “Suffrage Stirs South,” Washington Post, August 2, 1915; “Handmaidens of History,” Charleston Magazine, January–February 2005; Clive Giboire, ed., Lovingly, Georgia: The Complete Correspondence of Georgia O’Keeffe and Anita Pollitzer (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990); and “The Pollitzer Family of South Carolina,” Low Country Digital Archive, http://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/pollitzer_family_sc/.
the “tremendous affair”: Pollitzer to O’Keeffe, letter dated October 1915, in Giboire, 61–2.
He sat Pollitzer down: Pollitzer describes her visit to Sanders in her report to A. Paul, Monday July 26, 1920, 11 a.m., on the train (handwritten), NWPP, LoC.
“He is a slick”: Pollitzer to Paul, July 28, 1920, NWPP, LoC.
“The papers are full”: Ibid.
“We must not have”: Kenyon Rector to Alice Paul, July 27, 1920, NWPP, LoC.
Chapter 14: Fieldwork
Edward Hull Crump: Biographical details from G. Wayne Dowdy, Mayor Crump Don’t Like It: Machine Politics in Memphis (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2006); Ray Hill, “Edward Hull Crump: The Boss, Part 1,” Knoxville News, March 26, 2012; David Tucker, “Edward Hull ‘Boss’ Crump,” in Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture.
Catt enjoyed a warm welcome: “Mrs Catt Makes Convincing Plea,” Chattanooga News, July 28, 1920; “Mrs Catt Pleads for Ratification,” Memphis News-Scimitar, July 26, 1920; Abby Milton, “Report of the Tennessee League of Women Voters, 1920, Abby Crawford Milton Papers, TSLA.
He’d persuaded Thomas Riddick: “Riddick Will Be Big Help to Suffrage,” Memphis News-Scimitar, July 27, 1920.
If you support ratification: Dear Sir or Madam, letter signed by Josephine Pearson on Southern Rejection League stationery, July 9, 1920, Pearson Papers, TSLA.
Building a bigger tent: “Anti-Suffrage Faction Busy,” Chattanooga Times, July 30, 1920, Carrie Chapman Catt Papers, TSLA; “To Women Against the Amendment” and “Anti Suffragists to be Well Organized,” unidentified news clippings (probably from Nashville Banner), late July, 1920, in Pearson Papers, TSLA.
And a delegation: “Antis of South Appeal to Cox,” Washington Post, July 29, 1920; “Southern Antis Ask Hearing,” New York Times, July 29, 1920.
Unless she could: Pollitzer to Alice Paul, July 29, 1920, NWPP, LoC.
“That is polite”: Pollitzer to Paul, July 29, 1920.
to telephone Burn: This telephone call is described in Irwin, The Story of Alice Paul, 473. Irwin interviewed Pollitzer and other Woman’s Party staff working in Tennessee as soon as they returned to headquarters in Washington.
Harry will be all right: Pollitzer to Paul, July 29, 1920, NWPP, LoC.
in agony whenever she spoke: In Jessie Haver Butler oral history interview, January 4, 1973. California State University at Long Beach Digital Repository, http://symposia.library.csulb.edu. Butler accompanied Catt on the “Wake Up America” ratification tour in fall 1919 and reported Catt’s public speaking anxieties.
In conjunction with Catt’s tour: Milton, “Report of the Tennessee League of Women Voters,” Abby Milton Papers, TSLA.
“Are there any”: Catt and Shuler, 436.
a “canny determination”: Ibid.
These suspect lawmakers: Catt and Shuler, 437.
protect “the letter and spirit”: “League Formed to Fight Ratification,” Nashville Tennessean, July 30, 1920; “Anti-Suffrage Faction Busy,” Chattanooga Times, July 30, 1920.
“110 Pounds of Femininity”: Clipping from unidentified Memphis newspaper, August 1 or 2, 1920. Betty Gram Swing Papers, Schlesinger Library, courtesy of Betty Gram’s granddaughter, Pam Swing, Concord, MA.
Gram had aspired: Memoir of Alice Gram (Betty’s sister) in Betty Gram Swing Papers, Schlesinger Library.
That month of traveling: Louisine Havemeyer, “Memories of a Militant: The Prison Special,” Scribners, May 1922; Sue White, “Militant Suffragists and How they Won,” White Papers, Schlesinger Library; Gram to Family, March 10, 1919, Gram Swing Papers, Schlesinger Library.
“Sentiment in favor”: Gram to Paul, August 2, 1920, NWPP, LoC.
Seth Walker was tall: Biographical information from Tennessee 61st General Assembly member profile, TSLA; and “The Record of Sigma Alpha Epsilon” (vol. 40, no.3), September 1920. Courtesy Sigma Alpha Epsilon Archives, Evanston, IL.
Gram found Walker: Emma Wold to Sue White, July 20, 1920, NWPP, LoC; Irwin, 468.
they hatched a plan: Esther Ogden to Catt, July 30, 1920, NAWSA Papers, LoC; Catt to Ogden, July 31, 1920, Catt Papers, TSLA; “Speaker Walker to Support Ratification,” unidentified news clipping, July 30, 1920, Catt Papers, TSLA.
White was elated: “Speaker Walker pledged for,” White to Paul, July 28, 1920. “Sue phones me that Seth Walker, Democratic Speaker of House and a strong man is definitely yes,” Anita Pollitzer to Paul, July 29, 1920, NWPP, LoC; “Speaker Walker to Support Ratification,” unidentified news clipping, July 30, Catt Papers, TSLA.
“I will not perjure”: “Harding Fails to Change Candler’s View,” Chattanooga New
s, July 28, 1920, Catt Papers, TSLA.
“I fear the Republicans”: Anita Pollitzer to Alice Paul, July 28, 1920, NWPP, LoC.
“It does not look good”: Winfield Jones, Harding-Coolidge Republican League, Washington, D.C., to Hon. Sam Sells and Taylor, July 29, 1920, NWPP, LoC.
“Situation in Tennessee”: Winfield Jones, Harding Coolidge Republican League, to Warren G. Harding, August 3, 1920, NWPP, LoC.
“You can understand”: “Harding Refuses Aid to Suffrage,” New York Times, August 5, 1920; “Harding Refuses to Aid,” Baltimore Sun, August 5, 1920; “Both Candidates Renew Pledge to Aid Suffragists,” Christian Science Monitor, August 7, 1920.
“Tired unto death”: Gram to Sue White, August 4, 1920, NWPP, LoC.
eagerly signed his pledge: Hanover signed a pledge for Betty Gram. Gram to Paul, August 2, 1920, NWPP, LoC.
“At present I am”: Gram to Paul, August 2, 1920, NWPP, LoC.
Flanagan was a slight woman: Biographical details from “Hartford Irish Woman was Heroine of Suffrage Drive,” The Shanachie, newsletter of the Connecticut Irish-American Historical Society, vol. 18, no.1 (Winter 2006): 1. Alice Paul and Lucy Burns supported Ireland’s independence from Great Britain, and in gratitude representatives of the Free Ireland movement in America campaigned for ratification in several states, hoping to influence legislators of Irish ancestry. There were plans to send an Irish-American military hero to Tennessee to assist the Woman’s Party efforts, though no account of his presence in the state could be found. See Frank P. Walsh to Sue White, July 30, 1920; also Walsh to James O’Mara, American Commission on Irish Independence, July 30, 1920, NWPP, LoC.
“Today I drove”: Flanagan to Alice Paul, handwritten report, August 1, 1920, NWPP, LoC.
Pollitzer took hold: Irwin, 468.
“We have been able to secure”: “Anti-Suffragists to Open Exhibit Here,” Nashville Banner, n.d. (early August, 1920), Pearson Papers, TSLA.
“Report 3 Republicans”: Catt to Will Hays, July 31, 1920, Catt Papers, TSLA.
“Report is of course absolutely false”: Hays to Catt, August 2, 1920, Catt Papers, TSLA.
TENNESSEE DOUBTFUL, POLITICIANS RELIEVED: Newspaper headlines from Baltimore Sun, August 3, 1920; New York Evening World, August 6, 1920; Nashville Tennessean, August 4, 1920.
“I believe liquor”: Pollitzer to Abby Scott Baker, August 4, 1920, NWPP, LoC; “Harding Stand Alarms Women,” Chattanooga News, August 5, 1920.
“As to supporting”: L. M. Whitaker to George White, August 3, 1920, NWPP, LoC.
men were not lining up: Pollitzer reports White’s statement that “Roberts’ men are not lining up for us” to Alice Paul in an undated report, probably written August 3, 1920, NWPP, LoC.
she confessed, “worn out”: White to Kenyon Rector, July 30, 1920, NWPP, LoC.
Abby Milton was awakened: Carol Sanford Bucy, “The Thrill of History Making: Suffrage Memories of Abby Crawford Milton,” Tennessee Historical Quarterly 50 (Fall 1996): 231.
Chapter 15: A Real and Threatening Danger
keep “hands off”: Letter to the presidential candidates in “Nominees Urged to Leave Suffrage Alone,” Nashville Tennessean, August 6, 1920. Letter to Tennessee Legislators in “Officers Named to Constitution League,” Nashville Tennessean, August 4, 1920.
“a very real and threatening”: “Cox and Harding Warned,” Chattanooga News, August 4, 1920; “Harding Refuses to Aid Suffrage,” New York Times, August 5, 1920.
“Your telegram received”: Warren G. Harding to Catt, August 4, 1920, Catt Papers, TSLA.
“I impressed upon him”: “Harding Refuses to Aid Suffrage,” New York Times, August 5, 1920; “Harding Stand Alarms Women,” Chattanooga News, August 5, 1920.
“What will the Negro woman”: Pierce’s speech is in Nashville Tennessean, May 19, 1920, p. 8; also quoted in Carol Lynn Yellin et al., 71–3; and Anita Shafer Goodstein, “A Rare Alliance: African American and White Women in the Tennessee Elections of 1919 and 1920,” Journal of Southern History 64, no. 2 (May 1998): 239.
“We are interested”: For biographical sketches of Pierce see Carole Bucy, “Juno Frankie Pierce,” in the Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture, Tennessee Historical Society; Bucy, “Thrill of History,” 232; Yellin et al., Perfect 36, 71–73; Goodstein, “Rare Alliance,” 219–46.
Abby Milton, as the league’s: Bucy, “Thrill of History,” 224–39; also Carol Sanford Bucy, “Abby Crawford Milton,” Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture.
At noon on Wednesday: “Mrs. Catt is Luncheon Guest,” Chattanooga News, August 4, 1920.
“Here in Tennessee”: “Band of New Yorkers Works to Beat Suffrage—Mrs. Catt,” Chattanooga News, August 4, 1920.
“Can anything more outside”: Pearson to Gov. Cox, handwritten letter, August 5, 1920, Pearson Papers, TSLA; “Antis Ask Cox Not to Use Party Power,” Nashville Banner, August 6, 1920, Pearson Papers, TSLA.
She was sending: Alice Paul to Sue White, August 2, 1920, NWPP, LoC.
“The situation in Tennessee”: Emma Wold, Headquarters Secretary, to Adeline Atwater, Reno, NV, July 31, 1920, NWPP, LoC.
“Need for money”: Alice Paul to State Chairwomen, August 6, 1920, NWPP, LoC.
Mrs. Havemeyer sent: Paul to Havemeyer, August 6, 1920, NWPP, LoC.
Paul pleaded with: Alice Paul to Elsie Hill, August 2, 1920, NWPP, LoC; Paul to Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, August 11, 1920, NWPP, LoC.
She even asked: Pollitzer to Paul, August 4, 1920, NWPP, LoC.
down to $10: Paul to Havemeyer, August 6, 1920, NWPP, LoC.
Paul was a brazen: Irwin, The Story of Alice Paul, 20–1.
“You talk. We act”: Pankhurst quoted in profile of Belmont, National Woman’s Party, Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument, http://nationalwomansparty.org/womenwecelebrate/alva-belmont/.
The woman was: Biographical details from Madeleine B. Stern, Purple Passage: The Life of Mrs. Frank Leslie (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1953); Rose Young, “Record of the Leslie Woman Suffrage Commission, Inc. 1917–1929,” NAWSA Papers, LoC.
Mrs. Ruffin Pleasant: Press Release, Tennessee Division of the Southern Women’s Rejection League, August 3, 1920, Pearson Papers, TSLA.
“We have no objections”: “Challenge to Mrs Catt,” Chattanooga Times, August 6, 1920; “Antis Ask Debate,” Nashville Banner, August 5, 1920.
“I’ve had two rocky days”: Catt to Hyde, n.d. (probably August 5, 1920), Catt Papers, LoC.
A squad of editors: “Record Crowd Sees Banner’s Bulletins,” Nashville Banner, August 6, 1920, and photo.
afforded a “slight advantage”: “Roberts and Taylor Win Nominations,” Nashville Tennessean, August 6, 1920; “Gov. Roberts Ahead,” Baltimore Sun, August 6, 1920; Sue White to Alice Paul, August 6, 1920, NWPP, LoC.
He formally called: “Roberts Calls Legislature in Special Session,” Nashville Tennessean, August 8, 1920; “Called to Ratify Woman Suffrage,” Washington Post, August 8, 1920; “Tennessee Legislature to Pass on Suffrage,” Chattanooga News, August 8, 1920.
Chapter 16: War of the Roses
All through the weekend: “Roberts Calls Extra Session,” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 8, 1920.
striking a pose: Photograph in Pearson Papers, TSLA.
“Truth crushed to the Earth”: Pearson annotates the photograph with this caption.
“straighten out” the Republicans: Catt to Upton, handwritten draft of telegram, n.d. (probably August 6, 1920), Catt Papers, TSLA.
“Who are you?”: The Woman’s Journal, September 27, 1913; also quoted in Van Voris, 30.
Upton, like Catt: Alma Lutz, Susan B. Anthony: Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian (Boston: Beacon Press, 1959), 276.
Upton was comfortable: Biographical details on Upton from Phillip R. Shriver, “Harriet Taylor Upton,” in Notable American Women
: A Biographical Dictionary, 1607–1950, vol. 3, ed. Edward T. James et al. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971); and Harriet Taylor Upton, Random Recollections (manuscript), Alice Marshall Women’s History Collection, Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg.
seated on the stage: “Normalcy Pledged by Harding,” Washington Post, July 23, 1920.
“I want to send a message”: “Lady Astor Sends Plea to Tennessee,” Nashville Tennessean, August 8, 1920; “Lady Astor Appeals to Men of Native State,” Chattanooga News, August 7, 1920.
The Antis were descending: “Antis Gather New Strength,” Chattanooga Times, August 8, 1920; “Anti Suffragists Will be Well Organized,” Nashville Tennessean, August 8, 1920; “Special Session to Open,” news clipping, Catt Papers, TSLA; “Mighty Battle in Prospect,” Nashville Tennessean, August 8, 1920.
“They are knocking”: “To Arms, To Arms,” Nashville Tennessean, August 6, 1920.
The book was Stanton’s attempt: Peck, 87–89.
at the next annual convention: Kathi Kern, Mrs. Stanton’s Bible (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), 185; Lutz, 278–80; Peck, 87–89.
She saluted the guests of honor: Details of the party in “Anti-Suffragists Will be Well Organized,” Nashville Tennessean, August 8, 1920.
he had a reputation: McFarland’s temper is displayed in “Hot Words Used by Solon,” Nashville Tennessean, May 8, 1913.
“would trust a woman”: A. Elizabeth Taylor, The Woman Suffrage Movement in Tennessee (New York: Bookman Associates, 1957), 101.
“That bunch of fillies”: Carol Lynn Yellin et al., Perfect 36, 97.
superintendent of public instruction, Albert Williams: Transcript of interview with Judge Albert Williams in “Recollections: The Middle Tennessee Voices of their Times Series,” Albert Gore Research Center, Middle Tennessee State University, 1980.
had a “change of conviction”: Williams’s meeting with Seth Walker is mentioned in the Williams interview, “Recollections,” and described in Carol Lynn Yellin et al., 97. The essence of the meeting is agreed upon by all sources, but the timing of when the suffragists learned of Walker’s defection is vague and confusing, with contradictory reports. Both Catt and Carol Lynn Yellin et al. relate that the suffragists learned of Walker’s change almost immediately, but this is not supported by contemporary press reports nor by private communication between suffragists during the period of Sunday, August 8, and Tuesday, August 10. Based upon all available evidence, there was a delay of at least two days, and I have constructed the most likely time frame for the narrative.
