Features suffrage wagon at the Long Island Museum
“Oh dear, what can the matter be” (a suffrage song) by L. May Wheeler is free for the downloading as a special gift for you during Women’s History Month from performer Gerri Gribi. Enjoy it. When you’re holding a special afternoon tea during March, play it! Gerri talks about the song during an interview that’s…
Continue ReadingIt’s going to be a busy month for me as I join up with musician Gerri Gribi who’s bringing her autoharp and mountain dulcimer to the Santa Fe area for a whirlwind performance tour to celebrate Women’s History Month. She’ll be singing and I’ll tell stories about my grandmother, Edna Buckman Kearns. Gerri and I…
Continue ReadingListen to the band play “Fall in Line” (Suffrage March) composed by Zena S. Hawn. This tune was at the top of the program at a special tea held on February 9, 1915 to celebrate the birthdays of Susan B. Anthony and Dr. Anna Howard Shaw. My grandmother was one of about 30 women on…
Continue ReadingThe documentary “Not For Ourselves Alone” is worth repeated viewings. It can be ordered online or through instant play on Netflix. Noted doc filmmaker Ken Burns: ”I don’t think I could call myself a documentary film maker interested in surveying the terrain of my country’s history, as I have been doing for the past 25…
Continue ReadingWe had a great time on Saturday, February 12th celebrating Susan B. Anthony’s birthday in Santa Fe. Tea and sweets. Live music. A dramatic presentation and commentary. Here’s the program! The edited script from the public record of Susan’s arrest for voting in 1872 was a hit. Susan’s feisty spirit amazed the group of about…
Continue ReadingThe advocates of Votes for Women were criticized, called all sorts of names, attacked by onlookers when they marched in parades. They persisted, even when some of their friends suggested that picketing the White House and Congress might be ill advised. Although my grandmother Edna didn’t go to jail (she would have, if not for…
Continue ReadingI know. Many people never learned anything about suffrage history in school. Most have picked it up along the way, and even more are just learning. This fun quiz plots your progress. Give it a whirl!
Continue ReadingIt was a cold night in front of the Metropolitan Opera House when suffrage leader Alice Paul, my grandmother Edna and other women demonstrated when U.S. president Woodrow Wilson was in New York City. The police rushed the demonstrators, pushed them around and broke their banners. This article — “Suffragists and Police in Fierce Fight”…
Continue ReadingSometimes it appears as if no one is listening. Not so. There’s a page on this blog devoted to feedback: What people are saying! Take a look. In the past, not all feedback about suffrage was negative. Many prominent people put themselves on the line, including Walter Clark, chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme…
Continue ReadingSpeaking from soap boxes in the street wasn’t an activity without its risks, as is noted by this June 30, 1914 New York Times article about an associate of my grandmother, Martha Klatschken, who had cold water dumped on her head when she was out advocating for Votes for Women at Twelfth Street and Avenue…
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