American Woman: Portraits of Courage

[Music] [Music] I was there I was [Music] October 17th 1776 I cannot describe the horrors of that night fire and sword have come amongst us and famine is not far off they aim to set fire to our town children screamed mama fire they will kill us everywhere shots whistled over our heads those who tried to resist were thrown into the flames [Music] I will never forget the sound of your wounded and dying I've got to get to the soldiers houses before it's too late they'll set the whole countryside on fire if we don't stop them Danbury is already building Sybil Ludington was only 16 when she made an historic ride in 1777 she rode through 30 miles of enemy territory calling out the militia by dawn the soldiers were marching toward Danbury and the British to retreat a dark cloud hangs over us the British are burning our homes and sparing neither women or children husbands and sons leave their teams in the fields to go to war I hear a voice urging me to stand on my own ground and prepare to meet the enemy I am 19 I want to live free or perish in the attempt under the name of Robert Shurtliff Deborah Sampson fought in many battles for almost two years she was seriously wounded twice even so no one knew she was a woman until she contracted a fever and was taken to the hospital six months after she left the army she married a farmer by the name of Benjamin Gannett and had three children like all the other women Deborah lived under the laws of colonial America which stated husband and wife are one person and that person is the man women couldn't own property keep the wages they earned or have custody of their children [Music] one woman who spoke out against these laws was Abigail Adams who did her best to persuade John Adams to include women's rights in the new constitution John Durr with this new code of laws which I suppose it is necessary for you to make I hope you will consider the ladies and be a little more generous than you've been in the past would you help me do my daughter well for one thing don't put unlimited power in the hands of the husband's just that all men would be tyrants if they could is there anything else my do indeed there is John if particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies we are determined to rebel we will not hold ourselves bound by any law in which we have no say or representation [Music] finished no men who wish to be happy should willingly exchange the harsh title of Master then what tender woman friend I'm darling what can I do don't think on it John after all you are a wise man perhaps too wise to repeat are masculine system [Music] [Music] I don't understand you while you're proclaiming peace and goodwill towards men you insist on absolute power then you blend arbitrary power is like anything else that's unyielding it's ultimately doomed to fail [Music] our founding fathers made two mistakes they refused to recognize women's rights and they failed to abolish slavery as the nation grew so did the yearnings of slaves and of women who had a single aspiration in common complete emancipation it was a time of great ferment and expansion our states had doubled the country's population had and its wealth had quadrupled [Music] in the tiny factory town of Seneca Falls Elizabeth Cady Stanton made a radical decision in 1848 she call for the first women's rights convention she had no way of knowing whether other women would bother to come she did know however that her father would disinherit her if she carried through with her plan father I want you to look at this are you getting ready to lecture before audiences yes yes I hope you will never do it during my lifetime for if you do be as short of one thing your first lecture will be a very expensive one I never felt more keenly the degradation of my sex to think that all in me of which my father would have felt a proper pride had I been a man was deeply mortifying to him because I was a woman and thought has stung me to a fierce determination to go forward and continue to speak out despite the pressure from all sides first my father and now my husband who has joined those who stand against the causes dearest to my heart but I am determined I will both write and speak [Music] we women worked secretly in the seclusion of our bed chambers because all society was built on the theory that men not women earned money and that men alone supported the family every fiber of my being rebelled through all the hours I sat and sewed gloves for her miserable pittance which was then taken from me I wanted to work but I wanted to choose my task and I wanted to keep my wages [Music] Staunton's call for a convention that synagogue Falls was just the beginning for all women [Music] I [Music] I have a warped decided Morni hiding [Music] I had felt good [Music] yes I have dreams like you beyond the cost of social dignity I think it's time to touch [Music] stress [Music] [Music] mother I am sorry but I [Music] no gender [Music] Shh [Music] [Music] is my [Music] thank you so much for coming thank you our convention was a great success sixty-eight women and 32 men signed their names to a declaration for testing society's treatment of women we asked for equal rights including the right to vote we had set a new force in motion and other meetings were soon held in Ohio Indiana Massachusetts Pennsylvania and New York I confess if I'd had the slightest premonition all it was to follow that first convention in Seneca Falls I don't think I'd have had the courage to risk [Music] when I saw that stately Quaker girl coming across my lawn I knew that some happy son of Adam would be set by his ears [Music] in 1850 Elizabeth Cady Stanton met susan b anthony their joint efforts gave the women's movement force and direction for more than a half a century her little suitcase stuffed with facts had enough proof of injustice to turn any woman's thoughts from stockings and footings day after day we plotted and planned the coming agitation Elizabeth and I wrote addresses for temperance anti-slavery educational and women's rights conventions we wrote resolutions protests appeals petitions agricultural reports and constitutional arguments we accepted every invitation to speak out on every question in order to maintain women's right to do so people say susan has been my good angel always pushing and goading me to work and but for her I should never have accomplished a little I have on the other hand it has been said that I forged the thunderballs and she fired them Stanton stayed at Seneca Falls writing impassioned pleas for abolition and women's rights while susan b anthony took a message across the country from new york to san francisco lecturing in churches school houses halls and barns wherever she could find an audience [Music] surely you realize there could never be a true peace in this Republic until the civil and political rights of all citizens of African descent and all women are absolutely established there is no compromise we demand immediate and complete emancipation [Music] in 18-49 a slave named Harriet Tubman escaped from a plantation in Meriden a 100 miles trek by men and dogs she made her way north from the Choptank River to Camden from Camden and Newcastle from Newcastle to Wilmington there was one of two things I have a right to liberty or death if I can't have one I will have other on the sixth day she crossed the heavily patrolled border into Pennsylvania I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person now that I was free there was such a glory over everything the Sun come like gold through the trees and over the fields and I felt like I surely must be in heaven I will free but I couldn't rest easy thinking of my brothers and sisters down in the slave quarters still in bondage [Music] he had seen your tears and heard their grooms never closed my eyes that I didn't hear the horsemen coming to drag him away I made me a silent vow the Lord helping me I would bring him all the freedom [Music] [Music] [Music] she went back again and again she led so many slaves to freedom that slave owners offered $40,000 for her life gonna take my children away from home [Music] and whereas they never did catch Harriet Tubman and she became known as the Moses of her people when the Civil War was over women returned to the unresolved problem of women's rights one of their most celebrated champions was the great evangelist Sojourner Truth who drew crowds where ever she spoke she was never at a loss for the right word once they click all doubt Oh woman I don't care anymore for your talk than I do for the bite of a play she looked him in the eye and replied maybe not but the Lord willin keep you scratchin when she spoke out for women's rights she found the issue was an explosive one especially with the ministers who became self-appointed spokesman for women's place in society why are we arguing with each other why we searching for answers the answers are in this book God shows us the way Jesus was a man he was not a woman and when he chose his disciples he chose men not women that man in black over there says the woman can't have as much rights as men because Christ was a man where did your Christ come from where did your Christ come from from God and a woman man had nothing to do with him now if the first woman God created was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone us together ought to be able to turn it back and get it right side up again Sojourner Truth gave other women the courage not only to speak but to act susan b anthony defied the law cast a vote in a presidential election was arrested and denied the right to testify at her own trial because she was a woman the judge directed the jury to find her guilty when her lawyers protested and demanded to pole each jury member judge jean took no chances the jury is dismissed order in the court miss Anthony have you anything to say before sentence is pronounced yes your honor yes I have many things to say for in your verdict of guilty you have trampled underfoot every vital principle of our government my my natural rights my civil rights my political rights are ignored the court cannot listen to arguments that the prisoners counsel has already covered may it please your honor I am NOT arguing the question but simply stating the reasons why sentence cannot in justice be pronounced against me your denial of my citizen's right to vote is the denial of my right to consent the denial of my right to a trial by a jury of my peers the denial of my sacred rights to white Liberty the court cannot allow the prisoner to go on will not deny me this one and only protest against this high-handed outrage against my citizen's rights is it I must sit down the court cannot allow this oh my prosecutors from the eighth ward corner grocery store politician and entered the complaint to the US Marshal Commissioner the district attorney the district judge and your honor on the bench not one of those men was Mike here native or foreign white or black rich or poor educated or ignorant awake or asleep sober or drunk each and every man is my political superior hence hence in no sense I feel the court must insist the prisoner has been tried according to the established forms of law yes yes your honor yes but by laws made by men interpreted by men administered by men in favor of men and against women may it please your honor I shall never pay one cent of your unjust penalty all the stock and trade that I possessed is the result of publishing my paper the Revolution four years ago the sole object of which was to educate all women to do precisely as I have done to rebel against your man-made unjust unconstitutional forms of law which tacks fine in prison hang women while they deny them the right of representation in the government and I shall continue work on with might and main to pay every dollar of that honest death but not one penny not one penny will go to this unjust claim and I shall earnestly and persistently continue to urge all women to the practical recognition of the old revolutionary maxim that resistance to tyranny is obedience to God she was fined $100 for boating illegally olga anthony never lived to see women get the road she died assuring her supporters that failure was impossible [Music] lady should give their full attention to the laws of polite society avoid gossip do not display emotion do not ask question in the Victorian age the ideal woman was portrayed as the lady of leisure or she needed to survive in the world was a good provider when she marriage she was held under common law to be the property of her husband and she surrendered all her legal rights to him she was a bird in a gilded cage that sang sweetly but could not fly because her wings were clipped a lawyer Belva Lockwood tried to change all that she won the right for women to plead before the Supreme Court he ran for president at a time when most women didn't have the vote her consuming passion was for legal battles on behalf of married women but under common law married women had no rights thank you shortly after I was admitted to the bar I undertook the defense of a penniless young woman who had been accused of resisting arrest and shooting up constable fortunately the man's wound in slide the police had suspected her husband of being a robber the husband had fled instructing his wife to reduce entrance to anyone even the police he gave her a pistol and told her to use it if necessary [Music] when I talked to my client in the Washington junior she wept that he only wanted to confess and be punished I told her no one has to testify against himself in the course of the trial she burst into tears and told the whole story acknowledging her guilt I was stunned I didn't know what to say I looked at the jury they were all men I thought bitterly that's one of the things that common law did kept women of juries but the thought of common law inspired me I knew what I was going to say gentlemen of the jury the laws must be upheld my client has committed the double offense of resisting arrest and shooting an officer of the law she has admitted it the District of Columbia is under common law that law states that a woman must obey her husband I charge that the husband is the one who shot the officer after all you don't want women to resist their husbands the jury brought in a verdict of not guilty the rest of her life Belva Lockwood helped women gain legal recognition of rights that would one day make them old citizens the times were changing but the turn of the century 3/4 of the states permitted wives to own property 2/3 of the states let them keep their earnings and seven states granted them an equal share in the guardianship of their children more and more women question the rose history gave them the course it became the target of liberated women scorned horse it wearers found it hard to breathe or do the simplest chores they fainted frequently and suffered mysterious illnesses in striving to prove themselves ladies and superior to working them in of course it wearers reduced their waist as much as 15 inches not satisfied with that Anna L star of the Ziegfeld Follies had one rib removed and hastened her own death the changing role of women and the revolution in the arts were all too much for Anthony Comstock the country's self-proclaimed guardian of public morals and the head of the Society for the suppression of Vice [Music] anything which tends to destroy the dignity of womanhood or to display the female form in an irreverent manner is immoral no one Revere's the female form more than I do in my opinion there is nothing more beautiful in the world than the form of a beautiful maiden wore nothing but the proper place for a woman's body to be seen new it is in the privacy of her bedroom with the blinds down in the dark in the 41 years that I've been here I have convicted enough people to fill a passenger train of 61 coaches 60 coaches containing 60 passengers each and the 61st almost home all in all I have destroyed 160 tons of obscene literature Anthony Comstock was no joke he was responsible for the Comstock law which prohibited anything considered obscene lewd lascivious filthy or indecent and that included birth control information anyone who dared send contraceptive advice through the mail whether a parent or a doctor could be fined $5,000 and imprisoned for five years by 1919 the Comstock law I had grown so strict that 30 New York City hospitals announced they would not give contraceptive help even to seriously diseased women some women were determined to challenge Anthony Comstock even if it meant going to jail [Music] it is lonely to die in childbirth the battle rages inside you one life struggling against another [Music] struggling against you who had not yet begun to live only a few know the fierceness of your struggle [Music] we'll hear the outrage of your screams [Music] to die in childbirth is a very lonely death dear friend you have no idea how bad I need your help I am 38 years old and am the mother of six living children and one dead I have had many miscarriages and in the last six years I have had four children and was again in bed with a mishap please do be kind and tell me just some little thing that would help me out I will promise never to give you away so that the law will never get hold of you through any fault of mine [Music] Margaret Higgins Stanga saw her mother die in her forties physically wrecked having given birth 11 times as a nurse in the slums of New York she set up the first birth control clinic in 1960 but police closed the clinic and Sanger went to jail when she was released Sanger carried her birth control campaign around the world sent to prison nine times she served her sentences teaching contraception to other prisoners reformers said she hurt the cause by breaking the law Sanger insisted her first priority was to get scientific backs to the women who needed them most [Music] the promise of a new life brought millions of immigrants to the new land paying $10 each for a crowded place in steerage they brought nothing with them but their dreams of a better life [Music] some fulfilled their dreams others fell deeper and deeper in debt as parents and children alike struggle to make a living [Music] people crowded together [Music] 16:18 working for bosses they never saw they received 50 cents the day barely enough to pay rent to buy food the whole family had to work it took a tragedy to make the country notice at the Triangle waste company in New York City owners had locked all exits fearing that women would steal from the company when fire broke out workers discovered that the doors were bolted and they fled for escape two windows of the ten story building spectators on the street below thought at first that the owners were hurting dress goods to safety but then they realized with Hara that the falling bundles were women it was all over in a few minutes and 148 workers lay dead [Music] conditions in the mines railroads and factories were the same just as cruel just as inhuman for men women and children by 1900 2 million children were working in the mills and mines the owner said why pay a man a dollar when you can pay a child of died [Music] in 1867 yellow fever swept the town of Memphis the rich left the city for stayed and hundreds died out of these slums came a woman who led the workers to a better life out of a personal tragedy was born one of our great labor organizers Mary Harris Jones lost her husband and four children in the epidemic her grief set her course and for the next 50 years she fought against all the evils that afflicted the struggling workers she was so fiercely protective of their rights that she became known as Mother Jones in 1903 a spring I went to Kensington Pennsylvania where 75,000 textile workers were on strike of this number 10,000 were little children like Abraham here the workers was striking for higher pay and shorter hours every day little children would come into the union headquarters some with a handoff some with a thumb missing some with a finger gone from the knuckle down stooped little things they were round shouldered puny many of those children were not over ten years of age although the law highest the law it prohibited them from working the father were twelve years of age the law was poorly enforced the mothers of these children would oftentimes swear falsely as the children's ages on one block in Kensington far teen women mothers of twenty torture explained that it was either a question of starvation or perjury because the fathers had either been killed or maimed in the mines I asked this newspaperman why they didn't publish the facts about child labor in Pennsylvania and he said they couldn't because the mill owners own stock in the newspapers I said well I've got stuck I've got stuck and the children and I'll get it some publicity Mary Harris Jones marched with the children down New York's 4th Avenue she organized workers in the railroads the steel mills the coal mines and soon the March became a march of thousands I don't believe in women's rights or men's rights but in human rights women should raise hell whatever their fight for God's sake don't be ladylike she was shot at beaten and repeatedly jailed the last time at the age of 89 but she lived to see her dream of a United Workers movement become a reality [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] after two world wars and a depression America was ready for a little varmint in the Fabulous 50's life liberty and the pursuit of happiness was a reality for many but not for the citizens of Montgomery Alabama the city Montgomery to continue to enforce the segregation laws is now written on our foes and as long as I am police commissioner of the city among young men I expect to follow this procedure in 1955 segregation was way of life in many parts of the country but one woman decided as others had before her that freedom was worth fighting for Rosa Parks refused to surrender her seat to a white man on a bus in Montgomery Alabama White's would accuse you of course in trouble when all you were doing was acting like a normal human being instead of cringing you didn't have to wait for lynchin you died a little each time you found yourself face to face with discrimination the question of where we had to sit on a bus wasn't a little thing it was painful to get on a bus and have to pass by all those empty seats up front in order to stand in the rear the most painful thing of all was to see little children on the bus to them a seed was a seed and when they saw an empty one they sat down their mothers would have to snatch him up and hurry him to the rear before there was trouble it was painful to think of how they would be talked they had to stand in the back just because of their color I knew that someone had to make the first step and I made up my mind just not to move [Music] our courageous act inspired others to take a stand for their beliefs [Applause] [Music] [Music] a great new civil rights crusade swept across the country another chapter in the struggle for human dignity that courageous women have fought for or over 200 years resistance to tyranny is obedience to God [Applause] come on we can't defeat I don't believe in women's rights our men's rights I believe in human rights women should raise hell whatever their fight for God's sake don't be ladylike [Music] women struggle for the vote [Music] women fought against slavery [Music] women bought for human dignity women defended our country yes we have a history and we should know it Ida Wells Barnett began the campaign that ended lynching astronomer Annie jump cannon classified over 200 thousand stars Mary McLeod Bethune founded a college with one dollar and fifty cents Jane Addams whose work with immigrants earned her a Nobel Peace Prize dr. Mary Walker won the Congressional Medal of Honor zette Kalasha organized the National Council of American Indians Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross Elizabeth Blackwell our first doctor who founded the New York infirmary Dorothea Dix reformed the treatment of the mentally ill Georgia O'Keefe led the modern art movement Pearl Buck won the Pulitzer Prize in the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature dr. Maria NGO pert mayor who won the Nobel Prize for Physics Wendelin Brooks won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry Amelia Earhart made the first solo flight from Honolulu to the mainland she was the first woman to fly the Atlantic alone [Music] Amelia Earhart never came back from my last flight across the Pacific in 1937 however she left a letter for her husband please know I'm quite aware of the hazard women must try to do things as men have tried when they fail their failure must be but a challenge to others a challenge to all of us [Music] [Music] my dreams [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music]