Today I was over on Barracks Row in Capitol Hill . My husband and I ate lunch at the Ugly Mug and he set off for the Public Library. I stopped in at Stitch DC and after feeling much of the lovely yarn, asked for a museum suggestion. Astrid mentioned the Sewall-Belmont House, Lauren looked it up online for me (thanks so very much) and off I went down 8th Street!
Having never heard of the S-B House I was visually engaged and emotionally overwhelmed by what I found there. The House, where Alice Paul, founder of the National Woman's Party, lived and worked is the 4th headquarters of the Party and has been for 80 years. Part of the generation following Susan B.Anthony and Carrie Chapman Catt, Paul began as a crusader for women's suffrage in 1907 and her aggressive strategies were crucial to the adoption of the 19th amendment which gave women the right to vote in 1920.
Less than 100 years ago and we don't even know the names of the women whose portraits line
the stairs at Sewall-Belmont. The National Woman's Party is now a 501 (c)( 3) educational organization. Katie Campbell, their docent who showed me the world of those women and their legacy, told me that the portraits are all of women who went to prison in order to focus attention on their crusade. I thank them from the bottom of my heart for their strength and vision from which I and my daughters and the entire community benefit. Maybe the other side of the "taking for granted " coin is that the generations who have come after see women's suffrage simply as "normal".
Alice Paul died in 1977. She had drafted the Equal Rights Amendment in 1923 and lived long enough to see it adopted by Congress but not long enough to see its failure to be ratified by enough states. Katie Campbell hopes that maybe Paul died assuming that the hard part was over. We looked at a large map on the wall showing which states have ratified and which states haven't. The amendment has been reintroduced every year since 1982 and needs only three (3) more states to ratify it. Maybe its time has now arrived.
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ReplyDeleteIt was really wonderful to have you here at the museum and we really appreciate the beautiful and informative post about our treasured Sewall-Belmont House and Museum! Hopefully it will encourage others to stop by and learn more about the inspiring history of the women who fought for the rights that we have today! We hope to see you again!
ReplyDelete-Katie Campbell