NHD Article: Finding Communication in History Through the National Park Service’s Educator’s Portal (2021)

This article first appeared in the National History Day 2021 Themebook. See their website for more information or visit this page to find more NHD articles about National Park Service resources.

Article by Linda Rosenblum, Education Program Manager, Office of Interpretation, Education and Volunteers, National Park Service

Party watchfires burn outside White House, Jan. 1919.

Retrieved from The Library of Congress.

On January 10, 1917, a dozen determined women left the National Woman’s Party (NWP) headquarters and marched across Lafayette Park to the White House. They carried purple, white, and gold flags and banners. The banners read, “Mr. President, What Will You Do for Woman Suffrage?” and “How Long Must Women Wait for Liberty?” During the next few cold and wintry months, women took up their stations in front of the White House as “silent sentinels.” These women became the first group to politically picket at the White House.

At first, the women were viewed as a curiosity, but the entrance of the United States into the Great War in April of that year caused a change in public sentiment toward anyone who criticized the government. Although many other groups seeking woman suffrage suspended their work for voting rights in favor of supporting the war effort, the NWP continued its protests of the government and of President Woodrow Wilson in particular. The press and the public increasingly found the NWP’s behavior unpatriotic and in some cases subversive. The picketers were attacked by violent mobs, sometimes led by soldiers and sailors who supported U.S. involvement in the Great War. Finally, on June 22, 1917, the police arrested these female protesters on the technical charge of “obstructing traffic.” The arrests and prison sentences continued and increased, culminating in a “Night of Terror” at the Occoquan Workhouse in Lorton, Virginia. While at the workhouse, 33 women protesters suffered physical beatings when they demanded that the prison superintendent treat them as political prisoners. Other women were forcibly fed when they went on hunger strikes while imprisoned.

The brutal treatment of the protesters eventually won the public’s sympathies. Many of the activists were also leaders in supporting the war effort. The press increasingly presented their plight in a more sympathetic light. On September 20, 1918, President Wilson argued for support of woman suffrage in Congress. The House of Representatives passed the Nineteenth Amendment twice, once in 1918 and again in 1919. The amendment finally passed the Senate in June 1919. Ratification of the amendment by three-quarters of the states dragged out over the next 14 months, with Tennessee becoming the thirty-sixth state to ratify the amendment in August 1920.

The National Woman’s Party exercised their First Amendment rights to speech and assembly in their effort to pass the Nineteenth Amendment. They endured public contempt, mob violence, and even imprisonment to communicate their message for women’s right to vote. Many later groups and individuals followed the NWP’s example to picket at the White House for and against many causes or issues.

The National Park Service (NPS) preserves and protects the places and resources that tell America’s stories. There are over 400 units of the National Park Service and nearly two-thirds of these units preserve and interpret historical or cultural resources and stories. The story of the NWP’s protests at Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House, is retold in a series of lesson plans created by NPS staff that are available online for educators to access through the NPS Educators’ Portal.

These lesson plans are selected to reflect a variety of stories that can connect to the National History Day® theme of Communication in History: The Key to Understanding. They are arranged in groups with similar themes.

SPEAKING OUT FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS

PRESIDENT’S PARK (WHITE HOUSE) (WASHINGTON, D.C.)

The President of the United States lives in a National Park. Every president, except George Washington, has called the White House and its surrounding grounds his place of work, rest, and solitude. Recognizable around the world, the White House stands as a symbol of democracy. The White House and its park grounds serve not only as the seat of the executive branch of government of the United States of America, but also as an iconic place for civil discourse.

Lafayette Park: First Amendment Rights on the President’s Doorstep

The story of the National Woman’s Party (NWP), which originated the practice of political protest at the White House gates, was presented in the introduction to this article. This lesson plan is part of the Teaching with Historic Places collection of over 160 lessons developed for educators. Students will analyze maps, readings, and photographs to consider how women exercised their First Amendment rights of speech and assembly to protest for woman suffrage at the president’s front door. They will investigate how these protests led to violence, arrest, imprisonment, and eventually to the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. Students will have the opportunity to engage in activities comparing woman suffrage movements in the United States with those in the United Kingdom, researching subsequent movements that protested at the White House, and examining First Amendment rights exercised in local issues.

BELMONT-PAUL WOMEN’S EQUALITY
NATIONAL MONUMENT, NATIONAL MALL AND MEMORIAL PARKS, PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE,
WOMEN’S RIGHTS NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK (WASHINGTON, D.C., AND SENECA FALLS, NEW YORK)

Leading the march for women’s equality, the following National Park Service sites preserve and interpret stories of women and men who worked toward woman suffrage and equal rights. Women’s Rights National Historical Park tells the story of the first Women’s Rights Convention held in Seneca Falls, New York, July 19-20, 1848. It is a story of struggles for civil rights, human rights, and equality—global struggles that continue today. The efforts of women’s rights leaders, abolitionists, and other nineteenth-century reformers remind us that all people must be accepted as equals. Home to the National Woman’s Party for nearly 90 years, the Ava Belmont house was the epicenter of the struggle for women’s rights. From this house in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol and Supreme Court, Alice Paul, a leader of the woman suffrage movement, and the NWP developed innovative strategies and tactics to advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment and equality for women. President Barack Obama designated the national monument on April 12, 2016. The following lesson plans look at how the National Woman’s Party and its leaders communicated through protests, picketing, lobbying, and political speeches to work toward woman suffrage and equal rights.

A Woman’s Place is in the Sewall-Belmont House: Alice Paul and the Work for Women’s Equality

This lesson, also from the Teaching with Historic Places collection, studies the continued work of the National Woman’s Party (NWP) following the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, which provided women the right to vote.

In 1929, the restless leaders of the NWP bought a house on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., and designated it their new headquarters. Over a decade had passed since its members picketed the White House and went to prison for their political activism, and nearly a decade since they persuaded Americans to care about woman suffrage. While many of the suffrage veterans thought the war was won, its founder, Alice Paul, did not rest. For her, the fight for the Nineteenth Amendment was just the first battle in a longer struggle.

Dedicated to erasing discriminatory laws that she believed kept women from being free and equal citizens, Paul lived at the strategic headquarters of the organization she started. Paul and the NWP lobbied Congress to support federal legislation like the first proposed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which Paul drafted in 1921. She never saw the ERA realized, as it was never ratified by the necessary number of states.1 However, the legacy of her fierce determination can be found in the Nineteenth Amendment, the United Nations Charter, and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Tucked among federal office buildings, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the U.S. Capitol, the Sewall-Belmont House & Museum, home of the National Woman’s Party, stands today in the center of American government as a women’s history museum, archive, and monument.

While many of the suffrage veterans thought the war was won, its founder, Alice Paul, did not rest. For her, the fight for the Nineteenth Amendment was just the first battle in a longer struggle. Dedicated to erasing discriminatory laws that she believed kept women from being free and equal citizens, Paul lived at the strategic headquarters of the organization she started. Paul and the NWP lobbied Congress to support federal legislation like the first proposed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which Paul drafted in 1921. She never saw the ERA realized, as it was never ratified by the necessary number of states.1 However, the legacy of her fierce determination can be found in the Nineteenth Amendment, the United Nations Charter, and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Tucked among federal office buildings, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the U.S. Capitol, the Sewall-Belmont House & Museum, home of the National Woman’s Party, stands today in the center of American government as a women’s history museum, archive, and monument.

A New Home on Capitol Hill: Fighting for the Equal Rights Amendment

The National Woman’s Party (NWP) continued to work for women’s equality after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. In 1921, the party leaders and members debated the organization’s future. Some of the members believed that with women’s enfranchisement achieved, the time for activism had ended. Alice Paul and Alva Belmont wanted the NWP to stay in Washington, D.C., and use the new political power they had as voters to lobby for laws that addressed women’s political, economic, and social inequality. In addition, they wanted to return to the strategy of amending the U.S. Constitution, this time to achieve complete legal equality for women in the United States.

Students will read a text about the history of the Equal Rights Amendment and early objections to the possible effects of the ERA, particularly for working women. They will analyze a political cartoon using what they learned from the reading. Students will then develop a response to the concerns about the ERA addressed in the cartoon.

Lobbying for Equality: Examining the “Deadly Political Index” of the National Woman’s Party

“Neither members of Congress who have swung from the anti-suffrage to the pro-suffrage column nor those who remain in the list of the antis are aware that at the headquarters of the National Woman’s Party...is a card index system so extensive in detail, political and personal, that twenty-two different cards are required for each Senator and Representative,” The New York Times reported in March 1919. San Francisco native Maud Younger oversaw this detailed record-keeping system, which became known as the “Deadly Political Index.”

Younger grew up in a wealthy household but spent most of her life as an activist for working-class women. She joined the suffrage movement in California and then moved to Washington, D.C., at the request of Alice Paul. Younger was a powerful speaker who participated in many Congressional Union and National Woman’s Party public events. In 1917, as the NWP launched its picketing campaign, Younger became the chair of the NWP’s lobbying committee. She set to work putting pressure on members of Congress to support the Nineteenth Amendment (also known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment) while the more-visible picketers focused their efforts on winning President Wilson’s endorsement.

Using this lesson, students will examine a primary source document from the National Woman’s Party lobbying records and identify differing perspectives on the Equal Rights Amendment. They will plan their own lobbying approach based on what they have learned. Students then identify an issue and design their own campaign for change.

COMMUNICATION DURING CONFLICT

PATERSON GREAT FALLS NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK (NEW JERSEY)

Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park is a new unit of the National Park Service that is open to visitors for self-guided outdoor activities and tours. Here visitors will explore a National Natural Landmark, the Great Falls of the Passaic River. The falls are the centerpiece of the park; their beauty and power are central to Paterson’s story. Whether viewing them at a distance from Overlook Park, or feeling their spray in Mary Ellen Kramer Park, the Falls are a “must-see” for anyone visiting the area. Paterson also boasts a National Engineering Landmark. The raceways that were built in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to take advantage of the nearby waterpower were engineering marvels. A walk through Upper Raceway Park takes visitors along the beginning of the raceway system and past just a few of the many mills that benefited from it.

Paterson, New Jersey: America’s Silk City
The water cascades over rugged cliffs, drops 77 feet, and rushes through the Passaic River Gorge. Paterson, New Jersey, was established in the 1790s to utilize the power of these falls. Massive brick mill buildings lined the canals that transformed the power of the falls into energy to drive machines. These mills manufactured many things during the long history of this industrial city including cotton textiles, steam locomotives, Colt revolvers, and aircraft engines. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, they produced silk fabrics in such quantities that Paterson was known as “Silk City.” In 1913, however, the mills stood silent for five months as workers joined in a bitter strike that brought the city national attention.

This lesson plan studies how early twentieth-century labor organizers in the silk industry merged skilled and unskilled workers together to protest new technologies that required fewer workers to tend the looms, and also called for increased wages and an eight-hour workday. Students will review maps and readings and will analyze historical photos to understand how the International Workers of the World (IWW or “Wobblies”) used their communication skills to lead over 20,000 silk workers to strike against the owners of the mills. Students will develop arguments about the positions held by the unions, strikers, and the mill owners and support their arguments with evidence from the lesson resources.

TUMACÁCORI NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK (ARIZONA)

Tumacácori sits at a cultural crossroads in the Santa Cruz River Valley. Here O’odham (or Pima), Yaqui, and Apache people met and mingled with European Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries, settlers, and soldiers, sometimes in conflict and sometimes in cooperation.

Riot, Rebellion, or Revolt?

In the region of what is now southern Arizona and northern Sonora México, Padre Eusebio Francisco Kino2, a Jesuit missionary from the Holy Roman Empire (now Italy), set up a system of missions and smaller communities. In these communities, he encouraged Native Americans to accept a Spanish way of life. This meant learning a trade, being baptized, worshipping in the Catholic Church, learning Spanish, and giving up native tradition. The relationship between the Native Americans of the Pimería Alta, the Spanish, Christianized natives, and mestizos (people born of both Spanish and indigenous descent) was a relatively peaceful one. However, discontent among some of the native people led to a well-organized revolt in 1751. The revolt resulted in the deaths of two priests and more than 100 others who were perceived as Spanish sympathizers. There are many accounts of this incident as revealed through letters. Some writings label the O’odham rebels as hechiceros (witch doctors), “wicked children,” and “malcontents.” Other writings sympathize with the way the native people were treated and abused.

This lesson examines how word choice influences us, our perspectives, and the way we attempt to communicate with others, as well as how the reports and letters of the Upper Pima (O’odham) Rebellion of 1751 used connotative and denotative meanings to portray the events.

COMMUNICATING THROUGH DIPLOMACY

EISENHOWER NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE (PENNSYLVANIA)

Eisenhower National Historic Site is the home and farm of General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Located adjacent to the Gettysburg Battlefield, the farm served the president as a weekend retreat and a meeting place for world leaders. With its peaceful setting and view of South Mountain, it was a much-needed respite from Washington, D.C., and a backdrop for efforts to reduce Cold War tensions.

Thaw in the Cold War: Eisenhower and Khrushchev at Gettysburg

Perhaps a change of scene would make a difference. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Nikita Khrushchev, opposing leaders of the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics at the height of the Cold War in 1959, had reached an impasse. Even in the informal setting of Camp David, with occasional escapes from the intrusive protocol and ever-present advisers, the leaders were making little progress in their effort to lessen the tensions. As he and Khrushchev boarded the helicopter for the short flight from Camp David to the president’s farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Eisenhower hoped that the quiet, rural atmosphere would have the intended effect on Khrushchev.

While Khrushchev’s trip to the United States did not end the Cold War, it was successful in temporarily lessening tensions between the two nations. Eisenhower and Khrushchev both got the minimum concessions each wanted from the other. In addition, Eisenhower gained a better understanding of Khrushchev’s complex personality, information that would prove valuable as the Cold War continued.

This lesson plan will introduce students to Eisenhower’s Cold War diplomacy through maps, historical photographs, transcripts of the president’s news conferences leading up to the Khrushchev visit, and an interview with John S. D. Eisenhower, the president’s son, regarding his experience at the Gettysburg farm during the Khrushchev visit.

JIMMY CARTER NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE (GEORGIA)

Whether they are Carter enthusiasts, researchers, or just curious how a small town influenced a young boy who would become the president of the most powerful nation in the world, odds are visitors will find a stop at the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site interesting. The history and culture of this rural community can provide a look into why the Carters’ ties to Plains, Georgia, endured the stresses of public life and remained as strong as they were decades earlier. A visit to the site provides an opportunity to explore the historic resources and rural southern culture that had an influence in molding the character and political policies of Jimmy Carter.

A Pathway to Peace—Jimmy Carter and the Camp David Accords

The new nation of Israel was created in 1948 following World War II as a homeland for displaced Jewish people from around the world. Land was taken from the Palestinian people to create the new Israeli nation. Land disputes over the boundaries of Israel continued from 1949 through the 1970s. Israel fought wars against Egypt and Syria in 1967 and 1973 over boundaries and Israel’s attempts to settle new territories in the West Bank and the Sinai Peninsula. United States support of Israel led to an oil embargo by the Arab nations in 1973, causing gas shortages and increased petroleum prices.

Beginning in 1977, President Carter sought to devise a comprehensive peace plan for the Middle East focusing on three main concerns: Israeli security, land ownership, and Palestinian rights. Carter arranged for a summit between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli President Menachem Begin to be held at Camp David in September 1978. After 13 days of negotiations between representatives of both countries’ governments, an agreement was reached to create a “framework for peace” between Egypt and Israel. The actual treaty was not signed for another six months. President Carter hosted Sadat and Begin at a signing ceremony at the White House in March 1979.

These lessons utilize primary sources and background information to help students understand the complex process of resolving conflict. Students will analyze documents, photographs, and political cartoons related to the Camp David Accords. They will learn how and why the United States, Israel, and Egypt negotiated this historic peace agreement. They will also analyze the resulting agreement, understanding that every party does not get everything they want in a compromise.



Lesson plans and other educational resources produced by the National Park Service and some of its partners are available to educators through the NPS Educator’s Portal. A simple keyword or subject search can lead to examples of lesson plans and activities and provide a starting place for finding great stories on which to base a National History Day project.

To access more theme resources, go to nhd.org/themebook.