[Ranger Susan] How Long Must Women Wait:
The Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument and the Fight for Equality
My name is Susan Philpott and I am a park ranger at the Belmont-Paul Women's Equality
National Monument. Which if you can you can see any of my background you see
that uh my background is set to be the Hall of Portraits in the Belmont-Paul. Unfortunately,
the museum is not open for visitors at this time, so we're very happy to be coming to you virtually.
The mission of the National Park Service is to preserve and protect the natural
and cultural resources under its care for the enjoyment of present and future generations,
and to that end the national historic preservation act specifically section 110 mandates that parks,
mandates parks to develop baseline documentation that allows for the
proper management and preservation of resources including interpretation, the stories we tell.
Since its designation as a national monument in 2016 by President Barack Obama, the National
Mall and Memorial Parks has developed several of these baseline studies to assist us in managing
and preserving the Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument, including the historic resource
study which is the basis of this webinar. To disseminate the findings of this latest study,
we celebrate the history and accomplishments of the National Woman's Party on International
Women's Day by sharing the history of these uncompromising women, the organization, and
how they use the house and its spaces to further the cause of women's rights in the 20th century.
And now, I'd like to introduce Ruth Mills and Patti Babin
from Quinn Evans, the consultants who have partnered with at NPS
to prepare this historic resource study. [Ruth Mills] My name is Ruth Mills I'm
a historian at Quinn Evans. With me today is my colleague Patti Babin, who was the project manager
and the principal author of the historic resource study, but we will be sharing the presentation um
focusing on the parts that we we prepared. This is our agenda for today's presentation.
We will first be providing an introduction to the project and to the Belmont-Paul Women's Equality
National Monument. Then we'll follow with a history of the National Woman's Party and its use
uh as the of the Sewall-Belmont House. Including the formation of the party and the passage of the
19th amendment, how the party reinvented itself following the ratification of the amendment,
its activities in the 20th century, and the creation of Belmont-Paul. Can
you go to the next slide please? So, a historic resource study is a National
Park Service planning document that identifies and evaluates a park’s cultural resources
within historic contexts and serves as a reference document for other planning efforts. The goals for
the H.R.S. for Belmont-Paul were to provide a history of the National Woman's Party from
its founding to the present day and to document the history of the Sewall-Belmont House from its
purchase by the party to the present. Within those two main objectives, the National Park Service
also asked us to include information on the role of black and minority women in the struggle for
civil rights and the voting experiences of women following the passage of the 19th amendment,
both concentrating on people and experiences in the Washington D.C. area. Next slide please.
So for those of you who may not be familiar with the monument, it is located in the Capitol
Hill neighborhood of Washington D.C. north and east of the U.S. Supreme Court Building
and the Capitol Complex. The National Park Service manages the site as part of the National Mall
and Memorial Parks within region 1 National Capital Area of the National Park Service.
Can you go to the next slide please?
The property consists of three combined parcels and is approximately 0.39 acres. It is bounded
by Constitution Avenue, 2nd street Northeast, and the Philip A. Hart Senate Office Building.
Next slide please.
Oh great thank you. Um, so the first chapter of the historic resource study provides a summary of
the founding of the National Woman's Party and its efforts to pass the 19th amendment
granting suffrage to women. And we broke this into several periods as you can see. Next slide please.
The National Woman's Party first arose within the National American Woman
Suffrage association or N.A.W.S.A. While this organization was founded in 1890,
many of its members including Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton
had been advocating for woman's suffrage since the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention,
the first major women's rights convention in the United States. Next slide please.
During the late 19th century, many American women were making significant changes in their
own lives that would lay the groundwork for the suffrage struggle. Women were in
increasing numbers attending college, entering the workforce, and initiating social reform.
Black women organized to advocate for civil rights, self-determination, and economic and
social equality. In Washington D.C., black women formed the National Association of Colored Women
with Mary Church Terrell as president. Among its causes was advocating for black women's suffrage.
While Terrell and a few other black women were members of N.A.W.S.A., black women were often
excluded from or marginalized within the white dominated suffrage movement.
Women at this time were also challenging gender roles, and norms and the suffrage movement
provided space for gender non-conforming women to develop supportive connections. Next slide please.
When N.A.W.S.A. was founded in the late 19th century there was a debate within its
ranks over how to achieve suffrage. Should the organization advocate for a federal amendment
or pursue a state-by-state strategy? Around 1912, two American women who had met while
working in the English suffrage movement, emerged to lead the charge for a federal
amendment their names were Alice Paul and Lucy Burns. Next slide please.
Burns and Paul initially attempted to work within the framework of N.A.W.S.A.
and formed a Congressional Union to concentrate on a federal suffrage
amendment. They begin working out of this basement storefront at 1420
F Street Northwest, N.A.W.S.A.'s Washington D.C. branch office. Next slide please.
Burns and Paul's committee concentrated on a strategy of putting pressure on the party in
power to endorse women's suffrage. In this case, it was the democrats headed by the newly elected
President Woodrow Wilson. The women organized a suffrage march in Washington D.C. held on the day
before Wilson's inauguration, March 3rd 1913. It was the first large organized political march in
Washington D.C. and brought national attention to the suffrage cause. Next slide please.
While the 1913 parade was a tremendous publicity success, Burns and Paul's organization came into
increasing conflict with N.A.W.S.A. leadership over its strategy. In 1914, the Congressional
Union split from N.A.W.S.A. Supported by fellow suffragist and benefactor Alva Belmont,
it reorganized in 1916 as the National Woman's Party headquartered in this house on 21 Madison
Place Northwest. Known as Cameron House, one of its advantages was its proximity to the
White House, which symbolized the organization organization's commitment to pressuring the
president to support suffrage. Next slide please. It was from Cameron House that a group of 12 women
of the party emerged on January 10th 1917 to begin the first silent protests at the White House. Like
the suffrage parade of 1913, the continuous picketing of the White House even as the
United States entered World War I brought national attention to the party's cause. Next slide please.
As crowds gathered and spectators taunted and attacked the picketers,
a number of the women were arrested by D.C. police and lodged in the District Jail
then sentenced to a term in prison. Next slide please.
Paul, Burns, and their fellow prisoners engaged in hunger strikes and were brutally force-fed
bringing even greater attention to the suffrage fight.
In early 1918, the party moved its headquarters from Cameron house to a house at 14 Jackson Place,
still on Lafayette Square where it would remain until 1922. Next slide please.
By early 1918, the National Woman's Party had secured the endorsement of President Wilson,
but it continued its demonstrations, including a nationwide train tour featuring women
who had been jailed for the cause in order to increase pressure on the U.S. house and senate.
In May and June of 1919, the house and senate passed the 19th amendment
sending it to the states for ratification. Next slide please.
By March 1920, 35 states had ratified the amendment one short of the 36 needed.
On August 18th 1920, a 24 year old state representative at the urging of his mother
broke the tie in the Tennessee legislature making it the final state to ratify the 19th amendment.
Women's right to vote was now enshrined in law. Next slide please.
The first opportunity for women to exercise their new right came later that year in the election of
November 1920. They faced a number of obstacles including the slowness of local governments to
accommodate the large number of new voters. Women who resided in the District of Columbia
were unable to vote even after ratification, because D.C. residents could not vote in
presidential elections until 1961. Many women established legal residency in other states to
qualify to vote including Alice Paul, who was able to cast her vote in 1920 because she was
legally a resident of New Jersey. Black women, particularly southern black women, faced the
same obstacles to voting as black men including poll taxes, literacy tests, and other tactics,
tactics used to disenfranchise black people. Nevertheless, some black women in Maryland and
Virginia registered to vote and exercise that right in 1920. Next slide please.
The second chapter of the historic resource study covers the 10 years between the passage
of the 19th amendment and the National Woman's Party purchase of the Sewall-Belmont House.
Next slide please.
Following the ratification of the 19th amendment, the National Woman's Party needed to decide its
future. The party decided to hold a convention in 1921 to consider its next steps. Several party
members strongly encouraged that black women be included on the agenda, specifically Mary B.
Talbert the secretary of the National Association of Colored Woman's Clubs. Other party leaders
including Alice Paul fear that including a black woman would alienate white southern women. Paul
instead arranged for Mary Church Terrell and another woman to participate in the unveiling
of a sculpture of three suffrage pioneers in the Capitol Building. Next slide please.
After intense debate during the 1921 convention,
the party decided to focus on passing an equal rights amendment.
In the wake of this decision, some women who had advocated for other proposals left the
party to pursue their own agendas. As a result, the party would never regain the membership
numbers it had enjoyed during the height of the suffrage movement. Next slide please.
While the Equal Rights Amendment would be the party's signature issue for the next 50 years,
it also worked at the federal and state levels to support women as candidates for office, eliminate
discrimination in employment, and advocate for women's rights within marriage. Next slide please.
The party also expanded its suffrage and equality work outside the continental U.S..
It worked to extend suffrage to women in the American territory of Puerto Rico
and helped found the Inter-American Commission of Women to advocate for
women's civil and political equality across the globe. Next slide please.
Throughout the 1920s, the National Woman's Party struggled to reconcile the intersection of race
and gender. While Alice Paul privately supported black women's rights, she feared that appointing
black women to leadership positions would lose the support of some white women. In a particularly
public incident, Paul failed to invite any black women to speak at a memorial for Inez Milholland.
Milholland was a National Woman's Party leader who died in 1916 during a suffrage tour.
She had also been a civil rights activist, and her father publicly and pointedly criticized
the exclusion of black women during his speech at the memorial ceremony. Next slide please.
Although the party had reorganized in 1921 around the goal of passing
an equal rights amendment, it struggled to advance that goal during the 1920s.
The E.R.A. was first introduced in congress in 1923 but faced opposition from women's
trade and advocacy groups who feared the loss of special treatment they saw as protecting women.
With many male legislators hostile to the amendment, it failed to advance
out of congressional subcommittees during the decade. Next slide please.
With the passage of the 19th amendment, the party's symbolic presence near the White House was
no longer necessary. Instead, it chose to move its headquarters closer to the U.S. Capital, befitting
its new focus on legislative initiatives. In 1921, Alva Belmont purchased the “old brick Capital”
at 21 to 25 First Street Northeast, and the party moved into the building in 1922. And now I'm going
to pass the presentation over to Patti. [Patti Babin] Thanks Ruth!
The next chapter of the historic resource study from 1929 to 2016 focuses on the period of time
that the National Woman's Party had its headquarters at the Sewall-Belmont house.
So, this section focuses on focuses on its new headquarters and how it used the headquarters,
and the lobbying efforts and international focus that the women's party had at this time,
its membership. And then, kind of transitions into the 1960s and 70s in this new feminist
organizations that really took hold of the E.R.A. Threats to the Belmont House which
changed the nature of the organization and then finally the Sewall-Belmont House and Museum.
So in 1926, the federal government chose a site that included the National Woman's
Party headquarters at the “old brick Capital” as the site of the new U.S. Supreme Court Building,
and so the National Woman's Party sought a new headquarters on Capitol Hill
where it could keep and continue its close proximity to congress for its lobbying efforts.
And as Ruth mentioned earlier, its early focus was around the White House and that's where its
headquarters were located since it was using the president as its focus and for its picketing.
And after the passage of the 19th amendment and its focus on the Equal Rights Amendment,
it shifted this focus to congress and moved to Capitol Hill. So in 1929 with the help
of president and benefactor Alva Belmont, the National Woman's Party purchased a house at 144
B Street Northeast, which is now Constitution Avenue from Senator Porter Dale and his wife,
and they converted it into the party's new national headquarters. So, this house was built
in 1800 by Robert Sewall, and is one of the oldest residential properties in Washington.
On August 24th 1814, the British army had burned the house during the invasion of Washington, and
Sewall and his descendants oversaw the rebuilding of the house as well as many renovations and
changes over the following decades. The houses sat vacant after 1912 and fell into disrepair.
And in 1922, senator and Mrs. Porter Dale purchased the house and rehabilitated it.
So at the same time that the National Woman’s Party bought the house, it actually first
purchased two row houses around the corner on Second Street.
And so after acquiring these properties, the National Woman's Party renovated the
buildings to include office, meeting, dining, and bedroom spaces needed to serve the organization.
The National Woman's Party formally dedicated the Alva Belmont House as the citadel of women's
independence on January 4th 1931 with music and banners and recollections of the past and promises
for the future. And you've seen this photo a couple times, but this is from the dedication in
1931 with women wearing white robes and carrying the banners of the National Woman's Party.
So the headquarters of the Belmont House quickly became the nucleus for all the party's national
activities in Washington, including the locations for meetings of its national council. It also
became a place where the party could recruit new members and women could gather. The National
Woman's Party urged members and their friends to make the Belmont House their home while spending
time in Washington. And in the 1930s, you could rent a room for two dollars a day and they offered
special rates for prolonged stays. By the late 1930s, the former carriage house on the property
served as the “Coach House Tea Room,” which was open to the public for meals and afternoon tea.
In particular, the garden became an important gathering place for members, guests, as well
as special events. Gardens had always played an important role in activities of the party.
The Cameron house had a large garden that the organization used for outdoor meetings and teas
and when it party moved its headquarters to the “old brick Capital” it had a garden that
it embellished and used for its for events. So the spacious garden at the Alva Belmont House,
allowed the party to continue this tradition. Meetings often took place on the brick patio
and the National Woman's Party used the garden for social functions including teas and theatrical
performances. When the party dedicated its headquarters in 1931, it really saw the house
as a museum of in a laboratory of feminism. And after the death of Alva Belmont in 1933,
the Woman's Party furthered these goals by converting the carriage house behind
the Belmont House into a library to hold Alva Belmont’s private collection; as well as, books
and papers donated from members and others across the country. The National Woman's Party completed
the library by October 1941 and it quickly became a popular research institution and source of pride
for the party. It's also known as the the first feminist library of the United States.
On December 12th 1943, it rededicated the library as the Florence Bayard Hills Library
in honor of Hills, one of the country's leading feminists.
So, the effort to pass an equal rights amendment reached several important milestones in the period
between 1929 and the end of World War II. Although the amendment was reintroduced in both houses of
congress in every session during this time, the party struggled to move past the E.R.A.
past the subcommittees of the house and the senate judiciary committees, where it was assigned. The
National Woman's Party pursued several strategies to build support for the amendment including
lobbying individual members of congress, securing the endorsement of local, state, and national
women's organizations, and educating the public. Which, they did all from the Belmont House.
The National Woman's Party lobbied for labor reform especially during the great depression,
which had a particularly devastating impact on working women. On May 1938, the party achieved
a major legislative victory with the passage of the Fair Labor Standard Act that established
for the first time federal wage and hour guidelines for all workers regardless of sex.
In the late 1920s and 30s, Alice Paul and the woman's party continued to recognize
that the second class legal status of women was an international issue,
and they devoted a great amount of time and energy to fighting for women's rights worldwide.
With the expansion of the woman's party's interests outside the United States,
the Belmont House served as a venue to welcome international women and for related events.
So, women of color from abroad often visited the Belmont House as the National Woman's Party
expanded its efforts internationally, and these women were often proudly
featured in photographs on the cover of “Equal Rights,” the party's newsletter.
So while many of these visitors were women of color, there's little evidence of efforts for the
woman's party to include and fight for the rights of American women of color during this time
continuing its failure to include black women in its quest for equal rights.
In 1937, Alice Paul proposed a new independent international women's organization that would
be similar to the National Woman's Party but with the sole purpose of fighting for women's
equality around the world. In November 1938, the National Woman's Party officially incorporated
the World Woman's Party at the Belmont House and the National Woman's Party became the American
branch of the organization. Between 1938 and 1942, Alice Paul led the organization as its chairman
and similar to the National Woman's Party state chapters the World Woman's Party established
national chapters in numerous countries throughout Europe as well as in Australia,
Chile, China, Colombia, Egypt, and India. After the onset of World War II, the World Woman's
party sidelined its political work and assisted European feminists and their families who had
fled from the Nazis. In 1945, the World Woman's Party moved its headquarters to New York City
and resumed its equality campaign by successfully lobbying for the inclusion of equality provisions
within the United Nations charter. The World Woman's Party ceased operations in 1954.
So while the National Woman's Party thrived in its new headquarters, overall membership in the
organization declined in the 1930s. So at the peak during the suffrage movement, it had approximately
35,000 to 60,000 members, and after the 19th amendment as Ruth mentioned women's organizations
generally dropped. The numbers dropped um and many members of the National Woman's Party such as Lucy
Burns thought it was time for the next generation to take over and they withdrew from the movement.
So by 1930, the National Woman's Party had about 12,000 members and 35 state chapters,
but just four years later in 1934 membership had dropped below 5,000
and many of the state chapters had collapsed. Alice Paul had spent a considerable amount of
time in the 1930s abroad and those left in charge in her absence were not sufficiently
in control to effectively handle issues. So, the party suffered from instances of inner turmoil
primarily regarding the leadership of the organization, the lack of new members,
and the failure to change its strategy for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.
So after World War II and through the 1960s, the National Woman's Party only had about
600 - 800 members, and the membership before and after World War II was very homogeneous
particularly composed of well-educated white women from upper and middle classes, many of whom held
professional jobs. So after World War II, most of the members were in their 50s, 60s, and 70s.
The most active had joined the movement in the last years of the suffrage struggle.
It was not uncommon for members to be unmarried or widowed,
and almost all the leaders were protestant with very few Catholic or Jewish members.
Many of the women lived women-centric lives. They formed strong bonds in relationship with
other women, and they lived in environments predominantly of women. Several members lived
in long-term committed relationships with other women and letters between members illustrate
that other women accepted these relationships as primary commitments. So while the National
Woman's Party’s primary goal was amendment for the for the equal rights of women, it
really failed to be representative of all women. Lack of diversity may have hindered the party's
effectiveness in the passage of the E.R.A.. Class and racial uniformity among members made the
National Woman's Party unable to understand and adequately respond to those who oppose the E.R.A..
The only known black member of the National Woman's Party was Mary Church Terrell
who had died in 1954. And racism within the women's movement as well as within society
in general really kept the National Woman's Party and the movement predominantly white.
In the 1950s, women's organizations struggled with the question of integration within local branches.
Yet the issue rarely arose for the National Woman's Party,
and the party failed a connected struggle with the growing civil rights movement.
So by this time by the 60s and 70s, the National Woman's Party was really
less influential in formulating policy in directing the lobby and campaign for equal rights.
New national feminist groups such as Women's Equality Action League,
the National Organization for Women, and the National Women's Political Caucus really attracted
new and young members, and they advocated for a variety of political objectives beyond
equal rights including family planning and birth control, abortion, equal employment opportunities,
and the demand for alternative roles for women. So the woman's party not only struggled
to attract new members, but it also locked the funds for extensive lobbying campaign.
In the 1960s, the National Woman's Party membership really dwindled to only a few hundred.
American women recognizing the need for change change were greatly influenced by the
civil rights movement inspired by the model of black Americans, who joined together to protest
long-standing discrimination and racism. Named by historians as a
second wave of feminism, the revitalized feminist movement of the 1960s and 70s
attracted women in different generations with various political backgrounds and protest methods.
The renewed interest in the E.R.A. brought by these new women's organizations really revitalized
the equal rights movement, and by the 1970 the amendment had gained tremendous mainstream
support. In October 1971, the house approved the E.R.A. and in March 1972 the senate followed.
Then the E.R.A. went to the states for ratification. 20 states ratified the E.R.A. by the
year ended and by the spring of 1973 the E.R.A. had won 30 of the needed 38 state ratifications.
The previous fall Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative lawyer and author, launched her campaign S.T.O.P.
E.R.A,. an acronym that stood for stop taking our privileges. In January 1973,
the supreme court handed down its Roe vs Wade decision, and the E.R.A. soon became entangled
in the fight over abortion rights. Progress on the ratification of the E.R.A. stalled.
After the senate passed the E.R.A. in 1972, Alice Paul retired from the National Woman's
Party in left Washington, and she was never able to return to National Woman's Party headquarters.
She continued to organize supporters of the E.R.A. until March 1974 when she suffered a mild stroke.
Alice Paul died on July 9th 1977 at the age of 92. And on August 26th 1977
after Paul's death, approximately 5,000 people marched along Pennsylvania Avenue in memory of
Alice Paul and to mark the 57th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment.
The following year on July 9th 1978, over 100,000 people wearing the purple, white,
and gold colors of the National Woman's Party and the suffrage movement marched
in Washington D.C. to call for an extension to the deadline for the ratification of the E.R.A..
In October 1978, congress extended the original March 22nd 1979 deadline to June 30th 1982,
and by the deadline no additional states had ratified the E.R.A..
Two weeks later, the amendment was reintroduced in congress.
A November 1983 floor vote in the house failed by only six votes and the E.R.A. was never ratified.
So by this time, the Belmont House is really the National Women's Party's
largest and most valuable asset. But it was really difficult to maintain,
and by the 1960s as you can tell from this photo the house had really fallen into disrepair,
and the party was unable to afford the major structural repairs it needed.
Beginning in the 1930s, the federal government tried several times to take over the property
and those around it for federal office building expansion. The National Woman’s Party had always
succeeded by pressuring congress to save its headquarters. Recognizing after a win in 1958
that a new threat from senate expansion was imminent, Alice Paul and the National Woman's
Party began to lobby to have the Belmont House recognized as a National Historic Landmark.
In 1968, the senate introduced a bill for the extension of the senate office building that
would require the acquisition of the National Woman's Party property. Although the bill spared
the Belmont House itself, it included those two National Woman's Party row houses on 2nd street
which were later demolished, and in 1972 congress finally approved funding for the
extension of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, which was the Hart senate office building.
After the National Woman's party elected Elizabeth Chittick as its chairman in 1971,
Chittick intensified the effort to have the house designated as a National Historic Landmark.
In 1972, the Sewall-Belmont house was listed in the National Register of Historic Places
recognizing Robert Sewall who had built the house. In May 1974,
the Secretary of the Interior designated the Belmont House and National Historic Landmark,
and in 1974 President Gerald Ford officially designated the Sewall-Belmont House a National
Historic Site and authorized a cooperative agreement between the National Woman's Party
and the Secretary of Interior for the preservation and interpretation of the house.
As a result, the house became an affiliated area of the national park system
with the National Park Service providing financial and technical assistance.
Unfortunately, the 1974 designation of the house as a National Historic Landmark set in
motion events that changed the nature of the organization. After the cooperative agreement
with the National Park Service was signed, the woman's party established the Woman's
Party Corporation, an entity that held the house and received funds from the
Department of Interior to oversee the completion of the restoration.
The relationship between the National Woman's Party and the Woman's Party Corporation began to
unravel in 1992 when the Internal Revenue Service proposed to revoke the tax-exempt status of the
Woman's Party Corporation due to the intermingling of funds between the two organizations.
As the issues the issues escalate into a lawsuit, and in 1996 the National Woman's Party and the
Woman's Party Corporation reached an out-of-court settlement that resulted in the termination of the
Women's Party Corporation and the transfer of the Sewall-Belmont house back to the National Woman's
Party. Thus the National Woman's Party ceased its decades-long lobbying activities and became
a non-profit non-political education educational organization eligible for 501(c)(3) status.
So, this really this new status really substantially changed what had been the focus
of the organization since 1916 when Alice Paul and Lucy Burns established the National Woman's Party,
and the new focus became the preservation of the house as a museum. However,
funding and membership numbers dwindled making it difficult to fund and physically upkeep the house.
So although they were no no longer really allowed to lobby, the National Woman's
Party continued to educate the public on the importance of the E.R.A. and they focused
its efforts on using its headquarters as a museum for special events and programming.
In 2003, the National Woman's Party reintroduced the Alice Award and until
2018 the National Woman's Party presented the annual award to distinguished women,
who made outstanding contributions in breaking barriers and setting new precedents.
The event brought new attention, relevancy, and donors to the Belmont House and the National
Woman's Party became the party’s and the event became the party's largest fundraising event.
So, the National Woman's Party like many non-profit organizations really suffered
from a decline in donations following the 2008 global financial crisis.
And without an endowment fund, it solely depended on annual fundraising efforts.
The board recognized the future of the Belmont House and its vast collection rested on the
shoulders of an engaged committed board and that the future of both had become tenuous.
By 2013, the National Park Service was no longer authorized to provide additional
funding and assistance to the National Woman's Party, and the party's fundraising efforts
alone were not enough to cover the cost of maintaining the house in its collection.
After a meeting between the National Woman's Party and the Secretary of Interior,
the National Park Service initiated a feasibility study in 2013 to consider the
potential of incorporating the Belmont House as a full unit of the National Park System,
but it was soon apparent that passing this legislation
would take years. Time that the National Woman's Party did not have.
And in 2015, Senators Barbara Mikulski and Shelly Moore Capito introduced the
Sewalll-Belmont House Act to establish the Sewall-Belmont House National Historic Site
as a unit of the National Park System. Mikulski also wrote to president Barack Obama asking
that he use his presidential power to proclaim the Sewall-Belmont house a national monument.
I want to turn it back over to Ruth. [Ruth Mills] Alright, thank you Patti. Um on April
12th 2016, President Barack Obama designated the Sewall-Belmont House as the Belmont-Paul Women's
Equality National Monument. The party donated the house property to the National Park Service
and the rehabilitation project that was funded in part by a substantial donation
took place in several phases and work is ongoing. Can you go to the next slide please?
The National Woman's Party and the National Park Service continued to partner to develop
educational and outreach programs and to tell the story of the ongoing struggle for women's social,
political, and economic equality. The party also recommitted itself to fighting for the full
equality of women including renewing its efforts to promote and pass the E.R.A. Next slide please.
At a Women’s Equality Day event in August 2018,
guest Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted that every constitution written since 1950
had a provision that men and women were of equal citizenship stature
and that she would like to see such a provision in the U.S constitution. Next slide please.
Almost 100 years after Alice Paul and the National Woman's Party introduced
the equal rights amendment and nearly 50 years after it passed the U.S. congress,
the fight for its ratification continues. Since 2017 several more states ratified the amendment
and the U.S. house is expected to vote soon on a resolution affirming that the amendment
is viable despite the previous ratification deadline. Um and as you can see, we just pulled
a quick google news search showing how this really remains an issue nationwide.
In 2019 the National Woman's Party voted to transfer the remainder of the party's collection
to the National Park Service and the Library of Congress. At the end of 2020,
the National Woman's Party secured its future by dissolving as an independent nonprofit and
joining with the non-profit Alice Paul institute to strengthen their common education efforts.
The year 2020 marked the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment
bringing renewed attention to the campaign for women's suffrage. Both the Alice Paul Institute
and the Belmont Paul Women's Equality National Monument continue to tell the
important story of Alice Paul and the National Woman's Party role in the fight for equality.
Thank you. Um and we have provided here in a slide and of course this will be available elsewhere
um some some links to resources so the historic resource study itself is available on the National
Park Service’s I.R.M.A. website. The National Woman's Party collection at the Library of
Congress is available um through the net through the Library of Congress, and there's a link here
to that and then the National Park Service’s Federal Preservation Institute section 110 of
the Historic Preservation Act is also linked here for further information and of course you can go
to this the Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument website for further information as well.
And that concludes the presentation, we will now turn it back over to the National Park Service to
moderate the questions.
[Ranger Susan] Well thank you so much Patti and Ruth that was fantastic. Um
while we wait to see if anybody wants to raise their hand or put a question in the chat,
questions about all that great information. I have a quick question for you to get started.
I was just wondering in your research if you're able to determine what the process was that the
National Woman's Party went from a political organization who had things from their their
long work in the fight for women's equality to actually maintaining those items as um as a um
as a collection as a museum collection. Things that were being cataloged and and and preserved.
[Patti Babin] Yeah that’s a really great question Susan. And fortunately,
we I should note that we were lucky to start our research in November.
It was 2019 so before COVID-19, so we were able to really dig into a lot of the research there
that was more recent papers. Um but at the time, the woman's party was getting ready to transfer
the remaining of its collection over to the to the Library of Congress, and then unfortunately
when COVID hit and all the the Library of Congress closed, we didn't get to visit some of the older
collections. But, we had we had a great amount of research from other sources to use and so we
we really were able to look at a lot of different research, but my understanding is that over time
the woman's party had actually given some of its collection to the Library of Congress before.
I believe starting in maybe even as early as the 30s or 40s, and then in the 70s it transferred
a large part of that collection over. And so then, it did continue to operate its library
um for until what last year? So it didn't still manage those collections and allow researchers
to come in and really look through its um its work, but I I see that the biggest change is
you know it really had this after the 70s. It really had the struggle of okay we still need to
lobby for the E.R.A., but we also have this asset the museum to maintain because that cooperative
agreement meant that they had to open the house as a museum for several days a week and so that
really kind of became difficult to do both. And then after that change to a non-profit, that
really became its focus more like a house museum focusing on collections management and fundraising
um and events to educate the public. So, I'm not sure that I answered your question exactly, but it
it was like a definitely it had slowly trickled. They weren't doing as much lobbying anyway,
and then when the new cooperative agreement came about I got the impression that that
focus really just shifted naturally to using the house as a way to tell the story
of the woman's party and equal rights. [Ranger Susan] Fantastic. Yeah that did
answer my question. Thank you. Um, So I see that we have some hands raised and I think that
um we need to be able to unmute people so that they can ask their questions.
[Cary] uh this is Cary actually, I could remove the block and then they have to unmute themselves.
So, but Dave go ahead you're the first one. [Ranger Dave] Uh, thanks uh uh Patti and Ruth,
I'm Dave Byers. I'm the acting site manager there at Belmont Paul and uh
thank you for a great presentation on a an amazing place with an amazing story. Uh one
of the things that struck me in your presentation is this moment in the 1930s where Alice Paul and
others are trying to incorporate women of color internationally uh, but not here domestically
in the United States. And I um I think this is the time too that that Alice Paul is instrumental in
creating the World Woman's Party in uh in Geneva. And so I wondered if in your research you found
are they talking about that inconsistency? Is there a debate about um incorporating
women of color internationally? Um you know? But but not uh in the United States and uh
in the United States uh they're they're not uh you know, they're not focused on their
on on African American women but what about Latinas and Asians you know Asian
women and others whom they might be incorporating internationally but not here in the United States.
[Patti Babin] That is a great question Dave and just one of those things where
as you can see from our presentation our study really encompassed a large period of time.
And so, I really noticed this focus on women of color internationally as I was looking through
“Equal Rights” um the newsletter, and when you really saw a lot of these women on the front cover
and really focused on visits um to the Belmont House. But I really didn't see anything that
caught my eye really talking about similar women or issues in the United States um, and
so I think that's really something that we really noticed as as looking through this research. Um,
but it is one of our identified so part of the study was to really identify future studies that
really could maybe focus on a small portion of what we learned, and I think this was one of
the topics that I think would be a great next focus study to really understand more of this
you know struggle between wanting women internationally to have
voting rights and equal rights but then maybe not noticing as much as some of the similar struggles
at home. I think that would be a wonderful topic for someone to take on a little bit
and explore that further. I don't know Ruth if you have anything to add there but…
[Ruth Mills] Yeah yeah, you know so I was mostly focused on the the pre-1930s. But you know,
I think that there was um certainly there were there were you know the black black
women were and women of color were speaking up and saying you know you have the suffrage,
but it's it's not being extended to us or we still are facing these obstacles.
Um i know that there was some discussion, it wasn't specifically in D.C. area, but there was
some discussion of um Native American women who you know again had their own struggles because
of the intersection of tribal sovereignty and and tribal voting rights. Um so, so,
there was this you know intersectionality of race and gender and and um you know black women having
to struggle with both of them at the same time. [Ranger Dave] Right. Right. Yeah, I think that
uh that image of the the women's uh the Indian Indian women's association
uh image uh in front of the uh the house is just really you know is striking I wonder about
uh international engagement with African women in Africa right and particularly the contrast
then with African American women uh you know here in the United States um but like you said
great a great dissertation topic for uh for future work. All right, thank you.
[Patti Babin] Right, Thanks Dave. [Ruth Mills] A lot of a lot of
research still left to do here. [Ranger Susan] I did have one other
thing that I’ve been curious about and that is if you came across any information uh about the
relationship between the National Woman's Party and the National Organization for Women after they
were founded in 1966. I do know that many N.W.P. members joined N.O.W.
so they could try to convince N.O.W. to support the Equal Rights Amendment um, but then it seems
like there weren't very warm relationships between the two organizations. I'm just wondering if you
came across anything in your research about that. [Patti Babin] Yes, I do remember Susan and I
might have to look back at my notes um or at the resource study, but I believe that they originally
Alice Paul and maybe some members like you mentioned were members of N.O.W.. Um,
but I do believe as you mentioned um there was some change in feeling.
Oh here's what it’s saying. So, so, Alice Paul did join N.O.W. to help persuade the group to
endorse the E.R.A., and then the relationship eventually soured when N.O.W. failed to give
the National Woman's Party due credit for keeping the E.R.A. alive is what I had
encountered. And so, I do think they worked together initially and then
there was kind of a shift after a while, um and I also came across some interesting
reports that one of the reasons why, I mean part of the reasons why they created the Woman's Party
Corporation was really to hold the house as in a separate entity as the National Woman's
Party and separate so they were able to pass the deed to the Woman's Party Corporation.
Um, but there was also some mention in newspapers and other reports that part of that reason was
they were afraid that an organization like N.O.W. was going to come in and take over the Belmont
House as an asset. Um, some folks even said they were going to turn it into like a shelter for
women or something else, so there was this rumors being put out there that they were a little bit
weary of that organization kind of taking over.
[Cary] It seems like Jenny has typed her um her question in the chat box and it says um I was struck by
how recent the partnership partnership between the N.P.S. and the N.W.P. ended, just a few years ago.
Since the two organizations partner on education and outreach, I am wondering how much influence
the N.W.P. still has on interpretation at the site. The stretch I somehow made is that it is
that the voice of Alice Paul herself could somehow be heard in the halls there today. Hoping you
could comment on that thought. Thank you Jenny.
[Patti Babin] Cary or Dave, do you want to answer that um with the current status of the woman's
party at the house? [Ranger Dave]
Um I uh I I can take a a bit of that, so the National Woman's Party as an organization
uh wound down with the end of December, so uh they are no longer an organization. They have
made an arrangement with the Alice Paul Institute to be a kind of successor organization.
Um and we're we're you know working with the Alice Paul institute, to figure out uh you know some
some potential future opportunities there. Um so that that um you know that that relationship
ceased to exist in the same form when N.W.P. uh you finished up in in December. Uh although,
I think very much the spirit of N.W.P. and the spirit of Alice Paul continues on uh in the great
work that the you know the Belmont Paul staff does, particularly Susan who you saw featured
in one of the images there. Uh you know talking to some folks gathered around the house there.
Susan I don't know if you wanted to… [Ranger Susan] Sure! Yeah.
[Ranger Dave] Voice of Alice Paul, uh [laughter]
[Ranger Susan] So, oh so and first of all I do want to say that that um we were very much
um that the interpreters at the Belmont Paul from the National Park Service were very much partnered
with the National Woman's Party in telling the story. The exhibits that are in the museum are
the ones that the National Woman's Party created, and they really introduced us to the site. And so
to the extent that Alice Paul's voice uh continued with the National Woman's Party and the other
women, of um that was passed on to to those of us who came in from the park service as interpreters.
I have never actually heard the voice of Alice Paul in the hallways themselves; although,
I guess you can feel the the spirit of those women there. Although, I one of the great things about
working there is meeting people who worked with the National Woman's Party, who remember meeting
Alice Paul there who were involved in the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment there.
And I did meet someone who told the story of having stayed overnight there, because you used
to stay overnight there and she had a dream uh uh meeting Alice Paul in the hallway and that
Alice Paul handed her a piece of paper that said Equal Rights Amendment on it. And that the next
morning when she woke up, she thought she was going to be able to pick up that piece of paper
and show it to someone. That's how real the dream was to her so that was a great story.
[Ranger Dave] And her bust is there in the hall, right the the bust portrait of uh of Alice Paul,
so she's present in that way too there. [Ranger Susan] Yes, we have her
we have her uh paintings and her photographs and that one picture where you saw uh Alice
Paul and other women gathered at a table talking on an old-time telephone.
That table is still in at the site so you can and we allow people to sit there so you can sit in the
in the space where Alice Paul was. Um when Ruth Bader, young A.C.L.U. lawyer
and was arguing her first case before the Supreme Court. She came to visit the National
Woman's Party headquarters there, because she wanted to sit in Alice Paul’s chair and
at her desk and get inspiration. Although she did mention that the house hadn't been renovated yet,
so although they they offered to have her stay overnight there she stayed in a hotel instead.
[laughter]
[Ranger Dave] And it looks like we have another uh uh question in the chat, Uh does the N.W.P. still exist as an
entity or has it been dissolved. Uh and I think my my understanding uh is that
it has dissolved as of the end of December. Uh with some things like the uh trademarks
and on other elements that are are continuing on with this great new opportunity for a uh uh
continuing legacy for the N.W.P. with the Alice Paul Institute in uh in New Jersey.
As I mentioned, we're you know looking to to work with them for some future opportunities uh
too that where that are that are kind of in the works there, so the the N.W.P.'s legacy
lives on although it as an organization and as a kind of corporate entity uh dissolved at the
end of December. Is there anybody else that has it? Has a that's not quite right? Let me know.
[Ranger Susan] Yeah, that that as I understand is correct as well. And then also, I just want
to point out that although the rest of paper collections of the National Woman's Party went
to the Library of Congress. So photographs and papers and the Nina Allender cartoons,
all of the three-dimensional objects were transferred to the National Woman's Party,
so the artwork and the textiles and other items like that in the furniture.
So, the National Woman's Party as an entity dissolved but the work that they did in
preserving those important items has been passed on and now those items belong to the American
people through the National Park Service. [Ranger Dave] Yes uh Patti and uh and Ruth,
in your in your research is is there uh. There's always something that really surprises you that
you don't expect to find that sort of you know it jumps up out of the page that you that you
hadn't sort of thought about or hadn't been uh considering before. Is there anything like like
that that you experienced? That was just that that you hadn't expected to find, but uh you know you
found whilst doing the research for uh the study? It's kind of a hard question. It's very general.
[laughter] [Patti Babin] No, It's a good one though.
[Ranger Dave] Yeah…
[Patti Babin] I think for me um. I did not know. I mean I knew…
that it was really interesting how the Hart Building really kind of hugs the property um and
knowing that that came you know was built in the 70s and and the house was obviously saved means
the way that they designed it around it. But I did not know that threats to the building came as
early as right after they purchased it in the 30s, and I and I found that really interesting just to
understand this more historic preservation role that the house and the Woman's Party played. Um,
I thought that was a really different subject that I hadn't really thought about before,
and I really enjoyed learning a little bit more about their push to get it listed and designated
as a National Historic Landmark. And reading about the interactions between that Alice Paul
at first and then Elizabeth Chittick with the National Park Service to kind of get
and recognize the importance and significance of the house. So, I thought that was something I
didn't know about and I really enjoyed learning. [Ruth Mills] Yeah, I think for me it was just
um you know the big thing was was learning about the history of the house. And
and we were um some of our other colleagues have been working on a cultural landscape report for
the property and learning you know about how they they use the the um the adjoining properties and
how they use the garden and how that was really integrated into… And and they're very interesting
tactics of inviting legislators to come and sit in the garden, and you know the soft power power
aspect of things that women had to had to uh use. [Patti Babin] You know I think that's a great
point Ruth, and maybe that's something also the park service can include. But the cultural
landscape report really goes into a lot of great detail about the garden and the way it looked
when the woman's party was there, and it's really a fascinating
history on how that progressed and evolved over time. And it's a great part that we didn't focus
as much on, because that study did. But think in hand in hand, it's really they're really great to
understand more about the property itself.
[Ranger Susan] I see we have one more question from Lucy Beard about what what are the plans for the building's
renovation in the coming years. Um Dave, do you want to want to handle that question?
[Cary] I can I can try and take that one Dave if you want me to. This is Cary.
[Ranger Dave] That'd be great. [Cary] Um and you know jump in if
you feel the need to, um so we have plans for a two-year um rehabilitation project.
Uh when that's going to start we're not entirely sure, but it's going to be the second phase of
a larger rehabilitation. And it'll include things like repairing the roof, uh updating HVAC systems.
Right now we're we're in the midst of a project to fix the stairs uh um in the front of the house.
Um, there's some other components that I can't remember off the top of my head, but the house
does need some some TLC.
[Ranger Dave] Uh and very exciting to have that uh that that work done, it does mean that the
you know the the house is uh is going would be closed for the time that that substantial work
is uh is going on. So, that'll create lots of opportunities to continue with the uh virtual
connections that we've been making in this past year because we've been closed for other reasons.
But certainly, a lot of work that needs doing, so great to have that underway and
soon to get started.
[Ranger Susan] Well great, it looks like we don't have any other questions, so I just want to thank everyone so
much for joining us. Ruth and Patti this has been wonderful. We love hearing that that transfer of
knowledge was a great experience for all of us and the Belmont-Paul and park service will be
posting a video of this of this program on our website, and we also will make available all
of those links. So you can go read the historic resources yourself, and um and find out more about
the the great history of this house. But anybody else like to say anything before we end?
[Ranger Dave] Uh I just uh like to thank Ruth and Patti for the the presentation. Like I said
it's an amazing place I think you captured a lot of the you know the story and there's a lot more
a lot more to it both in your report and as you highlighted lots of research uh opportunities. Uh
and it is a story I think that uh that that is great. That we can capture this way but also uh
looking forward to uh you know more research that people will do in the future. Hopefully,
this inspires people to do that.
[Ranger Susan] Thank you very much everybody. Um this has been great and enjoy the rest of your day.
[Patti Babin] Thank you. [Ruth Mills] Thank you everybody.