S02 E16 Maryland: Silent Sentinels and Effigy Ashes

In this episode, three guests talk about the suffrage movement in Maryland.

Some of the events and activists in the MD voting rights campaign:

• In 1648, Margaret Brent went before the Maryland Provincial Assembly and demanded a voice and a vote as a property owner in the Maryland colony.
• Augusta Chissell and Margaret Hawkins were African American women who held many suffrage meetings in their homes in Baltimore.
• Estelle Hall Young was a Black suffragist who created the Baltimore Women's Colored Women's Suffrage Club in 1915.
• Gladys Greiner was a competitive golfer whose militant suffrage activity–such as picketing the White House and going to prison–disappointed her prominent parents, who wrote an op-ed distancing themselves from her actions.
• Corrine Robert Redgrave was a professional actor who used the stage to put on suffrage plays and spread the suffrage message.
• Elizabeth Forbes was a suffrage leader willing to advocate for confrontational actions through the Just Government League.

About our Guests:

Kate Campbell Stevenson is the Maryland Women’s Heritage Center’s Board Chair. She is an activist for women’s and girls’ rights and has been honored by the Maryland State Education Association with the Dorothy Lloyd Women’s Rights Award. 

Dr. Ida B. Jones is the Associate Director of Special Collections and University Archivist at Morgan State University in Baltimore and co-president of the National Collaborative for Women’s History Sites. She received her PhD in American History from Howard University.

Dr. Amy Rosenkrans received her PhD from Notre Dame of Maryland University. She has been awarded the Joseph L. Arnold Prize for Outstanding Writing on Baltimore History by the Baltimore City Historical Society. She is the Secretary of the Maryland Women’s Heritage Center and served as one of the researchers for the Suffrage Bicentennial Project.  

Links to People, Places, Publications:

Maryland & the 19th Amendment (here)

Augusta Chissell Biographical Sketch (here)

Margaret Hawkins Biographical Sketch (here)

Visit the Augusta Chissell and Margaret Hawkins historical marker (here)

Estelle Hall Young Biographical Sketch (here)

Gladys Greiner Biographical Sketch (here) 

Elizabeth Forbes Biographical Sketch (here)

Visit the Elizabeth Forbes historical marker (here)

Corrine Robert Redgrave Biographical Sketch (here)

CM Marihugh is a public history consultant and currently conducting independent research for a book on commemoration of the U.S. women’s suffrage movement. She has an M.A. in Public History from State University of New York, and an M.B.A. from Dartmouth College.

Learn more about:

• National Votes for Women Trail (here)
• National Votes for Women Trail - William G. Pomeroy historical markers (here)
• National Collaborative for Women’s History Sites (here)

Do you have a question, comment, or suggestion? Get in touch! Send an e-mail to NVWTpodcast@ncwhs.org

Transcript

SPEAKERS

CM Marihugh, Ida Jones, Amy Rosenkrans, Earth Mama, Kate Campbell Stevenson

CM Marihugh  00:00

Welcome to Her March To Democracy, where we're telling stories along The National Votes For Women Trail. The trail chronicles the fight for voting rights for women. The suffragists, or suffs as they were called, were the revolutionaries of their day, and they battled the powers that be. These foot soldiers cut across the lines of geography, race, ethnicity, class and gender, and numbered in the many 1000s over 70 plus years.

Earth Mama  00:58

We are standing on the shoulders 

Of the ones who came before us

They are saints and they are humans

They are angels, they are friends

We can see beyond the struggles 

And the troubles and the challenge 

When we know that by our efforts

Things will be better in the end

CM Marihugh  01:09

Each episode is a tour on the trail to the places of struggle, the cities, the towns where wins and defeats happened over and over again, our theme music is standing on the shoulders by Joyce Johnson Rouse and recorded by Earth Mama. Join us on our travels to hear the stories along The National Votes for Women Trail. 

CM Marihugh  01:36

Today, we're going to Maryland to hear stories about the women's suffrage movement along The National Votes For Women Trail. Now, Maryland has 118 sites on the trail database, and it also has at least 26 historical markers at sites that are related to suffrage across the state. We're going to be talking with three different people who are familiar with these stories during this episode. And first, I'd like to welcome Kate Campbell Stevenson. She currently serves as Maryland Women's Heritage Center's board chair, and she has been recognized as a lifelong activist for women and girls issues. Welcome, Kate. Could we start with an overview of the suffrage movement in Maryland?

Kate Campbell Stevenson  02:28

Absolutely, there are many interesting stories about the Maryland suffrage movement. We claim Margaret Brent as the very first woman suffragist long before we were even a country in 1648, as a property owner near St Mary's city, which is located on the Chesapeake Bay, Brent demanded a voice and a vote in the Maryland Provincial Assembly. She stated that as a landowner, she should have the same voting rights as men. Of course, her petition was denied, but she is credited as the first woman in colonial America to request the right to vote. 

Kate Campbell Stevenson  03:10

While a small state, Maryland has very distinct geographical areas that affected how the suffrage message could be spread, it has a mountainous region in the west, the middle of the state is a flat Piedmont area, and the eastern shore is a coastal area and in the south, southeastern areas, they border Washington DC. Early Maryland had strong southern influence, which led to a conservative legislature, deep racial politics and rural resistance. Maryland was a slave state until 1864 and after that it remained racially segregated. It had voter suppression laws, poll taxes, literacy tests aimed at disenfranchising African American men. As in other southern states, white male politicians played on the fear that the number of black voters would double if women's suffrage passed. 

Kate Campbell Stevenson  04:12

Nevertheless, women's suffrage efforts continued with diverse groups such as Quakers, African Americans and Jewish communities, but the most intense period of organized suffrage occurred around the turn of the century and early 20th century. By 1904 many suffrage clubs had formed throughout the state. By 1906 the state had gained enough stature that NASA, the National American Woman Suffrage Association, chose Baltimore to host its annual convention. This was the last convention at which Susan B Anthony spoke before her death. 

Kate Campbell Stevenson  04:55

A few months later, local suffrage groups developed different strategies. Strategies and tactics. By 1910 there were three state suffrage organizations for white women competing for membership and control a statewide suffrage strategy. This unfortunately led to setbacks in the movement as group leaders worked according to their own respective agendas. The Maryland Woman Suffrage Association was the most conservative, and it included mostly women who did not work outside the home, and generally supported actions within societal norms.

 Kate Campbell Stevenson  05:35

A second group, The Just Government League, was the most militant, and had many professional women, they tended to spread their message in more public forums, like open air, mass meetings. The third group, The State Franchise League, had a strategy somewhere between the two aforementioned groups. During this time, African American women were establishing their own clubs. 

Kate Campbell Stevenson  06:00

In 1907 black women in Baltimore established a Woman's Club, naming it the Dubois Circle as an auxiliary to the WEB Dubois Niagara Movement later renamed National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Members of The Dubois Circle held informal suffrage meetings in their homes and actively recruited support for suffrage. Several members formed the progressive women's suffrage club to emphasize the importance of winning the vote for everyone. They called on African American social groups, churches and literary societies to support women's suffrage. 

Kate Campbell Stevenson  06:44

Maryland suffragists were very creative in getting publicity for their cause. Using hikes, walks, wagons and boats suffragists created events that showed the physical endurance of women in addition to their speaking and writing abilities. They held many multi day marches, parades, covered wagon treks, they even used a boat in a town Regatta, a great way to rev up excitement for women's suffrage.

CM Marihugh  07:15

I'm so glad you mentioned in 1648, Margaret Brent asking for the vote. Also this aspect of how Maryland had very public hikes, walks, that's fascinating, that they showed the physical endurance, and it gave them a chance to meet rural farmers and rural women who did not know that much about women's suffrage. So it was very effective in doing that. Next, I'd like to welcome Dr Ida Jones, who is university archivist at Morgan State University and a board member of the Maryland women's Heritage Center. Ida, could you tell us where we're going today to hear about women's suffrage in Maryland?

Ida Jones  08:02

Yes, so we're going to be traveling to Baltimore City and in Baltimore city proper, one of the markers is very remarkable in the sense that it is commemorating the lives and activism of two African American women, Augusta Chissell and Margaret Hawkins, who were neighbors. And so I helped with the research for that marker, and was there at the unveiling for that marker. And we'll talk exclusively about those two women and another woman, Estelle Hall Young. 

Ida Jones  08:29

In the suffrage movement. We know there was a long arc from the 1840s all the way into the 1920s during the course of that evolution of, let's say, three generations of suffragists most scholars say, African American women were always on the periphery. They were never fully integrated, because northern women trying to assuage the issues of race with Southern women, tended to kind of mute, or make the relationship between African American suffragists and white suffragists transactional and not transformative. 

Ida Jones  09:01

Here in Baltimore City, that same kind of discriminatory factor played into it. So there was an effort in both camps and the black and white dichotomy to push against the injustice of not having the franchise. African American women had always been galvanized. They had always been organized and fighting for what we now call intersectionality, so they didn't have to come to the fight, let's say late in the game. They had been abolitionists, they had been temperate women. They had been advocates for the black male franchise. So they already had had a long standing tradition of that behavior. 

Ida Jones  09:34

So when we look at the three women, Augusta Chissell, Margaret Gregory Hawkins and Estelle Hall Young we find that they're all going to be transplants to Baltimore. They're not indigenous to Baltimore. They're going to come to Baltimore as young women. They're going to marry, have children, and grow very deep roots of agency here in Baltimore City and Maryland, most of them living into their 90s. So they had very fulfilling lives and very involved community presence. 

Ida Jones  10:03

So if we want to start, we're going to just look at the neighborhood of Druid Hill, which is in the West Baltimore area that I mentioned. And there's a historical marker there for suffragists Margaret Gregory Hawkins and Augusta Chissell. Now Margaret Gregory Hawkins is very fascinating, because she had a brother, Thomas Montgomery Gregory, who was very involved at Howard University in starting the debate team and a variety of other things. He actually served as a chaperone for the women from Howard who actually attended a suffrage March in March of 1913 because the Dean Kelly Miller would not allow the students to go unchaperoned. 

Ida Jones  10:26

So Dean Gregory accompanied the women to the March of 1913 and had a daughter very late in life, who had the pleasure of meeting and Sheila Montgomery Thomas is her last name now, is a dear friend of mine. So what I learned about her aunt, and kind of going backwards through that finding her and having conversation with her was utterly amazing. She remarks that her aunt, Marge, as she calls her, was rather aged when she met her, probably in the 50s and the 60s, and doesn't really have a chance to engage her about her life, but just kind of knew that was her father's older sister, and she was just being very polite. So she didn't have much to share, beyond the fact that she, as a child, knew of the woman, but as an adult, could greatly appreciate the woman for what she had done. 

Ida Jones  11:26

But back to her aunt, Marjorie, or Margaret, Gregory Hawkins. So she was born in 1877 and she and her parents really valued education. Her father was actually a principal at a school in New Jersey, so the whole idea of education was extremely important. And as a result, she eventually becomes a teacher. And she joins the Frederick Douglass High School where she meets her future husband, Mason A Hawkins. He's the principal, she's the teacher. So they become this powerhouse in 1905 after they marry in the field of education. As we know with the Civil Rights Movement, which is also going to be parallel to the suffrage movement, is the idea that equity was always the point, and education was the greatest playing field with which to see this happen. So they really fought for pay equity for African American teachers, the kinds of supplies needed for students, all the kinds of accouterments that are needed to provide good public education. Her and her husband fought for that. 

Ida Jones  12:26

Then we have her neighbor, literally, it's a duplex home. And her neighbor, Augusta Giselle, who was born in Baltimore in the 1880s and eventually is going to do millinery work. And the idea of entrepreneurship is not lost on this generation, either. And so they become very involved in education and pay equity, and actually really do put themselves physically in the movement. They were all very fair, complected African American women. But one thing about Miss Giselle is that she would actually attend the white women's events and what we call passing because of her complexion being so fair, and her articulation and her socialization being in a rather upper middle class fashion, she was able to engage with white women as a peer, and she would bring those conversations back to the African American community to either bolster or align themselves with What the other women were doing. So there'd be no dissonance in the women's front regardless of the Bugaboo of race that always hindered things. 

Ida Jones  13:28

Interestingly enough, she also, after the passage of the 19th Amendment, took to writing a column in the Afro American. The Afro American is one of the oldest publishing newspapers in the Baltimore area. They had branches around the country, but they started in Baltimore the 1890s and she actually kind of talked to women with a Q and A to explain what the franchise was, what the need to be civically engaged was all about, and really challenged the women to understand that now as full citizens in 1920 that it was incumbent upon them to do the work that needed to be done to secure democracy for everyone. And that meant the least of these, those individuals like children or those who did not have the capacity, either physically, mentally or legally, to vote. And so that idea of crusading for justice was very huge for the two women. So it's very fitting that when we did the research on these two women, that we could find that they deserved a marker in Baltimore city proper. But we cannot forget the last of the three, or the triumvirate of the women, and that is going to be Estelle Hall Young. 

Ida Jones  14:36

Now, Estelle Hall Young was born in Georgia in the 1880s in 1884 she attended Spelman College and Atlanta University, and she also sought to become a teacher. So it's important to understand the pink collar professions, teaching, nursing, social work and librarianship were very key to that first generation of professionally class women, regardless of race. She taught in Atlanta and then evenually moves to Baltimore. She marries Dr Howard E Young, who was the first African American to own a pharmacy that was owned and operated within the community. And they also lived in that Druid Hill area. 

Ida Jones  15:12

So the Druid Hill area of West Baltimore was where the elite Thurogood Marshall and others lived in that segregated neighborhood of black elite. Interestingly enough, is Estelle Hall Young is also going to be very fair complected. She herself does not attend the meetings as much as Miss Giselle, but she definitely creates the Baltimore women's colored women's suffrage Club in 1915 so this was an effort to get the church women and all the other disparate elements of the African American community to come across class lines, complexion lines, possibly geographic lines, to show themselves strong in terms of the suffrage activity of African American women. 

Ida Jones  15:53

What is of note with this, in terms of these three women, is that even though they had different occupations and different origin stories to their activism in Baltimore, they all belong to a club called The Dubois Circle. Now we know W. E. B. Du Bois, or Dubois, was a notable figure in the early part of the 20th century. These women attended the Niagara meeting in 1904 in upstate New York by Niagara Falls. The Niagara movement is going to turn into what we now know as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or the NAACP. When the women and their husbands returned to Baltimore City in 1905 they're going to be so energized by the words of Dubois, they're going to form The Dubois Circle. And these salons and these gatherings were not unusual to a variety of women's clubs throughout the early part of the 20th century. What is unique to the DuBois circle is that it still exists to this very day under the same exact name and using the same rubric for membership and activity and agency that they did over 100 and nearly 20 years ago, so we still breathe, I'm actually a member of the DuBois circle. We in the DuBois circle breathe the idea of stimulating the mind, stimulating the action and stimulating the conversations that can hold us as good stewards of our democracy and our citizenship our elected officials, but also our responsibility as citizens to be able to challenge and make the world a fairer place for all people. So we're here in West Baltimore with three women of note and still a club that's involved to this very day.

CM Marihugh  17:32

I know that the DuBois Circle has an archive of material for many of the meetings of this era. Are those digitized or publicly available?

Ida Jones  17:41

The State Archives has approached a number of local clubs around the state and is offering their technology and their resources to do so. So I do believe within the next year or two, you should be able to find those materials, either on our website or at the Maryland State Archives website, where you'll be able to see some of the meeting minutes that were written in cursive- for those who can still read cursive, as well as the program books that announce the nature of the host and the hostess, and the themes that are annually given every year there's a theme.

CM Marihugh  18:08

Thank you very much for being here today, Ida and telling us about these incredible women.

Ida Jones  18:14

Well, thank you so much. And Baltimore has such a rich history here in terms of agency and activism, not just simply women in suffrage, but other areas of respectful political engagement.

CM Marihugh  18:26

I'm now going to talk to Dr Amy Rosenkrans. She received her PhD from Notre Dame of Maryland University where she wrote the dissertation entitled "The Good Work": Saint Frances Orphan Asylum and Saint Elizabeth's Home, Two Baltimore Orphanages for African Americans. And she's also been awarded the Joseph L Arnold prize for Outstanding Writing on Baltimore history. We're going to talk about three suffragists. Thanks for being with us, Amy. 

Amy Rosenkrans  19:00

Oh, thanks for having me. 

CM Marihugh  19:01

So tell us. Where are we going to start? 

Amy Rosenkrans  19:05

We're going to start in Havre de Grace, Maryland with the suffragist Elizabeth Forbes. Elizabeth Forbes was originally born in Chicago, and she moved to Maryland after marrying her husband, Theodore Forbes and the family split their time between Baltimore City and their Harford County home, Rochelle. Elizabeth became very active in local suffrage work in 1912 when she co founded the Harford County Chapter of The Just Government League, which was a very large and active Maryland suffrage organization, and she was elected as the chapter's very first vice president. 

Amy Rosenkrans  19:45

Elizabeth was a very interesting lady because she personally drove her own car all over Harford County, as well as all over Baltimore and Maryland to various suffrage activities. She was interested in monitoring voting polls, she handed out suffrage literature at places like flower shows and especially at race tracks and steeplechase events. Havre de Grace, Maryland, also in Harford County, had just opened a new race track in 1912 and it was called The Graw, and it became a very popular destination for people all across the East Coast, because New York had outlawed gambling and horse racing. So people were coming to Havre de Grace, it became quite the event. And in 1912 with those opening events, Elizabeth and some of the other Harford County suffragists traveled to Havre de Grace, where they passed out suffrage literature to all of the attendees. 

Amy Rosenkrans  20:44

It was very interesting that horse racing and betting was quite popular, especially along the east coast, and women were invited- I could say invited- but women were allowed to attend races and they were allowed to bet. But at The Graw, we had separate betting windows for men and women. She also, as I said, handed out suffrage literature at places like steeple chases in My Lady's Manor in Baltimore County. And she and the other Harford County and Baltimore suffragists participated in something called Silent Speech, or sometimes called Voiceless Speech was where they stood in various public areas, whether it be outside of public meetings or public venues on Open Air suffrage meetings, where they set up easels with big placards with suffrage quotes and ideas printed on them, and they stood there and silently attested to the importance of women's suffrage. 

Amy Rosenkrans  21:46

By March of 1913 one of our local newspapers identified her as one of the County's most enthusiastic of suffragists, and she continued that throughout that century, and in 1915 she became the hostess for the local version of the Prairie Schooner campaign that came through Harford County. Now, the Prairie Schooner campaign was a very innovative suffrage campaign that was created by The Just Government League of Maryland, much like you may imagine, it's a Prairie Schooner. It's a big old wagon, like the wagons that went out west, and it was outfitted to be at the ultimate suffrage vehicle. The Women of the Maryland just government league saw this as an affordable, practical and symbolic way to get out the idea of women's suffrage, and they thought that it was, as one suffragist said, reminiscent of faith, hope and optimism of those who traveled out west and then transferring that faith, hope and optimism to the suffrage campaign. 

Amy Rosenkrans  22:58

The Maryland Just Government League planned three trips, one through Southern Maryland, one through more Western or Central Maryland, and then one in Harford County. The one in Harford County took place June 28 through July 5 and the Prairie Schooner, with its two horses, Margaret B named after Margaret Brent, one of the most famous early Marylanders. And Susan B named after Susan B Anthony, traveled throughout Harford County, through places like Aberdeen and Edgewood, and on July 2, they stopped in Haverty grace and the various suffragists will tell us that the reception at Havre de Grace was probably the best reception they received in all of Harford County. They said it was the largest audience that had greeted them so far. They quoted there were 800 people amassed at the reviewing platform, and it was a new reviewing platform in what is now tidings park that was created for the Fourth of July celebrations. 

Amy Rosenkrans  24:04

They were greeted with streets decorated with flags. There was an illumination that took place and the mayor, at the time, a mayor Fahey, stopped traffic and introduced the caravanners to the crowd. Now, interestingly, Mayor Fahey as he introduced himself to the crowd and introduced the suffragist, declared himself to be an almost believer in women's suffrage. That quote in his almost belief in suffrage will lose him the election in 1921 where he blamed women voters for his loss and even took his loss to the state courts, saying that Maryland women could not vote because it wasn't in the Maryland constitution. That was overturned because of the 19th Amendment, but he is a little bit infamous here in Havre de Grace.

Amy Rosenkrans  24:57

During that time, women, children and men gathered to hear the speeches, and eventually the caravan would go back to Baltimore County, where it would get ready to go on its next caravan event. But that wasn't all that Elizabeth Forbes did. She also participated on both the state and national level, where she was a Maryland representative to the National American Women's Suffrage Association conventions, particularly in 1916 she was an honor guard at the Atlantic City Convention for President Wilson. So she, amongst other women suffragists, stood on the stage holding flags and banners welcoming Wilson to the convention. 

Amy Rosenkrans  25:40

She was frustrated, however, with the very slow progress of the suffrage movement and joined the National Women's Party and Alice Paul. And she becomes quite a close personal friend of Alice Paul. She participates in numerous demonstrations with the other Silent Sentinels outside of the White House, and on February 9, 1919, she was arrested for burning President Wilson in effigy during The Watch Fire demonstrations. She and 64 other women were arrested. She served five days in the Washington DC district jail, and also went on hunger strike shortly before she was released. Later in her life, she talks about this idea of burning the president in effigy. And she is quoted as saying, "We burned the president in effigy. The effigy was just a nice- was just a little old thing, no bigger than a doll." And she says, "I hated to do it. President Wilson was such a nice man." I like to think that she was being a little tongue in cheek here with her quote there. As a result of her arrest and her militancy, she would later be awarded with the prison pin. And those in Harford County affectionately would call her the jail bird. She was the only woman from Harford County, Maryland to be arrested as a suffragist. 

Amy Rosenkrans  27:10

After we won the right to vote, she would continue to serve in the National Women's party where she was a treasurer after the 19th Amendment, as I mentioned, she's close personal friends with Alice Paul, and will frequently drive her car from Harford County to Washington, DC to visit with Alice and participate in National Women's Party meetings and activities on the Maryland level, she continues to lobby for equal pay for equal work for women, especially for Baltimore teachers, and she's going to be a key factor in passing Maryland's first equal pay for teachers bill where she eventually was awarded a silver dish for her efforts, which she actually would later say was her proudest achievement. 

Amy Rosenkrans  27:56

She was also present and participated in the ceremony where Maryland Governor Tawes signed that early version of the Equal Rights Amendment in Maryland, making us the fourth state to ratify an early version of the ERA. For her work, the governor would present her with a gold pen that he used to sign that activity. So Elizabeth is one of our favorites here in Harford County.

CM Marihugh  28:23

I saw a photo of Elizabeth with three young children. So was she a mother of young children at this time?

Amy Rosenkrans  28:32

Yes, she had three young children, and actually she was a widow, so everything that she did was in addition to taking care of her three young children.

CM Marihugh  28:42

It's fascinating to hear there were so many different women in different family circumstances. I also saw the Harford Historical Society had a brief article about the visit of this Caravan in 1915 and they were talking about how the wagon was fitted out with tents, cooking pots, pans, cots, blankets, camera, typewriter and lanterns. And again, it's amazing to think about these women. They were ready to rough it. I think sometimes they were put up at people's homes, but it seems like they were prepared to do whatever they had to do, to stay out there.

Amy Rosenkrans  29:26

Exactly. And this was one of the ideas of it being economical, because, of course, they're constantly concerned about raising money, so they were prepared to camp out. And that was a way to save money, for sure.

CM Marihugh  29:38

I also like to hear the stories like the mayor the- he sounds like he was on the fence, but there were certainly other anti suffragist men who then were voted out of office. So it's some poetic justice. 

Amy Rosenkrans  29:54

Just a little bit. Yes. 

CM Marihugh  29:56

So where are we heading to next?

Amy Rosenkrans  29:59

Well, next we are going to go south, and we're going to be talking about Corinne Robert Redgrave, who was a suffragist active in both Baltimore and Annapolis. So Corinne Robert Redgrave was a very interesting lady. She was an actress, and she participated in the suffrage movement by writing and producing plays for the suffrage movement. Corinne Robert Redgrave was born into a military family in New York. The name Robert might sound familiar from the idea of Roberts Rules of Order. Her father was Brigadier General Henry Robert who authored Roberts Rules of Order. She was married to a Redgrave, Commander DeWitt Clinton Redgrave of the US Navy, and that's what brought her to Baltimore and to Annapolis. Prior to her marriage, she was a professional actress in the Augustine Dailies company in New York and traveled the country with his drama company. 

Amy Rosenkrans  31:03

Once she settled in Maryland, she divided her time between Baltimore and Annapolis, wherever her husband was stationed was, where she was and wherever she was, she participated in the local drama community. By the early 1910s early 1912 we see- by 1912 she is a member of The Maryland Just Government League, and she is performing in and producing a drama called How The Vote Was Won. And that drama would be produced both in Baltimore at the Belvedere hotel and also eventually, in Annapolis at the Colonial theater. She would work with a number of other people in the dramatic community to put these fundraisers on. And not only were these fundraisers, they were a way to share the idea of the suffrage message in a different, maybe less confrontational way to a different public oftentimes we would see in the roles of people who attended these events, politicians like the Maryland's governor in Annapolis, as well as various socialites in Baltimore City. She participated in a number of different activities, in addition to the dramas that she performed, including suffrage parades in Baltimore and Annapolis and various charity events, but almost always, she was focused on using theater as a tool for political change. Also, while she's in Annapolis, we will see that she participates in a number of fundraising efforts through or during World War One. She passes away in 1958 after a long life of activism, and she's buried at the United States Naval Academy cemetery in Annapolis.

CM Marihugh  32:54

This just raises the topic of how the suffragists used the dramatic arts as another creative tool to reach a different audience. And as I was looking into this, I found a pamphlet that Nassau had issued in which they listed 16 plays that were available for purchase 10 to 30 cents a copy, and you pay a production fee of $5 and they actually included the play Something To Vote For, which I think you had mentioned that Corinne had put that on.

Amy Rosenkrans  33:35

Yes, she did. There was also another one called A Close Call. So what we saw in a couple of events was there would be an entire evening of several different small plays that were performed at once. And what I found really interesting was when the ones that were performed in Annapolis at Colonial theater, a lot of the participants were closely associated with the United States Naval Academy. There were English professors as well as members of the US Naval Academy midshipmen that participated in the productions.

CM Marihugh  34:06

That really is an intersection of the suffrage movement with the military, which we haven't heard about up to this point, but obviously that happened.

Amy Rosenkrans  34:16

yeah. And what I found interesting about that was the suffrage movement in Annapolis was was relatively strong up until World War One, and we see the suffrage movement and the women in Annapolis and Anne Arundel County participating more in war activities than suffrage activities.

CM Marihugh  34:37

I actually hoped to find the plays themselves. I have seen the How The Vote Was Won, but one source said that, unfortunately, a lot of the actual plays have been lost.

 Amy Rosenkrans  34:49

Yeah, I haven't seen them either.

CM Marihugh  34:51

Which is unfortunate, because there's such a snapshot into that time. So where are we heading to next?

Amy Rosenkrans  34:58

Well, we're going to stay in Baltimore with another interesting suffragist and another different action piece of the suffrage movement, Gladys Carolyn Greiner, now Gladys Carolyn Greiner was born into a wealthy, socially prominent Baltimore family. Her father was John Greiner, who was a civil engineer, and her mother was Lily Burchell Greiner, who was a skilled golfer and a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, which was very important during the time period. As a young wealthy woman, she's educated at the National Park seminary and Baldwin school, and like many young wealthy women of her time, she would tour Europe with her family, but she will reject this idea of social prominence and high society. We'll see that she is quoted as being a laughing college girl, long legged and unconventional, unconventional in the sense that she does not come back home after school to get married and carry on as her mother did, but unconventional, and that she is going to choose a career in social work. 

Amy Rosenkrans  36:07

She works at Whole House in Chicago. She'll teach at a settlement school in Kentucky, and we'll see that she has a deepening concern after she studies at Harvard for working class women. This causes her father to be a little bit concerned about her. He feels like she needs some kind of direction, and we see that he contacts Alice Paul at the National Women's Party, asking Alice to give Gladys, quote, "a safe desk job" for his quote, abnormal daughter who took no interest in home and wants to reform the world. And he even includes that his daughter, Gladys, thought that servants in the home should be treated as well as guests, and that she was inclined to Bolshevism. 

Amy Rosenkrans  36:59

So Alice Paul will take Gladys under her wing. I'm not sure if she really fulfilled what father Greiner wanted in giving Gladys a safe desk job, because I don't believe she gets- well, I know she doesn't get a safe desk job. We'll see by 1917 Gladys has joined the National Women's Party in Washington, DC, and she is going to be on the front lines of the suffrage movement outside the White House. She and a number of different suffragists will be arrested a number of different times. As a matter of fact, Gladys is arrested eight times. She's imprisoned three times, and almost every single time she will choose jail over paying fines. What's really interesting as we talk about this idea of her being from a socially prominent family is her very first arrest took place on June 23rd 1917, as her father was on his way to Russia to serve as president Wilson's envoy, as a consultant on the Russian railway system. 

Amy Rosenkrans  38:09

During that first arrest, which she goes to court on June 27 she doesn't even appear in court. She actually forfeits her bail and the Baltimore Evening, son believes that this is because of her mother's nervous condition, which they will talk about, that the mother is very concerned about what Gladys is doing with the suffragists and the protests in Washington, DC. This doesn't stop Gladys. She's going to continue to protest, as I mentioned, she's going to be arrested another seven times. She will also participate in a hunger strike and one of her imprisonments she's going to go on a 67 hour hunger strike along with the other suffragists there protesting being in solitary confinement, the harsh prison treatment, etc. Her father will even talk about the fact that, as she's released from prison, Gladys will call up to the cell window of Alice Paul's cell window where Alice Paul was still being imprisoned to offer her solidarity with the suffrage movement. 

Amy Rosenkrans  39:16

After being released, she will also, with a number of other women suffragists participate in the prison special, which was the national railroad Tour, where various jailed suffragists will travel all through the United States to talk about their conditions, to talk about the suffrage movement and to rally further support for the cause. In addition to participating all of that, she will be one of the organizers that goes out and participates and organizes committees, both in Maryland, Virginia, Michigan, New Jersey to start getting support for the suffrage amendment, and Alice Paul will recognize her as a strong voice and a key political organizer for the women's party. She. She does all of this despite the fact, as I previously mentioned, her family is not happy with what she's doing. 

Amy Rosenkrans  40:08

As a socialite, being from a prominent Baltimore family, it is not considered proper for her to be out there protesting. As a matter of fact, we will see that her father will write a letter to the Baltimore Sun, disavowing himself of her activities and not disavowing him of her, not disowning her, but disavowing her of her activities and her radical activities. We will see that after the suffrage movement, she will continue to be active in the labor movement, organizing for women's rights, organizing for workers rights. She actually will work in a shirt factory in Patterson, New Jersey, so she gets a better idea of what the workers conditions are, and we'll see that later on, she is going to be owning and managing a high class sandwich grill in the New York financial district. 

Amy Rosenkrans  41:07

Eventually, though, she will come back to Maryland, where she will live with her parents and take care of her father after her mother's death. And she passes away in 1961 and one of the ways that we know so much about her is because her father wrote her biography in a book of Maryland women's biographies, which so we know that by the end of her life or the end of his life, that the family has reconciled. But what I think is really also interesting about Gladys that in addition to all of this suffrage work, all of this organizing work that she did, she also was a very active athlete. She early in her life, will identify both tennis and golf as her sports, and she will become not a professional golfer, but an active golfer in the state of Maryland, where she will become one of the top golfers in Maryland, second only sometimes, to her mother. So she was a fabulously entertaining and interesting suffragist here in Maryland.

CM Marihugh  42:15

She really is an example her actions of the militant wing of the suffrage movement. 

Amy Rosenkrans  42:22

For sure. 

CM Marihugh  42:23

we've talked before about the difference between the mainstream, the Nassau groups and then Alice Paul with the National Women's party, willing to stand outside of the White House, willing to go to jail, willing to do a hunger strike. I was looking at that Baltimore Sun article, and her father, as you said, saying they are not associated with communism, etc. His daughter was strong minded. Her parents were bitterly opposed to the suffragists, White House picketing. And I was thinking how this brings up the topic of the family dynamics in suffragist lives. Many had supportive parents, husbands or other family, but many did not, and they plowed on. I'm sure they took a lot of their strength from their fellow activists, but it's very true that this disturbed a lot of families.

Amy Rosenkrans  43:27

Sure did, but originally, the first article we found was the article that the parents were disavowing her, and were like, "Oh my gosh, what happens?" But I was pleasantly surprised to find that biography written by her father, which shows us that that was a blip on the radar. Maybe they didn't totally agree with everything that was happening or that she was doing, but she was not sent away from the family.

CM Marihugh  43:50

It really was representative of the times, the whole wanting to distance yourself from anything that sounded like red communism. So in a way, as a prominent person, you can see why he wanted to publicly do that.

Amy Rosenkrans  44:07

For sure, as someone who is, you know, working for President Wilson. I mean, she's picketing the White House, and, you know, talking about how awful President Wilson is, and he's in Russia representing President Wilson.

CM Marihugh  44:19

Well, I really want to thank you so much for being with us, Amy and sharing these stories, remarkable.

Amy Rosenkrans  44:26

They are remarkable women. Thank you for having me. 

CM Marihugh  44:29

Kate. Could you give us an overview of what happened in Maryland after the passing of the 19th Amendment?

Kate Campbell Stevenson  44:37

Unfortunately, in 1920 Maryland voted no on the 19th Amendment. At that time, our state culture still aligned with Southern states and states rights. Maryland did not ratify the 19th Amendment until 1941 the anti suffragists had been active in Maryland and even tried to reverse. Outcome after full ratification of the 19th Amendment. On October 12, 1920 Mary D Randolph, described in the court record as a colored woman, was granted registration as a qualified voter in the Maryland city elections alongside Cecilia Street Waters, who was white. Anti-suffrage attorney Oscar Leeser sued to have their name struck from the rolls. He wanted all women, regardless of race, to be barred. 

Kate Campbell Stevenson  45:31

He filed a petition on October 30, 1920 challenging the right of women to be added to the registry of voters. The case went to the US Supreme Court, which in 1922 found the 19th Amendment to be valid and that women were legally entitled to register and thereby vote. African American women also continued their suffrage efforts. We are particularly proud of Augusta T Chissell, who was memorialized on one of our suffrage markers in Baltimore City. Chissell was a member of The Dubois Circle, who for years, had held suffrage meetings in her home. She created a column in the Baltimore Afro American newspaper called A Primer For Women Voters, in which she would reply to readers concerns. In the October 16, 1920 issue, one woman asked, "What good will it do women to vote?" In reply, Chissell wrote, "it will give women power to protect themselves in their persons, property, children, occupation, opportunities and social relations." 

Kate Campbell Stevenson  46:44

This education was particularly important because the 19th Amendment guaranteed sex equality and voting, but Maryland's existing Jim Crow machine kept disenfranchising black men and women as one example, Maryland's 1901 election law included removing party emblems from ballots, which disadvantaged illiterate voters. Such rules did not vanish in 1920 so new black women voters confronted them still. Women voted in the presidential election of November 2, 1920 turnout at the Annapolis historically black clay street precinct was so heavy that the line for voting was four blocks long. The Account credits local organizer Elizabeth Carter and her suffrage league chapter for helping women get to the polls. 

Kate Campbell Stevenson  47:43

Sadie Jacobs Crockin, a Jewish American leader, founded The Baltimore League of Women Voters in 1920 and led efforts to get women registered and voting in that city in Frederick. The Frederick News reported on November 3, 1920 that women voters were early at the polls and numerous, and noted that a number of employers allowed women employees to come in late in order to vote. Maryland faced many challenges to pass the 19th Amendment, but eventually we did ratify the amendment through the dedicated work of Maryland suffragists and suffragists from other states who helped lead the way. The Maryland Women's Heritage Center is fortunate to have led the effort to install 10 women's suffrage markers throughout our state.

CM Marihugh  48:37

Thank you so much for being with us today, Kate and for giving us such wonderful insights into the suffrage movement and how it happened in Maryland. Thank you for joining us this week. We hope you contact us with comments or questions. The National Votes For Women Trail Project is a work in progress. Please click on the support the project link to contribute to our ongoing work. The trail is a project of the National Collaborative for Women's History Sites, a nonprofit organization dedicated to putting women's history on the map. Our theme is Standing On The Shoulders by Joyce Johnson Rouse and recorded by Earth Mama. Be sure to join us next time. 

Earth Mama  50:09

I am standing on the shoulders 

Of the ones who came before me

I am honored by the passion 

For our liberty 

I will stand a little Taller

I will work a little longer

And my shoulders will be there to hold 

The ones who follow me. 

My Shoulders will be there to hold 

The ones who follow me.