The Vote (PBS) (2020)

 

 

 

The Vote is a documentary film in two parts which premiered on US television (PBS) in July 2020. We are talking about two feature-length episodes of the long-running program American Experience (season 32, episodes 9 & 10).

 

The topic is the campaign for women’s right to vote (and to run for public office) in the US; a campaign which lasted for more than seven decades: from 1848 to 1920.

 

Here is some basic information about this film:

 

** Writer and director: Michelle Ferrari

** Narrator: Kate Burton

** Run time: 2 x 112 minutes = 224 minutes

 

Several experts are interviewed in the film. Here are the names (listed in alphabetical order):

 

** Jad Adams - writer

** Beth Behn - historian

** Tina Cassidy - writer

** Marcia Chatelain – historian, Georgetown University

** Ellen Carol Dubois - historian, author of Suffrage: Women's Long Battle for the Vote (2020)

 

** Paula Giddings – historian, professor emerita, author of Ida, A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign against Lynching (2008)

** Susan Godier - historian

** Martha Jones - historian

** Alexander Keyssar – historian, author of The Right to Vote (2000)

** Eleanor Smeal – president of the Feminist Majority Foundation

 

** Michael Waldheim – attorney at law, author of The Fight to Vote (2017)

** Mary Walton - writer

** Susan Ware - historian, author of Why They Marched: Untold Stories of the Women Who Fought for the Right to Vote (2018)

** Elaine Weiss – writer

** J. D. Zahniser - writer

 

Between the talking heads, there is archive footage: old clips and old photographs. Archive footage is used to illustrate the story as it moves forward from 1848 to 1920.

 

These two episodes offer detailed information about the history of the women’s movement and the campaign for the female vote in the US. Topics covered include the following:

 

** Who are the leaders of the movement?

** Ways and means: how was the campaign conducted?

** Unity and division within the movement

** Successes and failures of the campaign

** How US society responded to the campaign

 

All women within the movement supported the demand for the female vote. But there were different ideas about how to get to the final goal. Many women within the movement were white middle-class women. What did these women think about women of colour? Some of them wanted to include all women regardless of their colour, but others hesitated. They were afraid this might cause some women to leave the movement and might cause some women to oppose the movement.

 

In the US, the right to vote has always been a difficult problem, a controversial issue. And it still is today.

 

The founding fathers did not have a very democratic mind. They felt that only white and rich men should have the vote. However, they realized that it was not a good idea to come out and say so. Therefore, they did not say anything about it when they wrote the declaration of independence in 1776.

 

A few years later, when the constitution of the US had to be written, the problem returned. What were they going to say about it now? They could not agree on a fitting formula, so the issue was avoided once more. What was the solution? It was decided that voting was a matter for the states. Each state could decide its own rules about voting.

 

The campaign for the female vote had two ways to go in order to reach its goal:

 

Option # 1

Win one state after another until all states offer the female vote. At first, this method was tried, but it turned out to be a long and slow process. This method did give some results, but they were few and far in between when compared to the total number of states.

 

In the year 1900, some fifty years after beginning of the campaign, only a few western states had granted the female vote. Eastern states and southern states still resisted. It seemed they were not going to be moved any time soon.

 

Eastern states resisted, because the campaign for the female vote was connected with the temperance movement, which wanted to introduce prohibition (no alcohol).

 

Southern states resisted, because they did not want women of colour to get the vote. Southern states had introduced a number of rules to exclude black men from voting. Obviously, they were not going to give the vote to black women.

 

Option # 2

Go for an amendment to the constitution. A federal amendment to the constitution covers all states in one stroke. This sounds like a smart way. But there is a problem: getting an amendment to the constitution is a difficult and time-consuming process.

 

When option # 1 seemed to fail, option # 2 was tried, and after a long and hard struggle there was a successful conclusion, but it was a narrow victory: the difference between victory and defeat was very small.

 

The amendment was finally accepted by the US Congress: the House of Representatives in January 1918 and the Senate in June 1919. This was a difficult hurdle, but it was overcome.

 

Next, the amendment had to be ratified by three quarters of all states. In 1919, the number of states was 48, so the amendment had to be ratified by 36 states before a given deadline.

 

Getting the first 30 states was easy. After that, they got five additional states. But then there was trouble ahead. Which state was going to be state # 36? Could they find a state that might be willing to play this role? If they found the state, was the state parliament actually going to ratify the amendment?

 

As we know, the 19th amendment to the constitution was ratified by 36 states in 1920, before the deadline expired, but it is important and necessary to notice that even in 1920 there was still a significant opposition to the female vote in the US. Not only from reactionary men, but also from reactionary women who supported the reactionary men.

 

What do reviewers say about this film? On IMDb, part one has a rating of 83 percent, while part two has a rating of 82 percent, which corresponds to a rating of four stars on Amazon.

 

As you can see, the ratings are good. But if you ask me, they are not good enough. I want to go all the way to the top with this product. I think it deserves a rating of five stars.

 

PS # 1. American Experience and PBS have established a special website with the following title:

 

She Resisted: Strategies of Suffrage

 

Visit this website to find more information about the campaign for the female vote.

 

Topics covered are: street speaking; propaganda; parades; pageants; women’s clubs; conventions; pickets; imprisonment; and the legacy of the movement.

 

PS # 2. For more information about the campaign for the female vote in the US, see the following items:

 

** One Woman, One Vote, a documentary film which premiered on US television (PBS) in 1995. Director: Ruth Pollak. Run time: 108 minutes. Released on DVD in 2005.

 

** Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony, a documentary film in two parts which premiered on US television (PBS) in 1999. Director: Ken Burns. Run time: 184 minutes. Released on DVD in 2010.

 

For details about both films, visit my blog:

Teacher and Traveller, December 2016

 

PS # 3. Unladylike: The Change Makers is a documentary film which premiered on US television (PBS) in 2020. 

 

It is an episode of the long-running program American Masters (season 34 episode 04). 

 

The purpose of this film is to mark the centennial of the female vote with stories of five pioneers who are described as change makers.

 

PS # 4. In 1970, fifty years after the female vote was granted, a new constitutional amendment was introduced in Congress: the Equal Rights Amendment, aka ERA. The first version of the ERA had been introduced back in 1923, but for years nothing had happened to the proposal. Now it was revived and now something began to happen:

 

The ERA was accepted by the House of Representatives in October 1971 and by the Senate in March 1972. Next, it had to be ratified by a certain number of states before a given deadline. In 1972, the number of states was 50. Therefore, it had to be ratified by 38 states before the deadline of March 1979.

 

At first, things were going well. After only one year, it had been ratified by 30 states, but then the movement ran into trouble: Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative activist and author who was married to a lawyer, did not like the ERA; she started a grassroots movement to stop it, and she was very efficient!

 

During the next five years only five more states ratified the proposal. In addition, five states which had previously ratified the proposal wanted to cancel their ratification (which was something quite unusual).

 

In 1978, Congress extended the deadline until June 1982, but no more states ratified the proposal, so the extension did not really matter one way or the other. By 1982, when the new deadline expired, only 35 states had ratified the proposal, and (as stated above) five states wanted to cancel their previous ratification. The proposal had failed to reach the necessary number of states, and therefore it had effectively run out of steam.

 

In recent years, however, the ERA has been revived. But it is not clear what this means. Is the amendment dead or alive? I am not quite sure what the answer is.

 

TWO REFERENCES ABOUT THE ERA

** Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism: A Woman’s Crusade by Donald T. Critchlow (2005)

** Mrs. America, a miniseries in nine parts which premiered on US television (Hulu) in 2020. The topic is the rise and fall of the ERA during the 1970s.

 

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 A women's parade in New York City in 1917

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Washington, DC, 1917: female activists form a picket line outside the White House, urging president Woodrow Wilson to support the female right to vote.

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