15:59:33 And I think will be flexible initially until everybody is vaccinated but the construction and are part of the building where the new offices will be is just about downs and getting hit the record button
15:59:49 wrangling everyone.
15:59:55 Okay. And we have less than a minute to go.
16:00:02 Now, I'm going to start the webinar now.
16:00:11 Good luck.
16:00:31 It's four o'clock.
16:00:33 Yeah. Do you want to put this slide. Okay, can you see it.
16:00:42 I'm sorry, I apologize,
16:00:46 try this again.
16:00:57 Can everyone see this.
16:01:01 Hello everyone.
16:01:03 My name is Wesley Schulte and I am moderator for session 13 commemorating women's suffrage in the Commonwealth, which goes until 530 today. I welcome and thank you for choosing to attend what will be an engaging set of presentations, commemorating women's
16:01:17 suffrage in the Commonwealth focuses on Virginia statewide commemoration of this intending of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution presenters from the library Virginia, Virginia Museum of History and Culture, James Madison University and
16:01:31 the Lynchburg museum will discuss their exhibitions, as well as their research projects and educational initiatives.
16:01:38 And so doing they highlight local history discoveries, successful collaboration, and the challenges of telling women's suffrage history and the 21st century.
16:01:48 Our panelists today and presentation order are Barbara Batson and Mary Julian from the library Virginia.
16:01:54 Dr. Karen Sherry from Virginia Museum of History and Culture.
16:01:58 Pamela Johnson and Julia Merkel from James Madison University, and Ted Delaney up the Lynchburg Museum, the panelists will present for about 40 to 45 minutes.
16:02:08 Following that, I will moderate a brief discussion between our presenters. Then open the q amp a portion of the session which is a lot of about 25 minutes.
16:02:17 Questions can be submitted through the chat function, anytime throughout the presentations, some questions will try to answer during the session and others will hold until the q amp a and will endeavor to get to all of those questions.
16:02:30 Now, I will hand this off to our first set of presenters, the library of Virginia's, Barbara Batson and Mary Julian.
16:02:39 Hey, Mary, take it away.
16:02:55 Barbara Batson I'm the exhibition's coordinator at the Library of Virginia if you don't know we are located in downtown Richmond, and just tell you a little bit about our exhibition when my colleagues and I began working on the women's suffrage exhibition
16:03:08 we thought we knew the story. the good gentlemen of the Virginia General Assembly declined to ratify the 19th amendment in February 1920, and that was that.
16:03:18 Well, we were wrong.
16:03:20 Brent tartar and Mary Julian jumped into the equal suffrage leak papers, which were being digitized and reorganized and discovered that there was actually a great story lurking of those records that very few people knew.
16:03:35 Together we journey through the ESL papers newspapers and the vast holdings of Adele Clark at Virginia Commonwealth University. To learn more about the women behind the equal suffrage league and what tactics, they use, and along the way we made the acquaintance
16:03:51 of yet another group of remarkable women who were also suffer just about him we knew, virtually nothing.
16:03:58 Next slide please. Mary.
16:04:05 We opened our exhibition in January 2020 and like so many other institutions we had to close it in March. We were fortunate to be able to reopen the gallery in August, and the exhibition will remain on view through May 28 this year through the task force
16:04:21 to commemorate the centennial anniversary of women's right to vote. The library received funding to produce the traveling version of the exhibition, and you see that in the upper right.
16:04:33 And that is currently on the road and visiting public libraries, and smaller institutions. And while I'm thinking about it, let me just
16:04:45 put a link into the chat box.
16:04:48 Next slide please marry
16:04:55 this project, as I said, really was a journey.
16:04:59 It was a journey to recover, not discover, but to recover the history of the women who worked for a decade to win recognition of women's right to vote.
16:05:08 And I think Brent tartar is correct consider the suffrage movement as part of the larger reform efforts pursued by women early in the 20th century, and it's not just upper middle class white women who sought the boat.
16:05:20 We know a bit more now about African American women who advocated women's suffrage, through their clubs and or other organizations, but we need to know so much more.
16:05:31 Where are the records of those clubs.
16:05:34 When Mary found mention of the colored women's republican club of Roanoke, we were floored Millie Paxton and you see her to the left, was the organizer of this organization that worked to register African American women in 1920.
16:05:50 So imagine our surprise when Brandt, Mary mapped out sorry the ESL chapters around the Commonwealth, and we realized that the ESL established as many as 145 chapters throughout the Commonwealth, making it it was the largest non military organization in
16:06:08 Virginia by 1919.
16:06:10 Think about that that's just remarkable.
16:06:13 Although the records have been collected by Adam a Thompson when she compiled the records, no one had really looked at the index cards, created by the ESL as a rudimentary database to track where the delegates and senators stood on the question of suffrage,
16:06:27 and some of the comments are just priceless. and you see one example here.
16:06:33 Next slide please.
16:06:38 Perhaps more amazing and certainly as exciting was learning about the women who in June 1915 formed the Virginia branch of the Congressional Union for women's suffrage, which later became the National Women's party.
16:06:50 This is the organization organization that gets so much attention because these are the women who literally risked life and limb to protest and March, and push for an amendment to the Federal Constitution, the equal suffrage league or Virginia women preferred
16:07:06 an amendment to the state constitution and were horrified by the protests outside the White House.
16:07:13 Justice we got to know some of the women of the ESL, we got to know, Sophie Meredith, Lucy Flanagan and Mary and read of the Congressional union with cooperation from the Valentine Richmond's History Museum, we digitize read scrapbook that she compiled
16:07:28 as a delegate to the national woman woman's party Western special in 1916. The tour of the western states, I had no idea even existed.
16:07:38 Just as an aside, Mary and I learned that married read and her sister in law, Kate Gephardt read co founded the first girl scout troop in Virginia. In 1913, there should trivia for the day.
16:07:50 And you see the congressional Union for women's suffrage the Virginia branch at the 1916 state fair.
16:07:59 Next slide please.
16:08:04 And we knew that the 19th amendment didn't solve all the problems so we created a complimentary exhibition that looks at the struggles that continue through the 20th, and frankly into the 21st century.
16:08:16 For examples Did, Did you know that the Native Americans could not vote in 1920 because they weren't recognized as citizens until 1924, the lawsuits brought to Virginia women Evelyn butts and any Harper were argued before the US Supreme Court and resulted
16:08:30 in the poll tax being declared unconstitutional. And finally, eliminated through the 24th amendment.
16:08:37 Marion read secretary of the Virginia branch or the national woman's party reported in 1924 that although the General Assembly defeated a blanket equal rights bill, the margin of vote the vote was promising.
16:08:50 It was just going to take a little longer, but in January 20 the General Assembly or Virginia ratified the Equal Rights Amendment, and the LPS collections now contain documentation of oma of the almost 40 year effort of Virginia women to win ratification.
16:09:05 One recent donation you see here in the lower right is the Eileen Davis collection and Miss Davis is the mother of Congresswoman Abigail span burger, that was really cool.
16:09:16 So at this point I'm going to turn it over to married and before I do that I'm actually going to get married, real big round of applause for her work, and some of the things that you'll see coming up because she has just done a tremendous job.
16:09:31 So Mary, take it away.
16:09:33 Thank you, Barbara Am I make sure I unmuted myself right. Yes you did. Okay.
16:09:42 Let's see. So yes, obviously the Kobe 19 pandemic put a crimp in our plan programs and and tours we were closed as Barbara said from March to August, 2020, and even since we've reopened.
16:09:57 We haven't been able to offer tours.
16:10:01 So one of the things we decided to do is help bring the exhibition to people at home.
16:10:07 We made a series of short videos about five minutes each, to focus on different aspects of the exhibition.
16:10:14 And we did these in our gallery.
16:10:17 And so we have videos on African American suffragist picketing at the White House voter registration and other topics in the gallery. So we experimented with Facebook's video premiere feature and posted new videos on a weekly schedule.
16:10:35 And we also created an in the gallery playlist which you can find on the library's YouTube channel.
16:10:42 So I hope you will take a look at some of those and we have also just created a virtual tour of our exhibition gallery, which we hope to have posted shortly.
16:10:54 Fortunately the pandemic did not affect negatively our ratification Centennial project to digitize and transcribe the records of the equal suffered League, Virginia.
16:11:05 And if you haven't visited the library's crowdsource transcribe project, please check it out at Virginia memory.com slash transcribe and this is our online workspace where users transcribed documents from our collections to make them keyword searchable
16:11:20 and increase their accessibility.
16:11:23 And as Barbara mentioned equal suffrage league Secretary Thompson preserved many of the office records and also collected materials from women all over the state.
16:11:32 And she donated this large collection to the State Library in the 1940s.
16:11:51 but we scanned about 10,000 pages of manuscript materials like convention reports minute books newsletters correspondence and literature printed by the equal suffrage leak.
16:12:02 So it was made available in transcribe in August 2019, and it was completed in just over a year, undoubtedly, helped by the fact that people were looking for things to do at home during the pandemic.
16:12:17 So these documents are now keyword searchable and will soon be available and the library's online catalog.
16:12:24 We are currently in the process of implementing our new system for delivering digital collections. So the ESL papers are not yet online but they will be coming soon so please keep an eye out for those.
16:12:37 And we were also able to scan the Minute Book of the Virginia branch of the Congressional Union for women's suffrage, which became the National Women's party.
16:12:47 Thanks to its donation to the library by Sophie Meredith, the or the great granddaughter of founder Sophie Meredith, and so it too was transcribed and will be part of our online collections.
16:13:03 And we also expanded our plans for exhibition websites and people can only access our exhibition from home for such a long time.
16:13:14 And I hope you'll take a look at some of the information there. We have a timeline of the suffrage campaign in Virginia and links to the gallery videos and our series of blog posts, and also to the unfinished business website.
16:13:30 Related to that part of the exhibition.
16:13:33 And one section, I want to highlight is our map showing all the new and equal separately chapters.
16:13:39 And when you click on the different pins, you can see founding dates names of founding officers information about membership, if we have it.
16:13:47 And we had hoped to work with local groups to be able to expand the story of what was happening in different localities, which we weren't really able to do during the pandemic but we do hope that as people are interested in the ratification Centennial
16:14:04 that they will share that information with us.
16:14:09 Um, another component of the library Centennial commemoration efforts has been the publication of more than 60 biographies of Woman Suffrage advocates, as well as a few opponents.
16:14:21 This was part of our online dictionary of Virginia biography, which publishes encyclopedia length entries about significant Virginians. And part of the DVDs mission is to expand the definition of who is significant to Virginia history.
16:14:36 And we wanted to document the lives of some of these women who have long been left out of the Virginia history books, but you deserve to be remembered for their roles in helping expand democracy.
16:14:48 So some of these women are featured in our exhibition, like Josephine Northam Portsmouth community activists to lectured on women suffer just meetings of the Virginia State federation of color women's clubs, Mary Elizabeth pigeon the Clark County Quaker
16:15:02 who is an organizer for the equal suffrage league and went on to head the Research Division of the woman's department of the US labor Bureau and mod Jamison, a former teacher who was arrested as the suffrage picket at the White House and more times than
16:15:16 any other Virginia women.
16:15:19 other Virginia woman. We knew virtually nothing about most of these women prior to this project, but a sandy Treadway pointed out in her plenary yesterday. History looks different when women are put back into the story.
16:15:31 And you can also find these biographies as part of the national online Biographical Dictionary of the women's suffrage movement. So if you haven't taken a look at that, that's also a really great project.
16:15:44 And the campaign for women's suffrage in Virginia was such a fascinating and largely unknown story to the general public that we also wrote a book the campaign for women's suffrage in Virginia, which was published last year by the history press.
16:15:59 So we hope you will check out our online resources and if you're in Virginia come see the exhibition before it closes at the end of May, and keep an eye out for the traveling show at a library or museum near you.
16:16:11 Thank you.
16:16:24 Next we have Dr. Karen, Sherry.
16:16:31 Are you seeing my screen.
16:16:37 Okay, great.
16:16:39 Well hello everyone. Good afternoon and thank you for including me in this panel it's very appropriate that I'm following my colleagues from the Library of Virginia because the Virginia Museum of History and Culture The VMHC and the MVA were lead institutional
16:16:57 partners in the statewide commemoration of women's suffrage. We were the institutional partners have a statewide Task Force.
16:17:08 And with that in mind, the VMHC organized a series of programs very much thinking about that, that partnership and how to compliment, but not duplicate the work of our institutional partner.
16:17:26 And our signature project for the commemoration was an exhibition. Excuse me.
16:17:36 I am at the end of my slideshow rather than the beginning.
16:17:41 The signature project was an exhibition that very much kind of picks up the story that was explored in depth and so fascinatingly in the we demand exhibition, and look at women civic activism from the suffrage movement to the present day.
16:18:01 so to tell that story up to today.
16:18:05 The exhibition was called agents of change. Female activism in Virginia for women's suffrage to today, open, March, 8 2020 closed. A week later, for coronavirus we reopened in the summer and then the exhibition closed in November.
16:18:22 And this was an exhibition that looked at a long century of women's civic activism across the Commonwealth.
16:18:31 It was a, I'd say kind of medium sized exhibition with 4545 original artifacts. And then, images, and interpretive text in presenting this history. One of the challenges I faced as a curator of this exhibition was the relative dearth of materials related
16:18:58 to women's history and my institutions collection and I think that is somewhat typical of many institutions women's history has not been as well represented as white men's history is certainly my institution and in many others.
16:19:17 So that was one of the challenges I faced another curatorial challenge was telling a long, very complex story in a limited amount of space. And so I decided to organize the exhibition around some key women from different moments across the century.
16:19:36 These are women who represent diverse aspects of women's activism in Virginia. And I wanted to have not only diverse perspectives, but to to have the women be diverse themselves and to represent diverse areas of the Commonwealth so I tried to have a pretty
16:19:55 expansive definition of diversity, And another reason I wanted to focus on individual stories, is to emphasize the notion of individual agency that these women were agents of change that they fostered change in their communities in the Commonwealth in
16:20:18 the country and so by grounding this history with an individual stories. I hope to help.
16:20:27 the country and so by grounding this history with an individual stories. I hope to help emphasize that point. So to just survey, some of the women and artifacts and discoveries in the agents of change exhibition the story started with the suffrage movement,
16:20:40 and I chose Adele Clark and or HostIn to represent the story of the equal suffrage League of Virginia, of course, is part of the story we had to address the relationship of the suffrage movement to racial issues and the Commonwealth, another figure featured
16:21:00 in the exhibition and this was kind of an unknown figure to me but was very famous in her lifetime, doctors in ob Gilpin who was one of the few practicing black women doctors in Richmond in the first half of the 20th century she was active from the 1920s
16:21:17 through the 40s through death in 1948, and she was a major figure, not just in Richmond's Jackson Ward neighborhood, but also nationally, and one discovery in the VMH sees museum collections was is a manuscript of her medical notes, and she kept a notebook
16:21:49 with various treatment notes. Throughout her career so that was featured in the exhibition, Karen, can you change the setting and we've seen this is in Presenter View with that over questions.
16:21:53 Oh, okay. Thank you. Thank you, that's funny I've reversed on my, my computer at home but sorry about that everyone thanks Wesley for correcting that.
16:22:03 And so some other women featured in the exhibition, Laura Lou Koeppen haber who among her many talents was kind of visionary entrepreneur who started a craft collective called Rosemount industries in 1916 and southwest Virginia.
16:22:20 This was a collective designed to provide economic opportunities to artisans and also to farmers in rural South West Virginia. Not only did you hire women to create woven blankets and other crafts in traditional Appalachian styles but she also sourced
16:22:42 products from local sheep farmers and so forth, moving across the century to the world war two era. We looked at the various ways in which women broke barriers in wartime, including entering the military and Nancy Bailey cogs Dale was a member of waves.
16:23:03 The early women's auxiliary naval unit.
16:23:11 We of course wanted to showcase the often overlooked involvement of women in the civil rights movement, my colleague Barbara from the VA already mentioned Evelyn butts as one of the plaintiffs in a landmark Supreme Court case that declared the poll tax
16:23:30 which had been so effectively used to disenfranchise black and poor voters across Virginia her case help to declare that unconstitutional.
16:23:44 For a crater was a key figure in the second wave feminist movement. She founded one of the first chapters of. Now, in Northern Virginia. She was also a lead figure in getting the US Congress to pass the era in 1972.
16:24:04 She and a group of women activists would travel to Congress, weekly, and try to meet with as many senators and congressmen as they could to lobby for the passage of the era.
16:24:18 On the slide I include an anti era button because I just wanted to mention one of the curatorial challenges I faced was presenting a broad ideological range of ideas and causes and positions.
16:24:42 And part of the impulse to do that was not just to present inclusive history but because we I and my institution, certainly felt a certain amount of pressure to do that from the commemoration task force which included.
16:24:59 General Assembly people from both sides of the aisle, if you will.
16:25:04 It was a little challenging to include some more conservative voices in the show, have we did so with anti suffrage. Examples of anti suffrage literature, we can tell with examples of anti era, the anti era movement the stop era movement, but I will confess
16:25:21 that it was a bit of a challenge and and in part because inherently changes often driven by more progressive causes, rather than conservative ones.
16:25:40 The show also looked at intersections between the fight for women's equality and LGBT q plus rights, through the story of Carol shawl and Mary Townley lesbian couple that was instrumental in striking down Virginia's ban on same sex marriage in 2014.
16:26:02 And one of the new acquisitions we have in the VMHCS collection that we were able to include in this exhibition is a notebook that they kept in court with them.
16:26:13 During the the Bostic the Shaffer case and the Fourth Circuit Court in Virginia, and seven notes are serious where they're commenting on the arguments.
16:26:25 Others are a little less serious where they, you know, right, idiot and all capital letters, undoubtedly referring to the opposing sides argument.
16:26:36 So that's a really wonderful document.
16:26:39 Even though the exhibition covered only a century of course, we wanted to recognize the longest serving change makers in Virginia, to be the indigenous peoples and chief and Richardson represented their story through her efforts of preserving native traditions
16:27:06 and fighting for economic, environmental and other forms of justice for Rappahannock tried.
16:27:16 The exhibition came up to 2020 with a new generation of activists represented by Stephanie younger younger is her last name.
16:27:30 It's also I guess descriptive of who she is, but she's a young social justice activist.
16:27:39 And it also the exhibition also put recent activism within the context of the upsurge of female activism was black lives matter movement the women's marches, the unprecedented numbers of women who were running for and winning elected office including
16:27:58 here in Virginia, as well as other political female first like the first Female Speaker of the House and so forth.
16:28:08 So, that gives you a sense of of some of the contents of the exhibition.
16:28:15 I did of course recognize that there were a lot of stories that were not included.
16:28:22 That certainly would have merited inclusion and merit, our study and appreciation. And so one way I tried to address the gaps in the physical exhibition was through a partnership with the Jamestown Yorktown foundation.
16:28:37 If any of you saw their tenacity exhibition from 2018 2019 which looked at women in early colonial Virginia, you may have encountered this, what they call the legacy wall which is a digital timeline covered centuries and centuries of women's history.
16:28:58 It was a timeline that the Jamestown, New York town curators populated with various important historic figures, but visitors could also add their own stories to this timeline and could search the timeline by topic by date, and so forth.
16:29:16 So, through outreach with Jake's on your town Foundation, who was very generously willing to lend us this this package this timeline package of their legacy wall and allow us to install it in agents of change exhibition, it allowed us to expand the stories
16:29:40 that we could tell, and, and also build the contents of this really great resource, not just through the stories that my museum colleagues and I added but through the stories of visitors added to the timeline.
16:29:58 And so this is still a living, web feature. The website is up on the screen and I can also add it into the chat when I'm done with my remarks.
16:30:08 A few other activities at the VMHC related to commemorating women's suffrage is a photo display a kind of companion exhibition we did to the main agents of change exhibition this exhibition was called today's agents of change and what we did was we recreated
16:30:29 iconic photograph of the equal suffrage League of Virginia, posing in front of a car on Virginia State Capitol, you can see that photograph in the lower left.
16:30:40 We wanted to recreate it in a way that would showcase the dynamism and diversity of today is female activism across the Commonwealth so we assembled a selection of women, representing all corners of the Commonwealth a range of different causes a range
16:30:56 of different racial ethnic and gender identities, we recreated the 1915 photograph, and then put that on display with biographies of women and other interpretive material at the museum.
16:31:12 Like our partner the El VA, we created a companion exhibition to a traveling exhibition to agents of change, the traveling panel exhibition that can be shown at public libraries and other smaller venues it's currently at the Shenandoah County Library,
16:31:28 and it's traveling to other venues.
16:31:32 We kind of see this as a one, two punch with the we demand.
16:31:36 Traveling panel exhibition from the VA.
16:31:41 Of course when the pandemic hit so many of our activities and exhibitions had to go online, so we've created an online 360 degree tour of the exhibition, you can go and you know click and get close up views of the artifacts, and we the interpretive labels
16:32:01 and other exhibition contents.
16:32:04 I recorded a video curatorial tours since we could not do in person tours.
16:32:11 And then we also developed a suite of educational and public programs, all of which have gone digital our educators have a whole wealth of programs for K through 12 students related to women's history, history and suffrage history.
16:32:30 We've also had a general public and adult programs like presentations about images of the suffragist and activism programs featuring some of the contemporary activists from our today's agents of change program, and the like.
16:32:51 In terms of a
16:32:56 scholarly contribution to
16:33:00 the history of women's suffrage we devoted, the spring volume of the Virginia magazine of history and biography to women's history, and the to feature articles related to Lucy Randolph Mason, and then the women's bank were part of that special issue.
16:33:24 And some final activities related to our commemoration efforts at the VMHC involved, engaging with the community and partnering with other organizations so we participated in a documentary film that was produced by better films called these things can
16:34:08 Some Ylva colleagues and other historians from around Richmond are featured in this.
16:34:17 And then as a final activity. We also help support the turning point suffragist Memorial.
16:34:25 And, aka column park in Northern Virginia this memorial is in progress.
16:34:29 We help support some of their activities particularly through creating some videos to promote a memorial that is
16:34:44 devoted to commemorating women's suffrage, particularly the women who protested outside the White House and were in prison that the alcohol Kwan workhouse in Virginia.
16:34:57 So those were our activities of the VMHC. Thank you very much for listening, and I look forward to hearing your questions later on.
16:35:17 Next we have Pamela and Julia
16:35:23 Does Karen need to stop sharing for me too.
16:35:29 I think I already did is my screen still up. Yeah.
16:35:34 Here we go.
16:35:45 Right. Well, I'm Pam and I have been.
16:35:49 We're calling ourselves.
16:35:51 Coke curatorial conspirators for our sixth exhibit, beginning with the JMU Centennial back when we were in planning stages in 2007.
16:36:06 And we've been putting dressing for education exhibits together ever since then so this kind of feels like we're coming full circle having started with 1988, and then coming up to 2018 when we installed the 19th amendment exhibit.
16:36:29 Pam Are you with us. I am I am here.
16:36:35 So, the most efficient way to share this is by way of a web page that was generated through the librarians, and as Julia said we begin collaborating in almost well it was over, well over 10 years ago and I am a professor in the School of theater and dance,
16:36:58 my specialties design costume design and custom history.
16:37:04 And so I have developed and we have a historic clothing collection, and it is this.
16:37:12 This collaboration between the historic clothing collection that I manage and Julius work in the library and special collections that created this, We think it was a very rich collaboration.
16:37:33 So, what you just saw were the ladies and waiting, they were in a room adjacent to the exhibition space, and you probably noticed the kind of wonderful irony that along the wall behind them as they were lined up where the photographs or excuse me, the
16:37:52 paintings of the former presidents.
16:37:56 Looking at these women who are dressed as representatives of very iconic strident women in history. So the exhibition space which Julia can describe better is the one that was the physically house the exhibitions that we did.
16:38:16 So it's 18 linear feet, and about five and a half feet tall and lives in our old historic lobby from the 1939 wing of the building, and it was built for a permanent or semi permanent exhibit of objects from the light from the universities art collection,
16:38:42 which were pulled and moved to the east side of campus so this case stood empty for a while and cam was a logical person to reach out to for things that could fill the space and also utilize our documents and photographs and paper based materials.
16:39:04 So you're seeing a long shot of the case here, and we'll take you right to the left through the case.
16:39:15 So, these, these proceeded chronologically and we are actually.
16:39:25 Beginning in, we're beginning in the, in the 70s There's a wonderful irony here and that except for the jacket, which was donated by another faculty member.
16:39:34 Those are things I wore here when I started teaching here and there is a photograph of me, among other faculty. There, there.
16:39:46 My students have enjoyed this, I still don't think they believe me, but it's the truth with aviator glasses, not mine I can't find mine that are some that are imitation is the one that I had.
16:39:58 And in each one of the cases as we move further back in history, if you will, you can notice that in addition to the closed forms.
16:40:11 There are documents reproduce that are in the case that are specific to what was happening here on campus. So the clothing is not the provenance is not always known this collection was created out of what was formerly and intended to always be a collection
16:40:33 of clothes to be one on stage and I extracted the important ones and created a collections so many of these garments, except known to be probably worn in the region or not necessarily identified by by owner.
16:40:51 The one on the far left, which is known to have been worn by a student here on campus is from the 1920s.
16:41:00 One of the things that Julian I enjoyed the most and curating This was having to make those hard choices about what I might have in the collection that would relate well and support Well, the work that she was doing with her students out of special collections
16:41:17 and, as we said in a recent interview, we always wish we had more square footage but we did what we could with what we had.
16:41:27 I'd like to point out the corner piece is, is the piece to represent 1952 is when Virginia actually adopt the amendment
16:41:41 right and then in the next image, and in each of the exhibits that Julie and I have done we have included. What can loosely be termed technology that is on the far left and early, a vacuum cleaner patent that in 1913 which was touted to be the be all
16:42:12 end all vacuum cleaners, we struck this exhibit last week and my students who were interested in all of the artifacts were most captivated by that. And moving further left if we could, this is the this is the first image I'm sorry the first aspect of
16:42:19 of the exhibit, and Julia is proudly wearing the reproduction banner that we purchased for that
16:42:37 too.
16:42:37 So there are a few things I wanted to point out from the timeline and this website is actually.
16:42:46 I've had several students work on this over the years, and Fiona worth, who graduated in 28 No Yes, 2018
16:43:01 worked on the exhibit of the digital exhibit on in the summer we were kind of ships in the night passing between things. So, this part is actually mostly her responsibility and it's kind of fun to see the exhibit last longer, even though the physical
16:43:21 objects have been removed, or back to.
16:43:27 I want to point this one out. Because, and I'm will show you some images later. But the student here on the far left, we believe is Carrie Bishop, and we have her scrapbook and special collections, and this is what an early protest on campus looked like
16:43:47 and hold that thought because there'll be some images from 76 and then later, where it gets much more busy and colorful but we love having
16:44:03 this documentation that there were, were suffragettes on campus and go on to images.
16:44:15 So, For people and exhibit of protest and then here in 1976 for the Bicentennial we're still trying to pass era and here's a student in the 70s dressing as the suffragette, and quite a, quite a larger crowd.
16:44:32 This was a full page spread and 76 yearbook
16:44:39 and
16:44:42 Carrie, here we go. And here's Carrie Bishop in her yearbook photo. And there is a story about Dr Wayland Professor taking a group of students to the courthouse, to see what voting actually looked like.
16:45:03 And according to the story, one of those students actually tried to cast a ballot and was was stopped, and we probably, it was probably carry Bishop based on things from her scrapbook but hasn't been fully verified.
16:45:27 Pam we were going to look at you. Do you want the Indian yeah if you would, let's say there's.
16:45:32 I'm sorry that were turned sideways here but one of the some objects in the exhibit around this were set of Indian pins wouldn't pins that were used an exercise class and this is an example from some of the students in their exercise class.
16:45:53 Of course, almost in a military kind of orientation, and we included those because some research indicated that especially in the case of Emily Pankhurst the notorious and fearless British suffragette had groups have bodyguards that followed her around
16:46:12 in protest. And in order to protect her her body guards would often tuck under their ample garments. Some of these Indian pens. to.
16:46:25 to wield and to protect her from not only a police presence but other other obstacles.
16:46:32 And so what Julie and I were able to do is to not to make comparisons to things that were otherwise used, such as Indian pins.
16:46:52 And each of us had students working in independent studies to nourish the exhibit in terms of especially research and these are articles that one of my students, was able to discover and local papers.
16:47:02 Probably the most interesting one is the first one, the Rockingham Daily Record, which did document with a photograph, some of the suffragettes but in the adjacent article does give a very clear prescription of how women can keep their husbands happy.
16:47:20 So the, the edit the strategic editing here we found very interesting.
16:47:29 And then I think probably to talk about the Joan of Arc would be an appropriate thing at this point.
16:47:40 Yes. So, in the lobby next to the exhibit is the university's copy of an honorary chef who Joan of Arc statue which apparently the other.
16:47:53 Therefore State Teachers colleges established about the same time, and they all seem to have one of these although Ours is a gift from the President and President and Mrs Burris as they were leaving for Virginia Tech This was their parting gift to the
16:48:12 student body and Joan is the symbol of the suffragettes so the fact that she's so celebrated on campus in these early years and again.
16:48:25 In later years, is that was one of the happy things that we discovered and, in, in our research, and this is Pauline calendar.
16:48:37 Student embodying Joan of Arc kind of white Steve and flanked by cadets from the Augusta Military Academy. And here again, couldn't talk about the 19th amendment and not talk about, Park,
16:48:55 And in, in the process of putting this exhibit together we did some 3d scanning, not us, not Pam and I but with help from our digital services area.
16:49:09 So when I'll put the link in the chat to our website, there's actually some video footage of the 3d scanning, just kind of fun.
16:49:21 And
16:49:23 that's really, I think we're probably at time.
16:49:32 I think so.
16:49:41 Thank you. And now, Ted will bring it home.
16:49:54 Thank you. Wesley, and
16:49:59 for inviting me to participate in this panel today.
16:50:27 Okay, sorry about that. Um, so, thank you Wesley, first let me start by thanking Liz Navarro for inviting me to be here to speak at this conference, and to share with you what we think is a really fascinating story it really, in a way, unexpected history
16:50:42 of the suffrage movement in Lynchburg Lynchburg is located in central Virginia. It was a city of about 30,000 people in 1920 at around this time.
16:50:53 And we had, we just really enjoyed the process of discovering that sister ingredient, so that.
16:51:00 So, this is the building where I work, this is the Lynchburg Museum in downtown Lynchburg it's an old 1850s revival courthouse that has been restored.
16:51:13 And you'll notice that we had two great banners on that front that advertise our students are women suffer submitted sufficiently cold lead and women, commemorating 100 years of the 19th amendment.
16:51:21 See the banner detail there on the left, and then a graphic for the exhibit on the right, we specifically wanted this to appeal to younger and younger audience and for us to be able to engage younger people.
16:51:34 I was really surprised to find out that the median age and city much for right now is 28 years old. So Lynchburg is not only growing but it's it's a city but it's getting younger and so it's really important for us to connect to younger people for them
16:51:47 to see that something that happened on the views don't matter. So, That was strategic their design.
16:51:53 So we kicked off everything in September 2019 by attending what's called get downtown as a huge street festival in downtown Lynchburg they close off a couple streets downtown.
16:52:04 There are anywhere between five and 10,000 people that attend every year.
16:52:08 Mostly college students but all a good cross section of the entire city entire community.
16:52:13 And we had a booth there you can sort of make at the very corner of our booth with the boats for women sign the bottom right there. And you can also if you look deep in the crowd you can make out a couple of our staff members in period costume, with some
16:52:26 picket signs. And if you look closely you can see this is how they were dressed. We actually had them march through this entire street through these huge crowds, carrying the signs votes for women and other signs that were replica to the period.
16:52:42 It was fascinating to see the public reaction and it really gave us a sense of what it was like for these women who went to street corners and went to fairs and festivals and public places, and to see the kind of reaction that they got so we got outside
16:52:55 thankfully mostly overwhelmingly positive responses there were very few years.
16:53:00 A lot of people want to photo ops, so you can see on the right there people want to take photos with them, people would call out holler out wonderful things to them it really was encouraging and really a great moment of public history.
16:53:14 In the center out whenever we quickly there was a part of get downtown there was a main stage on the main stage later in the evening, a local band of the dummies perform.
16:53:26 And somehow, this is still a mystery to us we have no idea how he ended up the lead singer of the band ended up with one of our staff members signs at the end of the night on stage, but it's a great plug for us and we totally did not expect, and no idea
16:53:41 that might happen.
16:53:43 This is a shot of the interior of our museum and just part one or the first area of our exhibit.
16:53:51 Sadly we have been closed for solidly for the past year and don't expect to reopen it, so late May so coming up soon.
16:54:00 But the shares you have an idea of what that looks like we've got some multimedia components that you can see in the back there on that wall we have some footage some period footage of suffragists at work, and also some still shots from the time period.
16:54:14 We have mannequins not nearly as nice as the ones that Julian Pam showed you, but we do have some mannequins throughout our building where people can take selfies, and we have these cutouts of two local suffragists here.
16:54:25 We try for this to be multimedia to be interactive and one gallery of our exhibit we actually have a place where people can vote, they can actually go into a reproduction voting booth from the period.
16:54:37 We have a ballot box, we have some interactive screens and have the results of live voting.
16:54:42 So, we're trying to try for this to be a 21st century exhibit in our museum.
16:54:48 We got to traveling exhibit you've heard about both of these already we got the exhibit on the Virginia Museum of History and Culture agents of change that last year.
16:54:57 And then this fall we will have the traveling version of the demand from the library Virginia.
16:55:03 Those were really excited about those those, the VMHC one has been really good for us and you know the same will happen when we demand.
16:55:12 So why this exhibit why commemorates this important date here in Lynchburg in it for me. A large part of the centers around this woman right here a woman named Lizzie Lewis are listed Lewis.
16:55:25 The library Virginia and all of the research says identify, or as the second most influential or important suffragist in the entire state of Virginia.
16:55:33 single leading matriarch of the suffrage movement here the symbol leader of all the activity that happens for.
16:55:45 She was the.
16:55:49 She was really a fascinating woman contracts, so she comes from Virginia aristocracy she's from the Lyman family, which have a central Virginia. She's or she is the lady asked her, who serve in British House of Commons.
16:56:06 And at the same time, her views would have been considered really radical for those in social circle. So, she was just a fascinating character and we really felt like we had to bring her story to life.
16:56:17 This is a portrait or later in life, they've actually was painted by her grandson that's now the majority of us in this room culture, showing her sort of very regal way that I feel like it's appropriate.
16:56:30 She was the vice president of the state equal separately, and in that role traveled all over the state making addresses lobbying officials, creating local reads who's the founder of the local league and much for.
16:56:46 I also feel like it's, we have a responsibility to acknowledge that or work and a lot of the work of the state lead was really specifically exclusive of women of color.
16:56:57 And in, and none of our research that we ever found that she included black woman locally or its state level of work.
16:57:07 This photo is interesting to me because it's emblematic of why we know so little at least and lunch for maybe to the word green, Virginia, about suffrage hundred years later.
16:57:19 This is a picture taken in 1926, it shows Mrs Lewis list of lowest level managers show standing next to Governor Frankel is on the far left and then she is on his left.
16:57:29 She is giving him the equal suckers League of lunch for banner. As part of gift donation of banners and memorabilia from equal suffers league that was given to a state agency in the state capital time.
16:57:44 The State Museum capital close the 1960s and then at some point after that or before that all of this number getting all these banners were lost and they've never been found, and to me this is again this is typical of what we found is that there was incredible.
16:58:08 There were incredible things that happened in the teens and 20s, and yet there's so little of it left a lot of it is gone lot of at least one minute they passed away.
16:58:08 We were really inspired by tidbits in Washington DC. Caitlin making sense of it at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery and Library of Congress has shown up tonight is really important for us to visit them.
16:58:21 I got lots of great ideas for us and how to, how to translate this at a local level here at Lynchburg, the library Virginia was another incredible resource for us and I have to say right up here right up front that we could not have done any of this without
16:58:34 We just, we would never have been able to talk about our story at the level that we have or to the degree that we have. Without their help, and encouragement there first and then of course also the archives of the library.
16:58:44 the help of marriage Julian and Barbara Batson and they're probably right harder.
16:58:54 Please buy this book, if you're at all interested in this subject, it's a great book it's easy to read, there's a lot of great visuals on it so I highly encourage you to get that in Lynchburg one of our challenges was that there is just almost nothing
16:59:06 left by white primary sources about the suffrage movement still English for today in our city. What you're looking at here is a whole book from 1902, it's in the Lynchburg Supreme Court clerk's office.
16:59:19 But this is the latest poll book that has survived that we have, there's nothing from the team something from the 20s. And I think it's wonderful and I'm frankly shocked that we have some things early as 1902 but we were never able to find out you know
16:59:32 who registered to vote on every single day. In 1921 little bit register.
16:59:38 We had a lot of roadblocks and a lot of difficulty getting primary sources. The library Virginia honestly was the single best resource for our research because they have the papers and the records of equal suckers we have Virginia and that were local
16:59:59 chapter will contribute information that's now where that is has
16:59:59 Another challenge for us was that we had almost no primary source of evidence of black activism around suffrage, especially women's activism, but we know what happens.
17:00:09 And we know that these women registered and they voted, but one exception, one single newspaper article and the entire output of the Lynchburg newspapers we never found anything more from their perspective.
17:00:23 The, to me, one of the single biggest discoveries that we made with the names of the first 22 women qualified and registered to vote and much for their names and identified by race as well.
17:00:36 Unfortunately after the first two days of qualifications and registrations nobody else has mentioned nobody else has ever identified the first nine white women are pictured here when we had a photograph of them you can see that these women are one of
17:00:51 them is the deputy city Treasurer there's a newspaper reporters demographer a school principal store clerk several homemakers.
17:01:00 The first three black women who registered to vote in Lynchburg are here, They were all educators, Lucy Stevens was the supervisor of Campbell Pam means black public schools.
17:01:11 Ferguson after she retired from teaching became a hairdresser for women to go to their homes, is tell me that she was always proud of her dying day and be among the first few people in order to register to vote, even as an 89 year old she's still talking
17:01:28 about that.
17:01:30 One of my favorite discoveries is something that Barbara's already mentioned this index card file of equal suckers Lincoln Virginia back that they have a car for almost every member of the General Assembly often photographs, explains their positions,
17:01:45 their boats notes that face to face visits.
17:01:49 This one here you can see in the middle mentioned Nero phobia. This is a concern that a lot of white politicians had that in franchising women wouldn't franchise black women and and what would that do to the balance of power and communities.
17:02:04 These cards are just priceless there be no explanations I give gave this one here at this gentleman was opposed to separate on spiritual grounds.
17:02:15 This person says that he cannot support suffers because of the Federal amendment and he did not believe in federal interference and states rights. And then I love this one here is a Senate, a state senator who rejected because his wife and mother did.
17:02:35 We love finding the rosters of all the members of local league. So here's the original founder and founding officers, a list of the men who join the league This is all the library Virginia, just for us it was a huge fine, there's none of this again is
17:02:52 image birth now. There was even a list of garment workers indicated support for women's suffrage
17:02:59 women's suffrage in Lynchburg was a much harder struggle beard and a lot of other places in the country it was largely due to this man part of last and very deeply conservative culture here.
17:03:10 Part of glass was a newspaper owner editor he owned the to Lynchburg newspapers that were important at that time, he was a US senator or representative state of Virginia.
17:03:19 He was Woodrow Wilson Secretary of State.
17:03:23 And he was also very open white supremacist and segregationist and oppose women's suffrage deeply at every point he couldn't since papers, even claimed that he did it out of the quote genuine concern for the harm that suffered reposted women themselves.
17:03:41 At the end Lynch Burke's conservatism prevailed. Women voted by three one margin for the conservative Democratic ticket, almost in lockstep with local men.
17:03:52 Another thing that was interesting to me that we did not expect is that when we think of suffragist today, a lot of us think of liberal progressive women that are pushing boundaries.
17:04:03 I'm in recent Lynchburg, a lot of these leaders were very conservative women who will be supported in conservative democrat politics load and listen at Lewis when I mentioned before she's pictured here on left this is a separate parade and I can 17.
17:04:18 Her daughter was much more liberal but listen at Lewis herself as a lifelong conservative democrat she was a pro Confederate lost called sympathizer, as was this woman and other at the original second day registrants Lori wants She was the daughter of
17:04:33 Mississippi governor insolent McLaurin another conservative politician
17:04:43 was registered English bird. You got to get a poll tax assessment in one office and you to go to another one to pay your poll tax then you had to go find the registrar in your local precinct to actually register that and this is where you could be administered
17:04:54 a citizenship test.
17:04:57 This is a map that went for from 1920 and it shows you all the different places you may have had to go to get to the registrar
17:05:08 I'm going to close by mentioning wacky like is a really critical piece of art exhibit, and was really important to us and that is to connect what happened, 100 years ago, what's going on today.
17:05:20 And in particular, women's activism all of the past century.
17:05:23 So, these are photographs of protests that happened in lunch for last summer.
17:05:31 The summer 2020 you can see our building our courthouse in the background you see our suffering so the banners there.
17:05:36 This was a protest for social racial justice that are very public Beth and George Floyd back in June of last year.
17:05:45 Here's another protest in front of the museum, this was an n double A CP gathering.
17:05:51 All of this happened in front of our in front of our museum with our banners present.
17:05:55 We also very actively collected signs from these protests.
17:06:02 These are five signs that we now have a permanent collection, there were actually used created by local people and use them local protest.
17:06:12 And then finally to bring the exhibit full circle. These are two female activists active in the sport today, were not part of our exhibit Stacy leaves such a kind of woman who organized one of the first local protests here, and a former founder at Lynchburg
17:06:24 source black LGBT q March, Regina Shafi organize another local racial justice organization that's still working very much work today.
17:06:35 So, please come visit us when we reopen will reopen in late May early June.
17:06:46 Thank you, Ted. I just keep it looking at time.
17:06:51 I've been chatting with panelists about flipping the proposed remainder of the session and opening up for questions from those attendees.
17:07:01 So we have chat, open and available for question place to put questions we also have the q amp a function and 10 just to draw your attention there is a question in the q amp a, that's a directed to you.
17:07:22 So we're taking it yeah yeah I can answer that real quickly, that is a different this is Louis, but it's a great question but it's not the same one that was in the iron domain.
17:07:36 And I do see that there's a question about.
17:07:39 We could elaborate on African American women in the suffrage movement and what were the attitudes of white suffragist Well, basically white sulphur just did not welcome African American women or women of color into their suffrage, organizations, although
17:07:56 we do know that African American women advocated I mean they were, they were active in their communities but they just could not cross over that line, marry you may have something more to say about that.
17:08:09 Um, yeah like Barbara said we know, go from combing through newspapers and the National Association of color women
17:08:22 convention minutes and their publications you know we can find. Fine, bits of information about, Virginia.
17:08:30 Black women who are advocating for suffrage like Josephine Norco who I mentioned who we had never heard of before. It turned out she was, you know, on the resolutions committee at the National Association of colored women and 1916 when they, you know,
17:08:46 passed a resolution endorsing the federal suffered amendment.
17:08:50 So, so we know there are women like this all over Virginia and we would love to find out about more of them.
17:08:59 And there are there are records, you know they're tucked away, maybe in church records or local community groups.
17:09:08 Yeah, there was an n double acp chapter in Lynchburg and I'm sure you like and Spencer and many of those other women. You advocated Woman Suffrage.
17:09:17 So, so we're still looking for more information but but we know they're there.
17:09:27 If you find them, let us know. Yes. Bit of unfinished business, it seems, it is definitely picking up some of the themes that was presented.
17:09:35 Isn't it doesn't look like there's another question coming in, I'll maybe add to Barbara and Mary's discussion about
17:09:44 African American women and and the vote in Virginia and other southern states, the suffragists, especially the more conventional ones like the women who are part of the equal suffrage League of Virginia.
17:10:00 They were trying to walk a very fine line in demanding the right to vote. But, dealing with the racism that infiltrated every aspect of Southern society and anti suffrage forces regularly used fear mongering with the specter of Negro domination like if
17:10:20 you give women the right to vote. you're going to empower black women, and therefore you'll lead to me grow dominance. Those were the terms that were thrown around in the day.
17:10:32 So, white suffer just like the ones in the whole suffering of Virginia.
17:10:40 Didn't want to publicly embrace the cause of black suffrage because they were getting hammered by the fear mongering notion of Negro dominance.
17:10:53 And there were a few women like Adele Clark yeah later in her life she you know discussed how, you know, there were some things like should they she and a couple other women went to help, help make sure that black women could go and register but she commented
17:11:09 later you know we should have done more than we did.
17:11:13 Right, yeah they had to kind of keep it private they couldn't publicly support black public face of that was that they the equal suffrage league and and the, what became the National Women's party.
17:11:25 I said, you know, it's white voters are going to outnumber the black voters and particularly in, in Virginia and southern states, there were other barriers to African American voting sent through the post payment on poll tax, and then literacy test and
17:11:42 it's the sad fact that the literacy test, you know, are still used even as late as 1970s, our judges fund is just amazing to me. But anyway, although the voter registration like what you know Ted did in Lynchburg and finding the women who are going to
17:12:10 it i mean that's one of the ways that we can document, you know how you know how much these women want the rate to boots. You know, obviously more than 2000 women registered in Richmond which you know was that was, that was a lot of hard work you know
17:12:18 led by Maggie Walker and Oregon Stokes and other women who.
17:12:24 It took it was a massive effort.
17:12:27 There's a great article in the Richmond times dispatch about or brown Stokes toward the end of the registration period and it's late in the afternoon and the registrar's going.
17:12:37 I don't think your, your ladies are going to make it and she just looks at him and she just says, All I need to do is basically pick up the phone. They'll be here again.
17:12:45 And it's just like free.
17:12:47 Go.
17:12:52 So, if they're smarter to question just came in with this avoidance of including black women and the suffrage movement of Virginia thing, or seven thing question mark and there's a second part, I realized you're focused on Virginia but possibly also have
17:13:07 a feel for what was going on and other parts of the country.
17:13:12 You wouldn't want to respond to that is definitely a southern thing.
17:13:18 Me, it could happen in northern areas, although there were.
17:13:23 I think it's in Ohio, there were, you know, groups of white women and groups of black women who organized suffrage clubs and they would all belong to like the state organization which was not possible in Virginia.
17:13:36 We have we've never come across any evidence that black Virginia women organize their own you know suffered group at all.
17:13:46 But, but there were in other parts of the country where, where they were.
17:13:52 And they did work together.
17:13:59 Certainly in the western states i mean we know that there are women of color.
17:14:04 No, Latino women, women, and an Asian American women who do work for women's suffrage and they're also the.
17:14:15 If they're not embracing each other they're certainly working with each other.
17:14:24 Don't see another question so I'd like to post something that was offered as a question for the panel discussion, and I think it picks up somewhere Ted ended his presentation and also some of the things that have been discussed which is I'm actually it
17:14:39 was Julie that created this product earlier off for the conference. What has changed or would.
17:14:48 What has changed or would have changed and telling the story of the 19th amendment and might have current events.
17:14:57 For those who are.
17:14:59 Well one of the things, has been that in giving your presentations. We've all done, virtually. You don't have to explain to people why the 19th amendment and expanding the right to vote is still relevant issue, because we see all around us that people
17:15:18 are trying to disenfranchise certain groups so. So I think people are really ready to, To understand how how important it was, and still is.
17:15:34 I don't think it's also, you know, if you look at this, at the the struggling for the 19th amendment you realize that it's not yet the two groups, but it's a lot of persuasion a lot of sort of cornering their legislators in their offices and in their
17:15:50 homes and you're talking and you're talking and in target and it is. It takes a lot of persistence. It's not an immediate kind of change.
17:16:01 But it's, you know, for somebody who doesn't go out and vote now there's just, I just we just look at America. No, no. You have to realize what these women went through, and, you know, even the, even the women who were supposed to women's suffrage, very
17:16:22 quickly go out and register, because they realize the power of the boat. And as yes we definitely found some known anta members of the Virginia Association opposed to women's suffrage.
17:16:29 We found some of those members are registering to vote in Richmond So,
17:16:36 and actually one of our colleagues did some research and he found one of the board members, I think it was. She did not register but her daughter did go and register so there's all kinds of interesting stories, his records
17:16:55 are James Madison University. I think we probably would have looked much more closely at the last cause narrative, and how the teachers colleges came up through that terrible time,
17:17:19 jump right in with maybe that kind of a negative response to the question in that.
17:17:26 Because, you know, takes a while to organize an exhibition by
17:17:35 the VMH sees exhibition, ending in.
17:17:40 Basically, you know, March 2020 is when the exhibition opens so the history ended a few months earlier because we had to print the labels and so forth.
17:17:48 But it, the recent events have made the contemporary part of the exhibition, almost immediately obsolete in the sense that it doesn't address the wave of social justice protest after the murder of George Floyd it doesn't address the impact of of coronavirus.
17:18:08 So you know that that's an unfortunate bit of timing, but I think the flip side of that as, as some of my fellow panelists have alluded to, is the fact that, by, by presenting this this history of suffrage.
17:18:26 At this moment, people can I think very easily make the connections between, you know the importance of having the right to vote. What were some of the activism strategies used by the suffragettes that we see parallel.
17:18:42 In recent recent racial justice protests. So
17:18:48 those are some comments I've made in response to that question.
17:18:51 And let me just echo what Karen said I think that's exactly right for us we found that actually our jobs easier to connect to people about this history, after the summer of 2020, because so many young people were mobilized and like they were literally
17:19:04 out in front of our buildings, they were out in front of our museum. And so they already could feel that they could have an impact, and they could take inspiration from what have happened they can take strategy from at least women operated, years ago.
17:19:16 So in a way, it worked out for us well and that it actually made our job easier to connect to younger people in a way that maybe five years ago with part.
17:19:27 And there's even I cannot remember who wrote it, I just saw it recently there is a recent book out the suffragist playbook, which is about your organizing now using the tactics of the, the suffragists, which and that's one of the things that's so fascinating
17:19:45 about them, you know, thinking about the women at the White House. You know, I grew up outside DC there are always people outside the White House protesting people did not do that until the suffragist did it.
17:19:57 They were the first one so they, They were definitely trailblazers.
17:20:05 We owe them a huge debt of gratitude.
17:20:12 I have a question well a question came through early in the presentations from someone that might be helpful to hear from others considering the range of institutions present.
17:20:25 The question is what aspects of the pivot to pandemic programming. Do you anticipate keeping and incorporating into future exhibits and programming.
17:20:38 Oh, jump in here, I think, a recognition that digital programming in many ways makes us much more accessible because people can join us.
17:20:52 Anyone who has an internet connection can join us in programs they don't have to be physically present here in Richmond or proximate to the Richmond area so I think that's something that will continue to take advantage of.
17:21:05 Once we return to normal or whatever, post meant epic life looks like.
17:21:11 One thing my institution is still struggling with thinking about and I'd be curious to hear how the other panelists are considering these these issues is what to do with gallery interactive, the digital timeline that I mentioned that we incorporated and
17:21:28 agents of change. We had another interactive which was a button making machine. We had to take those off offline for the duration of the exhibition, after ko bit hit because you know we knew people, we didn't want people touching things.
17:21:45 And you know we we know that those are the kinds of activities that visitors that audiences really love.
17:21:52 But I think everyone's hesitant to incorporate touchable interactive in exhibitions again I'm not sure when you know we'll, we'll get past that nervousness.
17:22:06 Yeah, I don't know, I'm Karen you notes.
17:22:11 We always struggle with, you know what level of interactivity is it just going to be sort of a rolling screen, which was what we have actually have now and we demand, or is it something that you could menu driven and thinking about the exhibitions that
17:22:27 are coming up in the next couple of years that's that's a real concern.
17:22:40 We may be going to a lot of QR codes again I don't know, just something that you put up on your on your smartphone. But yeah, it's.
17:22:44 It is, it's a hard question to answer now.
17:22:53 It will probably continue though with like our gallery videos that we did will probably continue doing that on some level going forward with our exhibitions.
17:23:06 And I will say in terms of our programming, I think we've already sort of made the decision that we're going to continue to offer the virtual as well even once we get back to in person whenever that is because it's Karen rightly says it does increase
17:23:23 it enlarges our audience.
17:23:27 You know, show of hands, how many of us you know go home and watch webinars.
17:23:32 I'll be doing lunch tonight.
17:23:36 You know, we're all geeks here yeah so.
17:23:39 So in a way, you know the learning never really, really ends even for us.
17:23:44 But that's.
17:23:45 Yeah, I think we just kind of sort of used to that.
17:23:57 Yeah, somebody who's actually mentioned, Mary church Terrelle who certainly was a major activists, the African American community.
17:24:11 I have a question if everyone's ready to change gears.
17:24:16 And I also have a crime cat in the background so I apologize and you'd be quick about this.
17:24:21 This question axis for Pamela.
17:24:24 There was a question if you could speak about the repertory dance performance.
17:24:29 Oh yes, I don't know who asked that but I appreciate that they did.
17:24:35 One of the things that Julie and I have appreciated very much about our collaborations and of course we are at an institution which is where, you know, it's an academic institution so our exhibits have been able to nourish classes that are taught across
17:24:50 the university not only history or in my area but also Women's Studies and one of the things that we discovered that our exhibit had been especially helpful in is that the repertory dance company here in the School of theater and dance, created a piece
17:25:12 of work a site specific work.
17:25:15 That is actually performed because of coven and all of our performances were suspended and therefore had to be reimagined.
17:25:23 So they went to the out of doors and they spent full semester researching the institution the nexus of which of the research was you know the history of both the good and the bad.
17:25:34 A lot of it in particular, related to women's rights, social justice, And they, the students were assigned research and they used our exhibit to as a vein to mine, if you will, which led them to other areas, and the last performance is.
17:25:57 I was the designer for it but there are a chorus of for one of a better word we refer to them as ghost and they are current students that I've just dressed from different decades, and they look there, they're meandering around the quad around and through
17:26:14 the performance.
17:26:16 One is a student who's dressed as the elder statesman sort that, for instance would have been in Richmond at the General Assembly.
17:26:26 Considering which of the women's, the next best place to put a State Normal School for women.
17:26:33 There is someone dressed, almost to imitate Natalie Lancaster who was one of the first dean of women notoriously fears she wielded supposedly something to scurry unwanted men from the campus.
17:26:49 And then, a student dressed in the 20s, the 30s and the 40s. The 40s model is what would be considered a house mother or perhaps a parent, or even a teacher, and then the 1950s era student that we have who is a dance student is actually an African American
17:27:08 student, and because the colors become more vivid.
17:27:12 She is actually walking she's been blocked to walk in and out of the performance so as Julie and I have discussed it's almost as if these historic character to stepped out of the our exhibition space and into the present.
17:27:32 Thanks for the question.
17:27:36 We have a few minutes remaining.
17:27:38 I would just like to ask, maybe at this point if the presenters want to reflect on anything lessons learned. You spent a lot of time with the programming and with the to end time to kind of elevate little known stories to be inclusive.
17:27:58 And also I really just I will keep thinking about unfinished business so any reflections that you have in the time that remains
17:28:09 from the get go Mary and Britain I realized that sometimes the dominant narrative is not accurate.
17:28:19 I think was the big surprise when Brent actually came in he said well you know actually, the General Assembly did pass language for an amendment and state constitution, nobody had ever bothered to look at that before.
17:28:30 So in fact the DSL women were were successful in a limited way, but that just sort of changes the perspective, a lot.
17:28:39 And then just learning about the Virginia branch of the Congressional Union for women's suffrage.
17:28:44 Wow.
17:28:45 Brady Bunch of ladies.
17:28:51 I'd like to if I could just bring up something that Julie and I had hoped to be an extension of our exhibit but because of funding. It wasn't able to materialize but we were going to on the steps outside of the library, leading the exhibit had made arrangements
17:29:06 to essentially stage, a kind of a summary suffrage movement women dressed at different points in history, reading from important speeches and simultaneous with this one of my students who was doing independent study with me his faith Walker Mickens here's
17:29:27 the great granddaughter of Maggie Walker, and she did research that helped inform even herself about not only what a, what a, what a force. Walker was but she was also very fashionable.
17:29:44 And she used and wielded her, her power including her, her really striking presence, faith was going to our lives as she called she certainly made a name for herself because she did a lot of work at the General Assembly speaking while she was here, while
17:30:02 she was still a student, and she was going to return in a weekend that was around this event that couldn't materialize so it was a wonderful kind of
17:30:15 unexpected intersection of things that came through this exhibit that Julie and I put together,
17:30:29 think I'd jump in and say that, you know, even though we we've all faced challenges telling this story given the sometimes underrepresented nature of women's history especially women of colors history in the archives you know it's still incumbent upon
17:30:46 us to to tell those stories.
17:30:49 Even if we can't find the primary documents so we sometimes have to use our curatorial creativity to find indirect ways to address those stories to elevate those voices to give you know the most complete version of history that we can.
17:31:13 There are no other remarks, we are at time and I would just point to the very rich chat full of links and and and wonderful things for people to follow up on from the great work that you've done.