Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the "Campbell Conversations." I'm Grant Reeher. Most of us are familiar with the basic story of the women’s struggle to earn the right to vote, but what about the right to hold elective office? My guest today is Wendy Chmielewski. For over 30 years, she served as the curator of the Swarthmore College Peace Collection, and she's now the coauthor, with Jill Norgren, of a new book titled, "Her Hat Was in the Ring: How Women Won the Right to Run for Office in the United States." Ms. Chmielewski, welcome to the program.
Wendy Chmielewski: Thank you, it’s an honor to be here.
GR: Well, it's a pleasure to have you and an honor, and I want to just congratulate you on this book. It's a lot of things I really was unaware of, and I'm a political scientist, so I'm a little embarrassed to say that, but it's great that you wrote the book. Let me just start with a basic question that your book deals with and it's this, why did the struggle for women holding elected office follow a different, specific path in the struggle for suffrage to get the right to vote?
WC: Well, as we know, the right to vote, the qualifications for the right to vote, at least in the first half to three quarters of the 19th century were completely set by the States. So in some cases, states allowed women to run for office even if they couldn't vote. That's the sort of the legal legislative answer. The sort of social and cultural answer is that a lot of the first offices that women ran for and were elected to had to do with education in schools and socially, women were seen as nurturing the first educators of children. Teachers were, by the halfway point of the 19th century, beginning to be the majority of teachers. And so, a lot of legislators, voters, who were mostly men at the time, saw women who could run for education offices. And so that was some of the first ones they campaigned for successfully, though not all, but some of them.
GR: That's interesting, because I am more familiar with later parts of the story for women’s path into elective office and the school board still factors quite heavily on those as a springboard.
WC: Yes.
GR: Yeah, that's interesting. So, one question that occurred to me as I was thinking about this is, there are specific restrictions on federal elected office. You know, you have age, and for the president, you have, you know, being born in the United States or in a U.S. territory. And so, but the Constitution didn't really have that kind of specific language about voting being just for men, right?
WC: Yes, correct.
GR: Why was it left to the States?
WC: I really don't know. I think that at the time that the Constitution was written before many of the amendments, I don't think that anybody thought, a few people thought that women and non-property holders would have the right to vote. You know, most voters were property holders in the early years, and nobody thought that women would want to be, could be property holders of course, because married women had no legal identity and could not own property in their own names. That changed, of course. So, but of course, women did vote in New Jersey until 1807, and they actually could vote, I think, until 1809, in town meetings in Massachusetts. Again, property holders, just like men.
GR: That's fascinating, I didn't know that. So, I wanted to keep with this sort of juxtaposing struggles for the right to vote and changes from the right to vote with holding elected office and then we'll get more specifically into elected office. One of the arguments against women voting when this became, you know, more of a national issue, once the movement began, was that women would just replicate their husbands’ votes. You know, so why give them a vote? Was there anything similar claimed about women as office holders? It sounds like you're saying almost it's the opposite, is that women have a special kind of background that helps them.
WC: I mean, there certainly were cases where we've seen men elected to a local office, say, the town council or mayor, and then women suddenly appearing, their wives I should say, wives suddenly appearing on the school board for example, or even some of the other local offices. And some women were in the hired position of deputy, let's say, county clerk. That was not, I don't think we've come across any state where that was an elected position, they were hired or appointed, and sometimes women who filled those offices were a relative of, let's say, the county clerk. The argument, I haven't seen so much of that argument that women would replicate their husbands. We have seen some cases where political party officials have recommended a woman for a particular position because she was a widow, she needed the money. So that's not quite the same thing as what you're asking, though. And it doesn't always work, you know, it depends. There's so much about local politics in this, depending on the party and the state and who's, you know, which main party or even third party is in power in a particular time and in a particular place. And so sometimes women, if they’re party regulars, get swept in on the sort of, the rest of the party, though, again, that's not always true, but it can happen.
GR: So you mentioned the widow's being put in office because they needed the money. And of course, the tradition of a widow taking her husband's place, an elected, that's still with us today, I mean, Lindsey Graham, right? So yeah, that’s very interesting. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Wendy Chmielewski. She's the coauthor of, "Her Hat Was in the Ring: How Women Won the Right to Run for Office in the United States." Let's talk more about the early pioneers in the struggle for elected office. You mentioned the number of women who were elected to school related positions. Was there a next wave after that? How'd it play out?
WC: After the first wave, again, I think that if we wanted to sort of think about this in waves, the second grouping in the 1870s were women who ran for an educational offices, school boards, but also county superintendents of schools. And these were women often, sometimes, women who were part of the suffrage or I should say, women's rights movement at this time, sort of a broader movement than women's suffrage only. And some of them were educational professionals, that is, they were teachers who wanted to move up in the administration, and they were very well-paid positions. Women often were paid the same as men because they were, the salary was set by the state or the local, maybe the county in some cases. And so those were, I think, and sometimes they were women who were, they wanted to be political party participants, though that comes more so a little bit later in maybe the 1890s and after that.
GR: Was there pushback against women holding these kinds of offices early on?
WC: Oh, absolutely, yes. Yes. (laughter)
GR: And the concern was what?
WC: I think that the, there were several concerns. One is that women wouldn't stay long in the position because the typical, sort of idea, just as I think we've probably heard this before, that women would get married and leave. And in some states, women couldn't, married women couldn't hold certain positions, usually not the elected ones, but that was true. Also that there were men who thought women shouldn't get involved in politics. Politics were dirty, they were the sink of corruption and something that women shouldn’t get involved in. And also, that meant there were men who didn't want women to be involved because they wanted the offices for themselves. And a lot of these early women, let's say, in the 1870s and before, were running against men, even for positions on the school board or for the county superintendents of schools. In some cases, these school board positions were steps to hire office for men, occasionally for women, but usually for men.
GR: Interesting.
WC: So those were some of the issues.
GR: And then after these women are running for these other offices, you're kind of talking about, you know, second wave, I guess that's more my language. But was there a significant kind of historical inflection point after that where all of a sudden a different set of offices was seen as being okay for women to run for?
WC: Yes, and the examples that we see this mostly is in California and I think, Iowa, I think it was it Iowa. I'm trying to think, I just came across this, I think actually it was Idaho. Anyway, what happened was that women got full suffrage in those states, in 1912 in California, for example. And almost immediately, so once women have the vote for a certain set of offices, including all of the offices after full suffrage is passed, they can run for any office. The idea is that state constitutions say that the qualifications for being elected to office is that you have to be an elector or a voter, and then women become qualified. But what we see in California is that women get shunted into offices on the county level - county clerk, county treasurer, county recorder. And while women do run for the state legislature in California, after I think 1914 is the first time, they don't really get elected in any large numbers for a long time until after 1920 and the passage of the 19th amendment, which is for federal office, right?
GR: Right, right. And I want to bring us up to that time and beyond. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Wendy Chmielewski. She served as a curator at the Swarthmore College Peace Collection and with Jill Norgren, has recently written "Her Hat Was in the Ring: How Women Won the Right to Run for Office in the United States." You know, I want to go back a little bit in time with this question, but I was wondering whether Reconstruction in the South following the Civil War might have had an effect on this of a of a racist kind. I mean, the argument would be that, you know, look, if black men could hold elective office in some pretty high levels, then why not women, or at least white women, you know, should be able to do the same thing? I believe that was one of the arguments that was advanced at the time on behalf of women voting, as I recall. So, did that play any kind of role in any of this?
WC: Yes. And I think you have to talk about where in the South, because there were some states in in that region where women did run for office, not immediately after Reconstruction, but later on in the 19th century and early 20th century. For example, in Texas, a woman ran for city clerk. In the 1890s, there had been a state Supreme Court case for some of the county and city offices allowing women and people of color to run for office that basically said the voters would decide, and the assumption was that that voters wouldn't elect women or people of color. But after, the first decade of the 20th century, there were women elected as clerk of the district court. And in some cases, depending on the county in Texas, women were also county recorder, and there were quite a few women who ran for that office. So, it just, it depends on where, states are very different.
GR: Yeah. It's a story of federalism, that’s for sure.
WC: Yes.
GR: So, after women get the right to vote, kind of opens things up it sounds like, but there's still some distance to travel for women when it comes to elected offices.
WC: Yes.
GR: So, when does it become normal or almost normal for women to be running for state legislative office, to be running for Congress, to, you know, maybe even run for governor? When does that become more accepted?
WC: So, again, if we're talking after 1920?
GR: Yeah.
WC: Okay. Because before in places like Colorado it was very ordinary for women to run for the state legislature.
GR: Oh okay.
WC: From the 1890s onward, women in the state gain full suffrage in 1893. And immediately the following year, there were a few women elected to the state legislature, well, the lower house, not the Senate. So, women, you know, sort of did that. Now, if we're talking about other parts of the country where it was less likely, you know, it's, again, there are these women who run for governor, who run for the, I mean, you know, Jeannette Rankin was elected from, republican from Montana, she was elected in 1916 for the U.S. Congress. Alice Robertson from Oklahoma was elected in 1920 to the U.S. Congress, she was anti suffrage, by the way. And, so, you know, almost in the 1920s there were women who ran for governor. I think the, you know, usual, not seen as sort of different, I think the 1950s and 60s and even into the 70s before it becomes a much more usual kind of practice.
GR: And thinking back on all that expanse of time, are there one or two women that really strike you as like the trailblazers? The real kind of, this woman really kind of changed the conversation in an important way that you could point to?
WC: Well, I think Jeannette Rankin definitely, that you know, she was the first, she was a suffrage activist. She was part of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. She had campaigned in Washington state before, also then campaigning with other people in Montana where she was elected just a little bit later than the suffrage was passed there. It's sort of hard to say about trailblazing. I think in many ways it was the number of women who, over time were just the full force of the number of women who became symbols and just the, it just became ordinary to see women in some of these elected offices in places like Colorado. By 1900, almost all of the county superintendent schools were women.
GR: Wow, that’s striking. If you've just joined us, you're listening to the "Campbell Conversations" on WRVO Public Media, and my guest is Wendy Chmielewski. She's the coauthor of, "Her Hat Was in the Ring: How Women Won the Right to Run for Office in the United States." So, let's fast forward to today.
WC: Okay.
GR: And, what barriers or hurdles do you think are still in place for women who might want to seek office?
WC: I think some of them are the same ones that women faced early on, which is the idea that women aren't as qualified, that they don't necessarily always have as much access to political party hierarchy, and that, of course, there are women today who do. I think that the expectation is that women have domestic responsibilities still, just as they did in the 19th century. The expectation there and that that is something that women always have to contend with. I think that in some ways, some of the cultural ideas today is that women should not be working outside the home. I mean, this is a slightly more extreme position, but unfortunately, it seems that this is something that is gaining some traction again, that women, that there should be something called a household vote and, which means that, and that the head of the household and it's assumed that a husband is the head of the household and there should be one vote coming from that household. 19th century suffragists would have been outraged, and early 20th century women's rights activists as well.
GR: I think probably people in the 21st century as well (laughter)
WC: Right.
GR: So, I wanted to get your take on this, it's a little bit more of a niche-y type of question, but, I work with veterans who are interested in pursuing elected office. We have a program here at the university where I am, and I work pretty closely with it. And one of the things that is clear to me is, and it's true, you know, in recent years, it's bipartisan, both parties seem to be really keen to recruit women veterans to run under their banner. They view that as some kind of special sauce or perfect combination. I just wonder what your thoughts are on that.
WC: I think that women veterans are seen as having succeeded in a man's world, in the military, that they are realistic, perhaps, they've seen the world. These are not necessarily my thoughts, but I think that that is some of the appeal. They served their country and that this is a plus for arguing that they are qualified for the office. And I think that's probably true of male veterans as well. But this is sort of an extra added plus for women because they, this is sort of a worldly experience that they've had rather than maybe coming through community activism or nonprofits or school board. And of course, in the 19th century and the early 20th century after World War one, some of the same sorts of women who were running for office used some of the similar kinds of arguments, that is, they had served overseas as nurses in World War One, or they had a family member who had served and that was their patriotic contribution, or they had worked for the Red cross, for example. And some of the women who are elected in 1918, 1919 and so on, were, part of their appeal was that they would work for Veterans Affairs as well, for soldiers.
GR: Yeah, that's interesting. Well, we've got about 2 minutes or so left, and I definitely wanted to squeeze this last, one last question, and it's a big one. We haven't talked about the elephant in the room yet, and that's a woman president. And just the political scientist in me will note that women have had a lot more success becoming prime ministers through the parliamentary system, working their way up through the legislature than they've had in presidential systems where they have to run for president. I'm just wondering, you know, in a couple minutes or so, I know you could talk much longer about this, but do you think, like, the combination of Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, have they effectively broken that glass ceiling and now it's just a matter of time, or is this still a big thing that needs, a big hurdle that that needs to get jumped over?
WC: For the presidency?
GR: Yeah.
WC: I, well, it's so hard to say. I don't think that they've broken the glass ceiling. I think if they had they would have been elected, one of them or both. And, you know, we have had a woman speaker of the House, but I'm not sure, Nancy Pelosi, but I'm not sure that there's anybody right now sort of in the wings who would be next. And that's certainly not in the Republican Party, I don't see that. You know, it's been a hundred years since women got the right to vote. Now, not all women, of course, but the ratification. And as we note in the book in the sort of conclusion chapter that the 19th amendment gave women the right to vote, but it did not give them the right to run for elected office. And there were court challenges after in the 1920s about that. And in Oklahoma, women couldn't run for governor until the 1940s. So, I don't know, I'm not particularly optimistic at this moment. Perhaps things will change and we will be able to see more women in the highest office. I mean, of course, Kamala Harris was vice president, and that was a great step forward.
GR: Well, we'll have to leave it there. That was Wendy Chmielewski and again with Jill Norgren, her new book is titled, "Her Hat Was in the Ring: How Women Won the Right to Run for Office in the United States." Wendy, thanks so much for talking with me. This book teaches us a lot, and it's a lot of stuff that is surprising, so congratulations on it.
WC: Thank you. It was a pleasure.
GR: You've been listening to the "Campbell Conversations" on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.
