Analysis Bad Romance
Suffragist Mother (1:36-1:40)
This segment shows women of various
backgrounds abandoning their “women’s
work” in order to join the National
Women’s Party and campaign for suffrage. The
clip of a mother handing her crying baby off to her
husband is reminiscent of anti-suffrage
cartoons from that
period.
Force-Feeding Alice Paul (1:44-1:54)
Throughout the video Alice Paul is
occasionally depicted in a straight jacket, and during this particular segment
she is held down by guards and force
fed_.
In November
1917, while imprisoned, Paul began a
hunger strike to protest the mistreatment of the
suffragists .
Fearing her
death, prison officials regularly force
fed high protein liquids to Alice Paul,
especially raw eggs.
This
procedure is depicted in awful detail in the film Iron
Jawed Angels, with Hilary Swank portraying Alice Paul.
Anti-Suffragette
(2:22-2:38)
This segment
is modeled on a political cartoon from the October 9th, 1915 issue
of Puck.9 Both the cartoon and the video
clip suggest that the fraction of the female population that opposed suffrage was largely supported by the male dominated interests.
The 19th Amendment
(2:38-2:46)
Alice Paul
reads the 19 th Amendment as it is submitted to
the states. President Wilson appears concerned as the anti-suffragists make the
disapproval apparent. Early in his Presidency Woodrow Wilson_took little action
with regard to women’s suffrage, but by the middle of his second term he
publicly offered his support to the cause. Despite Wilson’s advocacy, the
amendment failed twice before receiving a two-thirds majority of the Senate on
May 21st, 1919.
Silent
Sentinels (3:14-3:26)
The Silent
Sentinels were a group of women, organized by Alice Paul, that conducted the
first-ever pickets in front of the White House Beginning in May of 1917, they
would stand outside the gates of the
White House six days a week, quietly holding National Woman’s Party
banners and signs .
The Silent
Sentinels were regularly subjected to insults and threats, and arrested on
charges of “obstructing traffic” and disorderly conduct.
The Silent
Sentinels’ protests ended after Congress passed the 19th Amendment in
May of 1919.
“Remember the
Ladies” (3:27-3:43)
This segment
concludes with what is likely the most famous quote made by Abigail Adams. On
March 31st, 1776, she wrote John Adams,
advising him to “remember the ladies” when he and his contemporaries would
craft a new, independent government. That statement is followed with the
warning that, “If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we
are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any
law in which we have no voice or representation.”
The War of
the Roses and Harry Burn (3:51-4:18)
On August 18th, 1920,
Tennessee became the 36th state to
ratify the 19th Amendment.
The vote in
the Tennessee House of Representatives, the state’s lower house, was tense.
Over the previous few months Mississippi,
Louisiana, and Delaware had rejected the opportunity to be the 36th and final
state necessary for ratification, and the vote in Tennessee was expected to be
close.
On that day
supporters of women’s suffrage wore
yellow roses on their lapels (following the tradition of
associating yellow or gold with
universal suffrage ), while opponents
sported red roses.
The vote,
ultimately, came down to a single representative. Harry Burn, at twenty-four
the youngest member of the Tennessee House.
Expected to
cast his vote with the anti-suffrage caucus, and, according to legend, wearing
a red rose on his lapel, Burn stunned the legislature by casting his vote in
favour of the amendment.
He later said
that it was his mother who changed his mind, with a letter advising him to “be a good boy” and
“hurrah and vote for suffrage.”
