42. Season III, Episode IV: Women’s Suffrage and the ERA
A full transcript of this episode is available here.
This week, we are exploring women's suffrage, the Equal Rights Amendment, and how presidents have stymied or supported women's rights.
In 1776, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband and urged him to remember the ladies as he worked to craft a government for the new nation. But it wasn't until 1919 that Congress actually passed a constitutional amendment that prohibited denying voting rights on the basis of sex. And not until the 1960s did Congress pass legislation that applied civil rights to all people, regardless of race.
Even with this legislation, women regularly earned less than their male counterparts, were disadvantaged in divorce and property disputes, and were generally not treated equally under the law. Congress finally passed an Equal Rights Amendment in 1972, but not until 2020 did the requisite number of states ratify the amendment, and its legal status remains questionable.
This week, we have two fantastic guests to discuss the presidential politics of women’s rights. First, we spoke with Dr. Kimberly Hamlin about the women behind the women’s suffrage movement, and the ways in which race and gender were pitted against each other in the fight for equality. Kimberly Hamlin is an award-winning historian, author, and professor specializing the history of women, gender and sex in the United States. Dr. Hamlin’s most recent book is Free Thinker: Sex, Suffrage, and the Extraordinary Life of Helen Hamilton Gardner.
We then spoke with Lisa McCubbin about the Equal Rights Amendment and First Lady Betty Ford's groundbreaking support for the amendment. We also discussed Betty Ford's incredible activism on women's health, her impact on the role of first lady, and of course what that meant for the bully pulpit. Lisa McCubbin is an award-winning journalist and author of four New York times bestselling books, including Betty Ford: First Lady, Women’s Advocate, Survivor, Trailblazer.
Guests:
Dr. Kimberly Hamlin is Professor of History and Global and Intercultural Studies at Miami University at Oxford.
Dr. Kimberly A. Hamlin is an award-winning historian, author, and professor specializing in the history of women, gender, and sex in the United States. Her most recent book Free Thinker: Sex, Suffrage, and the Extraordinary Life of Helen Hamilton Gardener (March 2020, W.W. Norton) tells the fascinating story of the “fallen woman” who reinvented herself and became “the most potent factor” in Congressional passage of the Nineteenth Amendment and the highest-ranking woman in federal government. Free Thinker centers both sex and race in the history of women’s rights and in the long struggle for the vote. The American Library Association’s Booklist magazine named Free Thinker a “Top Ten Biography of 2020;” it comes out in paperback in July 2022. This project received both the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Public Scholar Award and the Carrie Chapman Catt Award for Research on Women and Politics. Hamlin is also the author of From Eve to Evolution: Darwin, Science, and Women’s Rights in Gilded Age America (University of Chicago Press, 2014).
A regular contributor to the Washington Post’s “Made by History” column and other media, Hamlin speaks to audiences across the country about women’s and gender history. Her research on women, gender, science, and politics has been featured in various media outlets including NPR, CBC radio, and Vice.
Follow Dr. Hamlin on Twitter @ProfessorHamlin.
Lisa McCubbin is an award-winning journalist and the author of four New York Times bestselling books.
Lisa McCubbin is an award-winning journalist and the author of four New York Times bestselling books. Including her latest, Betty Ford: First Lady, Women’s Advocate, Survivor, Trailblazer the landmark biography of one of the most influential First Ladies of the 20th century.
Betty Ford: First Lady, Women’s Advocate, Survivor, Trailblazer is the inspiring story of an ordinary Midwestern girl thrust onto the world stage and into the White House under extraordinary circumstances. Setting a precedent as First Lady, Betty Ford refused to be silenced by her critics as she publicly championed equal rights for women, and spoke out about issues that had previously been taboo—breast cancer, depression, abortion, and sexuality.
A graduate of Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, Ms. McCubbin has been a television news anchor and reporter, hosted her own radio talk show, and spent six years in the Middle East as a freelance journalist in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and Doha, Qatar. She has written numerous books about presidential history, and you can learn more about her work at lisamcccubbin.com.
Follow Lisa McCubbin on Twitter @lisa_mccubbin.