Since I received so many helpful messages (apologies if you haven't
received a private thank you yet) in response to my question about
anti-suffragist attitudes, as well as a couple of "wish I could be
there"s, I thought I'd send a summary of sorts of what happened.
 
The "Woman's Work is Never Done" event was held this last weekend
(10/8-9).  The schedule of events was the same for both days, and
all events occurred at our 1876 town hall:
 
11 a.m. Speaker on reform dress
 1 p.m. Suffrage rally (all village buildings closed for this)
        -- Introduction
        -- Speech "Woman and Politics"
        -- My opposition piece
        -- Song "I am a Suffragette"
        -- Speech "Woman's Ability and Disability"
        -- Joke (punchline:  if right to suffrage = right to suffer,
           women have had right to suffrage for a long time <ha, ha>)
        -- Song "Victory is Coming" (tune of "Battle Hymn of the
           Republic," same refrain and visitors invited to join in)
        -- Handing out pledge cards with request for donation (they
           made US$1.02 :^) of a few cents
 3 p.m. Speaker on woman's rights
 
At the morning meeting on Saturday, we learned that the NEH consultants,
who were supposed to be locked up in a working session all day, had been
unable to resist the lure of the suffrage rally, and would be in attendance.
Gulp.  And I had already heard that one of the consultants disliked the
name of our program:  she thought "Woman's Work..." sounded too menial.
 
The building I was interpreting that day had the "cult of domesticity" as
a theme, so I was in a good place to discuss anti-suffrage.  By and large,
the male visitors enjoyed it, punctuating my comments with "hear, hear,"
and "I wish my wife could hear this."  The women were interested, if a
little wary (except for one 30-something woman who proclaimed herself
opposed to suffrage for women).  Several groups asked me what I, personally,
believed.  We interpret the buildings third person, so I told them.  :^)
 
The rally, however, was first person.  The town hall was set up with chairs
for the suffragettes in a row near the podium in front.  A couple of the
interpreters were seated in the crowd, a couple more (including me) standing
in back among the rest of the visitors.
 
Before the rally, both the suffragettes and those opposed mingled with the
visitors, trying to drum up support.  Then we got down to business, and
the rally began.  After the first speaker, I had to speak my piece, some-
thing that seems to be an editorial from an 1857 issue of _The Sibyl_:
 
        What a grand comedy it would be if woman could vote!  How
        spiteful they would get! how excited! how nervous!  And just
        imaging a woman, here and there carried away from the polls,
        on election day, in hysterics! for of course they would be.
        They would dispute, and say things, and get to crying.  I know
        it's a way they have.  Of all the beautiful ordainings of Divine
        Wisdom, nothing seems to me more beautiful than the strong wall
        built about women, by the respect and reverence which good men
        are constrained to feel for good women.  Even the advocates of
        "Woman's Rights" (most wrongly named) reap the advantages of this
        protection.  On the principle that the sun shines alike upon the
        good and the evil.  If ever that faction prevails in this land
        of license, miscalled liberty, I intend to try to persuade my
        husband to go to some other country, where the men are men and
        the women are true to their finer and better natures.
 
[When I finished this on Sunday, there was a distinct "Good riddance!"
out of the audience.  :-]  During the rest of the speeches and songs, I
contented myself with directing "rude" comments to one of the male inter-
preters or to the visitors around me.  It wasn't intentional, but I found
out on Sunday after work that the suffragettes all the way in front could
also hear my comments, and were reacting with shock and disdain.  Just in
case the visitors were curious to hear the full speeches/songs, I tried to
insert the comments during pauses, and apparently my voice carried.  At
one point in the song "I am a Suffragette," e.g., the lyrics say that the
singer won't marry until "I my suffrage get," and I commented that all of
the men were happy to hear that.  In a speech that said that women at the
polls would elevate the tone and curb the rowdy element, I said that these
women were fools if they thought they could touch a sooty stove and not have
their hands come away black.  When asked about education, I agreed that women
should be educated enough to bring up their children -- and I got all the
education I needed every Sunday at church.  When told that women weren't
subservient, I quoted Genesis and Ephesians (thanks, J.H. :^).  When some of
the men in the audience sang the refrain from "Victory is Coming," despite
the fact that I reminded them that the suffragettes couldn't force them to,
I told them I understood -- their wives were among the band of suffragettes,
weren't they.  But, surprisingly enough, the biggest reaction I got out of
the crowd occurred on Sunday during an exchange I was having with one of
the suffragettes.  This is how it ran:
 
ME   "A woman who wants a vote of her own is a woman who lacks faith in her
      husband's ability to make the right choice."
GWEN "I challenge you to find me one woman here who has never disagreed with
      her husband."
ME   "I have never once disagreed with my husband."
GWEN "Then you have been more fortunate than I."
ME   "Maybe that's because you chose your own husband, rather than allowing
      yourself to be guided by your parents."
 
Half the people in the room either stirred in their chairs at that point, or
gasped.  One of the suffragettes told me later that one women down in front
actually sat straight up in her chair and turned around to stare at me.  I
was surprised that out of everything I said, that evoked the most reaction.
Well, the most reaction _during_ the rally, anyway.  On Saturday, 3 women I
had been discussing suffrage with at the rally and who were most vocal in
their opposition of me came into my building after the rally, and one of them
told me that she didn't like me as soon as I sat down next to her.
 
Many of the visitors told us that they really enjoyed the presentations.  I
heard that the NEH consultants loved it, but the only thing I've heard from
our curator directly is that the gentleman who was there from Ft Ticonderoga
thought having the interpreters mixed in with the crowd in back, working them,
was great.  The rumor I've heard is that they only had two negative points to
make:  one of the speakers stumbled a good bit over her speech, and one of the
speeches was apparently deemed a bit too controversial.  If I can't wait until
Friday night (we're having a Lamplight Tour, and I'm working), I'll probably
call on a lunch hour to get the scoop from the curator.
 
If you are interested, and have any specific questions, please feel free to
contact me directly.  I tried to be relatively brief in this message.
 
Renee Raduechel
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