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How the Pandemic Helped (and Hurt) the Struggle for Women's Rights · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye,
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  Speaker 1: welcome to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, it's your
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  Speaker 1: favorite or some of your favorite Quentin Quarantine. It is
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  Speaker 1: coming to you live and direct in the middle of
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  Speaker 1: a pandemic. You might recognize that it's been in the
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  Speaker 1: news pretty often. I don't know what you're talking about.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: It's like a it's like a real life tiny Grinch
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  Speaker 1: rolling through your your local holidays. As this episode comes out,
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  Speaker 1: it is Thanksgiving. It's Thanksgiving a mid a pandemic. We
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  Speaker 1: hope that you are being safe. Uh, and we wish
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  Speaker 1: you many many wonderful in person Thanksgivings in the years
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  Speaker 1: to come. But a lot of people right now in
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  Speaker 1: the US are celebrating Thanksgiving in a different way because
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  Speaker 1: the pandemic has affected our normal traditions and rituals. And
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  Speaker 1: today's episode is about a pandemic. It's about the effects
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  Speaker 1: that a pandemic can have. And we thought this was
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  Speaker 1: an interesting one to explore with you today. Uh, we'll
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  Speaker 1: we'll we'll maybe pose the question first a super producer,
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  Speaker 1: Casey Pegram Casey, did you know that the nineteen eighteen
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  Speaker 1: pandemic affected the fight for women's rights. No. Um, when
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  Speaker 1: I saw this topic come up, I was like super intrigued,
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  Speaker 1: and I've kind of been trying to think in my head, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: how could that have worked out that way? But UM,
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  Speaker 1: I haven't really come up with any answer, so I'm
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  Speaker 1: curious to hear. Yeah, I I don't want to speak
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  Speaker 1: for you know that I had no idea about this
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  Speaker 1: relationship either. I didn't either. UM. And it all comes
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  Speaker 1: BacT to the Spanish flu pandemic that we often have
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  Speaker 1: compared to this pandemic that we're living through right now,
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  Speaker 1: a lot of similar kind of politicization of mask wearing.
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  Speaker 1: There were a lot of interesting parallels. UM. So let's
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  Speaker 1: put it under perspective a little bit. Um. It left
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  Speaker 1: more than fifty million people dead, um and including around
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  Speaker 1: six hundred This was in the entire world, including around
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  Speaker 1: six hundred and seventy thousand the United States, obviously much
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  Speaker 1: more deadly than the coronavirus pandemic. UM. And we've talked
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  Speaker 1: about this compared to you know, figures of war deaths.
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  Speaker 1: World War One, which was ended just as the flu
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  Speaker 1: started to reach its peak, only killed around seventeen million people.
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  Speaker 1: That's a third of the fatalities caused by the Spanish flu,
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  Speaker 1: and the war kind of led to the perfect conditions
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  Speaker 1: for like super spreader type events UM because of the Again,
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  Speaker 1: it was spread airborne in the same way that the
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  Speaker 1: coronavirus is. Respiratory droplets were exhaled by folks who were infected,
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  Speaker 1: and oftentimes these military men UM spent there were young
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  Speaker 1: men spent a long periods of time in very very
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  Speaker 1: close quarters and barracks and um, you know, in actual trenches,
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  Speaker 1: UM with other soldiers and all that proximity and obviously
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  Speaker 1: like or it's it's a it's a lot of exertion
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  Speaker 1: that that would cause you to expel those droplets and
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  Speaker 1: then you had malnutrition. It's kind of created this perfect
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  Speaker 1: storm of weakened immune systems and all of that close
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  Speaker 1: contact and the virus just spread like gangbusters. Yeah, the
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  Speaker 1: the war actually helped the virus perfect itself, evolving through
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  Speaker 1: several waves of infection. In each new wave was more
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  Speaker 1: dangerous than the last. A lot of troops were all
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  Speaker 1: aready doomed before they reached Europe because they picked the
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  Speaker 1: flu up on the packed troops ships. If there was
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  Speaker 1: a single infected soldier on the ship. Then the virus
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  Speaker 1: could spread to everyone there was. There was no way
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  Speaker 1: to stop it, and when the soldiers returned to the US,
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  Speaker 1: they became the perfect distribution method for this infection. Think
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  Speaker 1: about it, They've contracted this and now they're spreading it
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  Speaker 1: to their home states. Goodbye Kansas, Goodbye New York. Nice
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  Speaker 1: to meet you, Georgia. You know what I mean. This
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  Speaker 1: becomes very dangerous, very quickly. However, it was more than
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  Speaker 1: just male conscription in the war that led to a
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  Speaker 1: higher number of men being infected and dying from the flu.
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  Speaker 1: Even back at home with populations that were never involved
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  Speaker 1: in the war effort, the death rate for men still
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  Speaker 1: exceeded the death rate for women. The demographic studies showed
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  Speaker 1: nearly a hundred and seventy five thousand more men died
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  Speaker 1: than women in eighteen alone, and in general, role epidemics
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  Speaker 1: tend to kill more dudes than do debts. In disease
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  Speaker 1: outbreaks throughout known history, including famines, women have a longer
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  Speaker 1: life expectancy than men, as presented in Smithsonian, and often
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  Speaker 1: will have higher rates of surviving something if they are infected.
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  Speaker 1: Researchers in the modern days still don't know the exact
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  Speaker 1: reason why this occurs, but there's definitely more to the story.
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  Speaker 1: And speaking more to the story, it turns out this
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  Speaker 1: flu for all the horrible things that did, played a
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  Speaker 1: role in women's rights because the epidemic was so profound
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  Speaker 1: that parts of the economy in the US temporarily shut down.
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  Speaker 1: In might give you a little bit of deja vu, right, folks.
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  Speaker 1: Cold deliveries in New England were so severely affected that
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  Speaker 1: people froze to death because they weren't able to keep
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  Speaker 1: their homes heated. Researchers estimate that just for a stamp
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  Speaker 1: shot in businesses in Little Rock, Arkansas, there was a
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  Speaker 1: decline of forty percent. This is an existential threat to
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  Speaker 1: the economy and businesses, and it also occurs during a
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  Speaker 1: worker shortage. Right, people are going to war, Yes, people
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  Speaker 1: are also calling and sick to work or dying. So
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  Speaker 1: the labor market is increasingly desperate and it opens two women.
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  Speaker 1: And now, because of this these two huge factors, an
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  Speaker 1: unprecedented number of women take jobs outside the home. That's right,
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  Speaker 1: and after the war um the number of women in
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  Speaker 1: the workforce went up by and before that around n
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  Speaker 1: women only made up So it's definitely on the rise,
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  Speaker 1: and that was of all gainfully employed individuals in the
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  Speaker 1: United States. And you know, you often hear about what
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  Speaker 1: is it um rosie the riveter and all that stuff,
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  Speaker 1: and the idea of women stepping up and filling in
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  Speaker 1: the jobs for their male counterparts when they were away. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: it's often attributed to World War One alone, but it
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  Speaker 1: actually had to do with the pandemic, the nineteen eighteen flu,
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  Speaker 1: because that's when women began to move into roles that
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  Speaker 1: previously had only been occupied by men in manufacturing. And
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  Speaker 1: like we said, that's because men were more susceptible to
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  Speaker 1: this flu for whatever reason. So women began to the
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  Speaker 1: let's say, the this the guidelines, the strictures surrounding the
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  Speaker 1: employment of women in terms of jobs they had been
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  Speaker 1: banned from or that men were exclusively you know, the
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  Speaker 1: ones occupying those roles. All that stuff was loose and significantly,
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  Speaker 1: for example, in the textile industry or other manufacturing roles.
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  Speaker 1: And when they realized that they were needed, perhaps they
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  Speaker 1: were needed more than they needed them. And by them,
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  Speaker 1: I mean like the man, they started to demand equal
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  Speaker 1: pay because they had this leverage and they were becoming
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  Speaker 1: a really important part of the economic system, right, Yeah, exactly.
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  Speaker 1: With that empowerment, we see more progress, We see more
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  Speaker 1: active advocacy for other issues, not just equal pay, but hey,
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  Speaker 1: what about the right to vote? You know what I mean?
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  Speaker 1: Why am I supporting this economy if I don't have
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  Speaker 1: a say in politics? Great question. The crisis also helped
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  Speaker 1: change society's minds about how women fit into society in general.
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  Speaker 1: Increased participation in the workforce allowed a lot of people
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  Speaker 1: to have unprecedented social and financial independence. Leadership positions in
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  Speaker 1: the workforce, as you indicated, Noel could now be occupied
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  Speaker 1: by women who had historically ran into a glass ceiling
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  Speaker 1: it's called and still continue to today. But now it
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  Speaker 1: was normalized to say, hey, my boss in the garment
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  Speaker 1: industry is a woman, or hey, my supervisor, my boss
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  Speaker 1: in military and police forces also a woman. The U
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  Speaker 1: scot its first female governor when Nellie Taylor Ross took
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  Speaker 1: her oath of office in Wyoming in ninete Yeah, and
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  Speaker 1: even like the president started getting in on the game,
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  Speaker 1: like Resident Woodrow Wilson started to defend women's rights in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen, saying that they were a valuable part of
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  Speaker 1: the American War effort and the economy in general. Um,
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  Speaker 1: and that they should be given the right to vote. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: he talked about it in an address to the Senate,
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  Speaker 1: and he had this specific quote, Nash Wall could not
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  Speaker 1: have been fought if it had not been for the
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  Speaker 1: services off of the women, services rendered in every sphere either.
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  Speaker 1: That's the quote goes on. But I don't want to
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  Speaker 1: subject everybody to that voice for too long. Blog story short.
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  Speaker 1: What's really happening here not so much altruism on good
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  Speaker 1: old Woodrow's side, but more the political reality. Politicians have
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  Speaker 1: to acknowledge this empowered segment of the population. And it
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  Speaker 1: gets tricky because women in America campaigning for suffrage the
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  Speaker 1: right to vote found themselves fighting three different rattles at once,
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  Speaker 1: fighting against the problems brought by the flu, fighting against
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  Speaker 1: the ongoing issues and ripple effects of World War One,
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  Speaker 1: which just recently ended, and then fighting the people who were,
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  Speaker 1: for some ridiculous reason, just staunchly opposed to women's suffrage. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: One local suffragist in nineteen eighteen told the New Orleans Times,
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  Speaker 1: pick a you and quote everything conspires against women's suffrage,
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  Speaker 1: and you know what, you can see how someone would
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  Speaker 1: feel that way. They have been fighting for women's rights
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  Speaker 1: to vote for seventy years. Victory seemed almost in reach.
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  Speaker 1: As we said, President Wilson had come out in support
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  Speaker 1: of amending the constitution for this House of Representatives had
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  Speaker 1: already passed it. But that all happened before the Spanish
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  Speaker 1: flu struck. And just like things were rolling along at
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  Speaker 1: a pretty quick pace before COVID nineteen struck, we we
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  Speaker 1: see the same results. Right, everything went haywire. That's right.
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  Speaker 1: The first wave of the flu began to just burn
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  Speaker 1: its way through the country in nineteen eighteen during the spring,
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  Speaker 1: and then it's sort of abated a little bit by
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  Speaker 1: the summer. But this this kind of through a wrench
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  Speaker 1: in the works. Actually was during that time that Senate
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  Speaker 1: Democrats dominated by a lot of Democrats from the South.
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  Speaker 1: Different time for Democrats versus Republicans in terms of, you know,
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  Speaker 1: the attitudes we may be ascribed to those parties. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: they were pushing to actually put a hold on giving
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  Speaker 1: black women, uh the right to vote. Um, and we're
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  Speaker 1: refusing to pass this bill that would send the suffrage
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  Speaker 1: Amendment to the states for ratification, and votes were announced,
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  Speaker 1: then canceled, and then by the early fall, the suffragists
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  Speaker 1: could see that they were only two votes short of
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  Speaker 1: the two thirds majority they needed to pass the law.
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  Speaker 1: Um And and there's a really interesting quote from Carrie
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  Speaker 1: Chapman Kat, who was the president of the National American
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  Speaker 1: Women Suffrage Association, in a letter that she wrote to
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  Speaker 1: supporters of the movement in nineteen eighteen, she said, these
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  Speaker 1: are sad times for the whole world, grown unexpectedly sadder
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  Speaker 1: by the sudden and sweeping epidemic of influenza. This new
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  Speaker 1: affliction is bringing sorrow into many suffrage homes and is
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  Speaker 1: presenting a serious new obstacle and our referendum campaigns and
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  Speaker 1: in the congressional and senatorial campaigns, we must therefore be
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  Speaker 1: prepared for failure, grim news, dire times. Just like the
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  Speaker 1: pandemic today, the infection itself doesn't discriminate too much when
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  Speaker 1: it comes to victims. Over in Congress, the powerful Speaker
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  Speaker 1: of the House at the time, a gentleman named Champ Clark.
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  Speaker 1: I feel like that's that's quite a gambit to name
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  Speaker 1: your child Champ, you know what I mean. Maybe it's
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  Speaker 1: that nominative determinism thing at play, or maybe they were
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  Speaker 1: thinking it was gonna give him a leg up, or
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  Speaker 1: at the very least, you know, maybe he'd get so
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  Speaker 1: bullied in high school that he would toughen up and
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  Speaker 1: become you know, his namesake. Yeah, yeah, I mean maybe
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  Speaker 1: it was short for Champlain or camp Jamin. I don't know,
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  Speaker 1: I'm not his parents. Uh So, anyhow, he is a
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  Speaker 1: powerful speaker of the House. He's done well, so maybe
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  Speaker 1: not beative determinism plays a role in that. But he
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  Speaker 1: catches the flu and while the suffrage bill is in
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  Speaker 1: limbo over in the Senate, the galleries that the suffragists
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  Speaker 1: sat in to keep an eye on proceedings were closed
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  Speaker 1: due to health concerns, and the US Public Health Service
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  Speaker 1: issued a national advisory to all local health departments to
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  Speaker 1: prohibit large meetings and gatherings. And this means that the
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  Speaker 1: campaigns for women's suffrage are compromised. Organizers have to postpone
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  Speaker 1: a huge train tour on the second floor of the
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  Speaker 1: Suffrage House in d C. Carrie Chapman cat was bedridden
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  Speaker 1: by the flu and was you know, could have been
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  Speaker 1: out of the movement entirely, but she was to termined.
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  Speaker 1: Two consult on strategy with a friend of hers and
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  Speaker 1: close ally of the president, a guy named John Walsh
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  Speaker 1: who was a Senator for Montana at the time. But
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  Speaker 1: then boom, boom, womp womp, he also gets struck low
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  Speaker 1: by the flu. Cat can't come downstairs from her bed.
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  Speaker 1: She can't move. Walsh does not have the strength to
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  Speaker 1: walk up the stairs. So get this. They're sharing strategy
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  Speaker 1: on winning the right to vote by having an intermediary
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  Speaker 1: walk up and down the stairs relaying their messages to
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  Speaker 1: each other. It's weird. It's super weird. UM And at
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  Speaker 1: this point the pandemic was working its way west after
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  Speaker 1: you know, decimating UM. The East coast UH and the
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  Speaker 1: referendum state of South Dakota took heavy losses. There's another
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  Speaker 1: quote from a local organizer here from the National Geographic
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  Speaker 1: article pandemic nearly dere ailed Women's suffrage UH, saying this,
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  Speaker 1: just when we had plans developed for a renewed and
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  Speaker 1: revised campaign, along comes the influenza and cuts off all
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  Speaker 1: possibility of public speaking and even meetings in open air.
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  Speaker 1: So many homes have been touched in each locality, if
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  Speaker 1: not with the actual disease, with the dreadful fear, which
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  Speaker 1: seems to be worse that we have not been able
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  Speaker 1: to work with the individual voter. This is all ringing
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  Speaker 1: eerily true, is it not been? Whatever are you talking
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  Speaker 1: about being of what's yeah? Exactly. They weren't able to
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  Speaker 1: raise money. So many of these these incredibly devoted women's
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  Speaker 1: suffrage movement volunteers began to have to start volunteering for
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  Speaker 1: the Red Cross instead or in hospitals. Right, yeah, it's
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  Speaker 1: it's a terrible confluence of events, and so the suffrage movement,
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  Speaker 1: uh improvises, adapts, overcomes. Thank you too ever made that bank?
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  Speaker 1: Name what they what? Here's what they do. So there
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  Speaker 1: are these bands on large public gatherings. It makes sense
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  Speaker 1: even though some kind of sleazy political opportunists are using
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  Speaker 1: it to repress this righteous movement. Uh it does make
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  Speaker 1: medical sense to prohibit large gatherings. So these suffragists switched
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  Speaker 1: to a personal touch approach. They reach out directly to
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  Speaker 1: their neighbors and friends. They're emphasizing their patriotism. They're quoting
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  Speaker 1: the statements of Woodrow Wilson saying that votes for women
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  Speaker 1: is a reward for their sacrifice during the Great War.
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  Speaker 1: They didn't call it World War One at the time.
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  Speaker 1: You know, we're an optimistic species. National headquarters provided millions
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  Speaker 1: of pamphlets for distribution door to door, and then weekly
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  Speaker 1: bulletins that you could place in local newspapers. People signed
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  Speaker 1: petitions urging male voters, because like, how messed up is this?
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  Speaker 1: If there's a referendum, who on women voting? Who gets
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  Speaker 1: to vote? Not the women? They don't get to vote
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  Speaker 1: on their own referendum. Imagine that. So they were urging
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  Speaker 1: these male voters, who are already enfranchised two try to
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  Speaker 1: pass referendums in four states granting the right to vote.
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  Speaker 1: And the extensive grassroots organizing that the movement had perfected
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  Speaker 1: already carried the day because long before the Spanish flu
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  Speaker 1: came around, these organizers have been laying the basis for
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  Speaker 1: their campaigns. Each city and town in each state had
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  Speaker 1: its own organization linked to a coherent, cohesive national strategy.
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  Speaker 1: People have developed these very sophisticated political skills, and all
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  Speaker 1: this preparation was crucial because hey, guess what, while we're
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: speaking about history rhyming, if it doesn't repeat, these folks,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: we're voting during an epidemic. Yeah, and that didn't go over? Well,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: do they have mail in ballots? Then? Ben Yeah, it's
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  Speaker 1: It's interesting because absentee ballots first started in the military
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: during the Civil War here in the US, and for
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: a long time after you could vote by mail if
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: you could not go to the polling place on election day. Nowadays,
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  Speaker 1: of course some states land be used for convenience, but
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: they're still referred to as absentee ballots. Got it, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: So I wonder I don't know, like this is for
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: a conversation for another day, but I wonder how many
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  Speaker 1: people turned to using absentee ballots during this because it's true, Uh,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: you could argue that the epidemics suppressed the voter turnout. Um,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: there worth three million fewer ballots cast in the nineteen
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: fourteen mid term, but I wonder how many of those
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  Speaker 1: were mailing. Nonetheless, Um, but the suffrage referendums in Oklahoma, uh,
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  Speaker 1: South Dakota, and Michigan were all able to pass with
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: a decent a decent little cushion, which is great. And
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  Speaker 1: this wouldn't have happened without the incredible dedication of the
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: suffragist movements, UM participants and and and allies. But it
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: really stemmed from, I think, in a larger scale than
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: that that appreciation that was becoming more part of the
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  Speaker 1: zeitgeist of the role that women played during the war
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  Speaker 1: and the pandemic, the combination of the two, um so
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  Speaker 1: it was you know, it really was kind of a
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  Speaker 1: good example of seeing a sea change in attitudes that
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  Speaker 1: was brought about by you know, some horrible stuff, but ultimately,
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  Speaker 1: you know, helped push things forward. That's right. Only the
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  Speaker 1: Louisiana referendum failed, and this was the first referendum in
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  Speaker 1: the South. And as we've as we've established earlier, uh,
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  Speaker 1: women's suffrage was starting off at a disadvantage because a
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  Speaker 1: lot of the political mechanisms of the time were terrified
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  Speaker 1: by the idea of African American women voting, of having
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  Speaker 1: the power to overturn long held racist attitudes and institutions.
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  Speaker 1: Women in New York State, whose constitution had been amended
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  Speaker 1: to grant them full voting rights just a year earlier,
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  Speaker 1: they showed up at the polls in huge numbers. During
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  Speaker 1: the nineteen eighteen election. The activists we mentioned earlier, Cats
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  Speaker 1: was still recovering from the flu, insisted on going to
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  Speaker 1: cast her ballot. It was the first ballot she was
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  Speaker 1: ever able to cast, and then on November twenty, nineteen eighteen,
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  Speaker 1: World War One drew to a close. The flu had
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  Speaker 1: one more punch left during the winter, kind of like
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: towards the end of a horror movie, right when the
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  Speaker 1: hand shoots up from the grave, you know. Uh. And
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  Speaker 1: this weekend President Wilson. So Republicans won control of both
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  Speaker 1: houses of the new Congress, and in June nine, lo
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  Speaker 1: and behold, the Senate finally passed the suffrage bill eighteen
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  Speaker 1: months after the House. Now it was time for the
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  Speaker 1: next battle. They had to get three fourths of the
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: United States, like the actual states, to ratify the amendment.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: And so for the next fifteen months, the activists fought
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: incredibly hard. They were hard on the paint to try
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: to get at least thirty six states to ratify this bill,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: and people were still getting sick. February Alloysis Larch Millard, UH,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: prominent activists, gets out of her sick bed while she's
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: infected with the flu, to testify before the Oklahoma Democratic
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Party Convention on behalf of ratification and the equal right
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: to vote. And she wins this argument, but she dies
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: of pneumonia. So it's a pyric victory of a sort.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Months after the flu was abated, the pandemic has claimed
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: one of its most prominent victims, and it was Tennessee.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Shout out to the volunteer state that pushed the nineteenth
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Amendment all the way across the finish line, and thus
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: pandemic not muthstanding. On August. Women's suffrage is inscribed in
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: the US Constitution. Can we get a round of applause
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: for that? Yeah? Come on, Oh, okay, that's it's excited.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: It's amazing. I had no idea that this played such
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: an important part in this UM, but it makes perfect sense.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: It's one of these things that, like, you know, obviously
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: nobody would have wished this horrible plague upon the country
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: that obviously killed you know, millions of people. But there
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: is this kind of silver lining, isn't there? Outside of
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: the workplace, women started to become more involved in, like
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: making important civic decisions. UM, women's roles socially began to change.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: There was just an increased kind of you know, groundswell
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: of support in much more mainstream kind of way for
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: women's rights. Uh. And then the National Federation of Business
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: and Professional Women's Clubs was founded in nineteen nineteen, and
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: that organization's goal was to eliminate discrimination based on gender
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: in the workplace and focusing on things like getting equal
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: pay for women and creating an amendment to the Constitution
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: that focused on equal rights for all. You know, it's
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: not something we've always done very well with in this country.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: It's something we're still struggling with to this day. Um So, Yeah,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: while the nineteen eighteen uh flu pandemic was absolutely devastating,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: um you know, could be considered one of the kind
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: of red letter tragic events in the history of this country,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: it did have this really important kind of silver lining, right, Yeah, absolutely,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: because that's that's one thing that people often forget. You know,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: historical events do not occur in a vacuum of any sort.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: And so the pandemic both helped and hindered the fight
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: for women's equality, and of course, women's rights are human rights.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: I believe that Anna Layman, executive director of the Women's
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Suffrage Centennial Commission, sums it up perfectly when she says
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: it's easy to find inspiration in these activist stories and
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: their work. There's a refrain of if the suffragists can
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: do what they did, then we can get through this
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: inspiring now, it really is. Yeah, I'm wondering what the
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: silver lining is gonna be to this. I can think
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: of one without having to get to political here. Um,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: but I wonder what history will say about the the
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: coronavirus pandemic, and you know, if there was some positive
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: change that it brought about in the world. Yeah. Isn't
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: it crazy that grad students in the future are going
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: to say, like, oh, instead of saying I'm majored in
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: the twenty one century, They're gonna be like, I'm majored
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: in March. That's my concentration. Here's my book. It's it's nuts.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: So much stuff has occurred. We hope that you enjoy
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: this story. We hope you find it inspiring. We hope
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: you know, of course, that the Spanish flu is a misnomer.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: It's kind of an unfair name. It just got its
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: name from the fact that newspapers in Spain were the
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: first ones to report the flu. Other countries had kept
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: silent because they didn't want to reveal a perceived weakness
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: to the enemy, So it's unfair to call it the
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: Spanish flu. The ten eighteen pandemic wrought massive change and
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: massive damage to society and our species. But we made
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: it through and we're gonna make it through this one too.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Was calling it the Spanish flu, a political kind of
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: maneuver to place blame. I mean, in some areas you
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: could argue that, which is I know where you're going.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: I was thinking the same thing. But it's primarily just because,
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: as I said, the Spanish newspapers reported it first. Other
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: nations on both sides of the Allied and the Central Powers.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: I knew something was rotten. They knew something was afoot,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: but they were worried that if they told anybody about
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: it publicly, they would seem weak in the international sphere.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Good lesson to learn, not just for this pandemic, but
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: all the ones ahead. Happy Thanksgiving everybody. Let's let's stay safe.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Uh let's you know, it's always a Thanksgiving at the
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: end of every Ridiculous History episode. Behind the scenes, one
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: of our favorite things is thanking all the folks who
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: make this show possible. Started with you, super producer, Casey Pegram. Well,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: like we said, have a happy holiday, everybody, enjoy your
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: time um with whomever you're able to pot up with,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: and hopefully folks will be down for some Thanksgiving zooming. Um,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: that's certainly what I'm gonna do. Huge thanks to Alex
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Williams who composed our theme. Christopher Hastiota is here in spirit,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: gave Louisier, the man who makes all this possible. Bamn,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: big big thanks to Eve's Jeff co Please check out
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: this day in History class. It's fantastic. Uh. Don't have
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: to take our word for it. Check it out today. Uh.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: And also big thanks to every activist who has been
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: fighting for a quality and progress not just in eighteen
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: but here in the modern day as well. See you
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: next time, folks. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.