This year celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Wisconsin’s ratification of 19th Amendment to our Constitution giving women the right to vote. The event “Voices Longing to be Heard: Women’s Suffrage” will include a lunch with a choice of two entrées, cash bar, tea tasting, exhibit and silent auction. Seating is limited to 150 guests.

 

The presentation will be by Chris Milton and Susan Kohout who portray Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. As uncompromising women’s rights leaders, they transformed the political and social condition of women in American society. Stanton was the leading voice and philosopher of the women’s rights and suffrage movements while Anthony was the powerhouse who commandeered the legions of women who struggled to win the ballot for American women.

 

In 1851, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton embarked on a collaboration that evolved into one of the most productive working partnerships in U.S. history, especially women’s history. These two women worked together for over 50 years to fight for women’s right to vote. 

 

Stanton understood the importance of political equality as a means of obtaining other kinds of equality. Women could not change laws until they had the right to vote.  Stanton’s father was a judge and no one knew better than her, the dilemmas he faced with regard to suffering widows “who had brought all the property into the family only to be made an unhappy dependent on the bounty of an uncongenial daughter-in-law and dissipated son”.

 

Stanton and Anthony revolutionized the language used in their speeches, that made legislators and politicians stand up and take notice. In one of Stanton’s speeches to the New York legislature she stated: “We, the daughters of the revolutionary heroes of ’76 demand at your hands the redress of our grievances- a new code of laws.”

 

In 1872 Anthony voted illegally and let the public know that the constitution and the rights it proclaims were not just intended for men, as she stated, “We, the people, not we, the white male citizens”. The Suffrage Movement, as it grew to be known, became a real grass-roots movement that was both seen and heard everywhere, at holidays, at celebrations and always at political forums. Their motto became:”Men, their rights, and nothing more; Women, their rights and nothing less.”

 

After their many efforts and struggles, neither woman lived long enough to see the ratification of the 19th amendment, but paved the way for future generations.   Come to “Voices Longing to be Heard; Women’s Suffrage” on October 12th and hear more conversations of these great “Women in History”. 

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Deadline for Reservations is now past. The event is SOLD OUT.  Anyone who mailed their reservations prior to 10/5/19 will still be accepted and confirmed. Thank you for your interest in our Women in History Luncheon.