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So, I set out a little while ago to write a post about Alice Paul (hagiography here and here), the suffragist who helped found the National Women’s Party. Because she was born on this day in 1885. And also: I was getting a bit worried about the hyper-masculine tone of the blog — and the blogosphere generally — what with Eric threatening to cut people. (He’ll do it. Do NOT cross him.)
Anyway, I was going to write something nice. I was going to talk about Paul’s extraordinary courage, about her complex interactions with Carrie Chapman Catt, and about her total commitment to her cause. But it turns out that Alice Paul didn’t like Negroes African-Americans. Or Jews. And it’s kind of hard to write nice things about racists. Or anti-Semites. Even if they did incredibly important and laudatory things. Which she did.
And I know, I know. There’s an argument to be made that she had to placate white women in order to ensure that the 19th Amendment would be ratified by Southern states. But I’m not going to make that argument. Even if it might be true — at least in part. Why not? Because this isn’t that kind of blog. We’re militant. Plus, she really didn’t much like African-Americans. Or Jews. This kind of thing happens all too often: heroes don’t usually withstand close scrutiny unblemished. The past is complex. And simple narratives only exist in the realm of myth.
Still, given recent events, I can’t help but wonder: is there something about the surname Paul? Then there’s this: Paul Lynde’s pre-Hollywood Squares work is totally underrated. Discuss. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone.
The Edge of the American West 
28 comments
January 11, 2008 at 5:41 pm
ac
The Presidential race, with its two possible historic firsts, seems to be having the unfortunate effect of pitting the civil rights movement against feminism, if only in terms of which breakthrough would be more important. This post is adding to that impression! Now you need to do one about how many of the crusaders in the abolition movement also became advocates for women’s rights! Frederick Douglass: big supporter of women’s rights. Harriet Beecher Stowe: abolitionist and feminist. &c. &c. Or you can do one on the connections between the civil rights movement and the feminist movement of the 1960s!
Ok, maybe you don’t have to.
Actually, I’m remembering some memoir of the women’s movement in which the fact that the women were always being asked to get the coffee during civil rights/anti-war meetings led to some of the first feminist demonstrations. Must find what I’m thinking of.
January 11, 2008 at 5:46 pm
andrew
There’s an anecdote like that in Todd Gitlin’s book on the 60s, if I remember correctly. But there’s probably a fair number of anecdotes like that.
Weren’t a number of the women’s rights activists who were in the abolitionist movement discriminated against at an early abolitionist conference?
January 11, 2008 at 5:57 pm
ac
I’m thinking of Susan Brownmiller’s In Our Time.
January 11, 2008 at 6:29 pm
ari
There’s also the infamous case of Kwame Ture, then Stokely Carmichael, who said (maybe) that “the proper position of women in SNCC is prone.” I’ve always assumed, even as I’ve used it the anecdote in lectures, that that story was apocryphal. But this link suggests otherwise, though Casey Hayden casts the comment in a humorous light. That Stokely, such a kidder.
January 11, 2008 at 6:36 pm
ac
Yeah, Brownmiller quotes him. Mary King and Casey Hayden wrote “A Kind of Memo” about the strict gender roles they observed in the SNCC (men as project managers/women sweeping the floor), which got circulated at a national SDS meeting in 1966.
January 11, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Sandie
“Weren’t a number of the women’s rights activists who were in the abolitionist movement discriminated against at an early abolitionist conference?”
Yes, it was an international abolitionist conference in London. If memory serves me correctly, women abolitionists were supposed to sit in a separate section from the men and they weren’t allowed to speak to the audience. Too lazy to actually look this up.
January 11, 2008 at 6:46 pm
ac
Neatly, in discussing her book, Brownmiller mentions the abolition incident:
January 11, 2008 at 7:31 pm
urbino
History: you can’t make this stuff up.©
January 11, 2008 at 7:41 pm
bitchphd
I totally love Paul Lynde.
I don’t think one has to excuse the racism of dead white people to recognize that said dead white people, in some instances, nonetheless did interesting or even admirable things. People are complicated creatures.
January 11, 2008 at 7:59 pm
urbino
There’s a hilarious (if troubling) story about Paul Lynde on a plane flight, BPD. At least, I think it’s Paul Lynde. I can never quite remember if it’s him or Charles Nelson Reilly. Do you know the story I’m referring to?
January 11, 2008 at 8:09 pm
charlieford
Lets not forget Alma White, founder of the Pillar of Fire Pentecostal Church. A feminist who supported womens’ suffrage and a pioneer not only in women preaching, but in organizing and running a church/denomination, White also belonged to the Womens’ Auxiliary of the Ku Klux Klan (which had about 500,000 members in its heyday of the mid-1920s). She liked the Klan alot. Didn’t like blacks, Jews, Catholics, immigrants, jazz, loose women, the Kaiser . . . you name it. Never forget: Back in the day, most white people were white before they were anything else.
January 11, 2008 at 8:12 pm
ari
So there’s a huge typo just sitting there, right in the middle of the post, and none of you people tell me? You’d let me walk around all day with shmutz on my chin, wouldn’t you? This whole imaginary friend thing is way overrated.
And yes, B, that was my point. I got an e-mail from a friend whose daughter went to her Brownie troupe’s History Day this year as Paul. I’m not sure that there’s any reason to stop just because it turns out that Paul had flaws. Nor do I think her flaws should be ignored. As you say, such is the nature of the human condition. And one of my very favorite things about your blog is your willingness to be human, to have flaws, and to cast aside omniscience.
January 11, 2008 at 8:14 pm
ari
And things have changed how, charlieford? White is a great case, by the way. Is there a good book about her? Or that treats her seriously?
January 11, 2008 at 8:22 pm
andrew
So there’s a huge typo just sitting there, right in the middle of the post, and none of you people tell me?
Look at it this way: it’s a sign that you have the stature of Yglesias and we all acknowledge that.
January 11, 2008 at 8:24 pm
ari
He’s so in my shadow — bad spelling-wise, anyway.
January 11, 2008 at 8:25 pm
andrew
And on the subject of people in the past turning out to have flaws in complicated ways, I was quite surprised to learn that Justice Harlan, lone dissenter in Plessy vs. Ferguson was also one of 2 dissenters in Wong Kim Ark. No birthright citizenship for him, or rather, not for the Chinese.
January 11, 2008 at 8:49 pm
ari
I had no idea that Harlan had dissented in US v. Wong Kim Ark. And now I’m trying to figure out if his dissent was, somehow, predicated on something noble. I can’t quite see it right now. But maybe if I squint. Nope, still not working.
If Eric were here he’s make me feel better. Or worse. It’s hard to say.
January 11, 2008 at 9:19 pm
eric
Then there’s the whole 15th Amendment, “Negro’s Hour” thing.
And because urbino brought him up, here is my favorite Charles Nelson Reilly item:
And also, Paul Lynde! Yes, Paul Lynde!
January 11, 2008 at 9:37 pm
charlieford
“And things have changed how, charlieford?”
Are you a half-empty, or half-full, type guy? Well, you (plural) don’t need me to tell you the problems we still face (Ron Paul, anyone?) But my diss. research–on another topic–had me reading tons of folk ca. 1900-1930 we would generally think of as liberal now. And beyond their middle-class blinders, and their attempts to be broad-minded, and their anti-Victorian-narrowness, it was amazing how many of them were Eugenicists. Sometiomes I think, apart from Franz Boas, Randolph Bourne and WEB DuBois (notice I put the black guy at the back of the line? was that deliberate?) everyone was a eugenicist in those days.
WWII put a nail in that coffin–or at least the lessons certain liberals drew from WWII. (See here the various essays of Philip Gleason on WWII, minorities, immigration, etc.) So we’ve come this far: at least the liberals aren’t racist anymore. Is that a permanent achievement, or a (fading) shadow cast by a 60 year old event? I tend to think the latter.
“White is a great case, by the way. Is there a good book about her? Or that treats her seriously?”
Yes.
Susie Cunningham Stanley, Feminist Pillar of Fire: The Life of Alma White. The Pilgrim Press (1993). ISBN 0-8298-0950-3.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alma_Bridwell_White
January 12, 2008 at 1:47 am
Ben Alpers
A Dead Milkman reference? Wow….just wow!
And as long as we’re on the subject of Charles Nelson Reilly (who, incidentally, passed away last year, a fact that I feel free to mention now that Ari has apparently lifted this blog’s ban on biography), here’s the funniest Charles Nelson Reilly impersonation evah.
January 12, 2008 at 1:48 am
Ben Alpers
Er….that’s Dead Milkmen…
Any possibility of installing a preview button, oh masters of cliobloggery?
January 12, 2008 at 7:42 am
ari
It doesn’t seem like WordPress has such a feature.
January 12, 2008 at 8:19 am
ari
Upon further review, my comment above has been overturned.
January 12, 2008 at 10:16 am
bitchphd
Urbino, so, tell me the Lynde on a plane story. Which I do not know.
And one of my very favorite things about your blog is your willingness to be human, to have flaws, and to cast aside omniscience.
Awwww.
January 12, 2008 at 2:01 pm
urbino
So, Lynde (or perhaps CNR) had a serious anxiety problem in real life. And he wasn’t so much with the people skills. Flying, therefore, was a trial for him. On one flight, another passenger’s daughter was traipsing up and down the aisle, making some kind of a racket. After a while, Lynde (or perhaps CNR) hit the end of his tether, turned to the mother and said, “If you don’t stifle that child, I’m going to f*** her!!”
January 12, 2008 at 3:16 pm
genesiawilliams
“The Presidential race, with its two possible historic firsts, seems to be having the unfortunate effect of pitting the civil rights movement against feminism, if only in terms of which breakthrough would be more important. ”
In the spirit of the end of the blog (and assuming we’re all media whores like the rest of the mainstream)…. I say this.
Let’s get a homosexual candidate because gay is the new black, and lesbian is the new feminist. Or have Rosie O’donnell run, because she kinda talks like an old black guy and she’s a woman, and a brunette, and she has a wife, and she could take on plus size modelling as a platform (no pun intended). This would eliminate the need for the Tyra Banks Show (though I love ANTM Tyra this way we all win.)*
*again this is assuming we are media whores
(I might be I mentioned Amy Whinehouse in my blog for more hits, and it worked)
…………………………………..
As for the name Paul there may be a conspiracy there ………..who knows?
;)
January 16, 2008 at 8:50 am
Aside: Alice Paul and Malcolm X « PostBourgie
[…] of Alice Paul, the courageous suffragist and founder of the National Women’s Party. And then he learned she was an unabashed […]
July 2, 2008 at 11:12 pm
“We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the scriptures and as clear as the American Constitution.” « The Edge of the American West
[…] had amended the text to scuttle the bill. Smith, though, insisted that he was working with Alice Paul, that he was championing women’s rights. Regardless, the final bill made it illegal for an […]