Remembering the Suffragists, 100 years of Women Voting in the United States

Remembering the Suffragists: 100 years of Women Voting in the United States Curated by: Patricia Moss-Vreeland August - December 2020

1400 N American Street Studio 108 Philadelphia, PA 19122 215-235-3405 www.inliquid.org

Remembering the Suffragists, 100 Years of Women Voting in the United States @ InLiquid Online August - December 2020 Curated by: Patricia Moss-Vreeland Featuring: Mehgan Rose Abdel-Moneim Ellen Benson Rosalind Bloom Maryanne Bushini Merill Comeau Annette Cords Danielle Dimston Clare Finin Mindy Flexer Sadie E. Francis Grant Gee Yun Judy Gelles Rebecca Giles

Cheryl Harper Rhona Hofmeyr Pamela Hovland Blythe King Carole Kunstadt Deborah Leavy Carole Loeffler Constance McBride Selene Nunez-Cruz Constance Old Arlene Rush Kenechi Unachukwu 1

Image used throughout: Nannie Helen Burroughs (left, holding banner, circa 1910) was a leader of the Woman’s National Baptist Convention and an advocate for women’s suffrage. The contributions of Black women like her to the movement have long been largely overlooked.

Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

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Front Cover: Deborah Leavy, Women’s Suffrage, 100th Anniversary

Curator’s Statement by Patrica Moss-Vreeland Creating this online exhibition, Remembering the Suffragists; 100 Years of Women Voting in the United States, I wanted to engage a large network of artists by making it an Open Call. I invited their participation in recognition of the Women’s Suffrage Movement, and questioned what that means to us as womxn, as well as to draw a connection to current and ongoing inequalities that still must be fought.

I asked artists, how does this moment in time bring meaning to you?

Art’s ability to represent history and personal narrative is its own form of activism.

I curated this exhibition to include various forms of media with the goal of stimulating conversation by representing a diversity of voices and the many ways of expressing ourselves. I welcomed any medium, image and/or text, as an extension to one’s practice, expression of who you are as a womxn, an artist, a citizen, as a tribute to the Suffragists, that resonates with your personal experiences. By remembering, we continue this historic work led by a group of very diverse women, the Suffragists. Their history gives us the opportunity to question what is written versus what is undocumented, and to carve out the often-ignored truths. It’s in their stories and sacrifices we find courage, grit, persistence, friendship, and often-contrasted feelings.

As we expand our collective history through our unique responses, we can build bridges to each other, and a larger community to move these ideas forward.

As we celebrate 100 years since the 19th Amendment was passed, the hard work, the protests, and achievements of the Suffragists, has been awe-inspiring by what these women started over 150 years ago. As with any major movement, this one had its conflicts. But it brought attention to protest as the foundation of our democracy, along with voting. It also 3

brought attention to the creative use of the handmade that the Suffragists employed, another important remnant historically, how the arts were used to further their messaging and aid in their protest.

We received many submissions, all so diverse in their responses, which is very exciting for me. I thank everyone who chose to submit, and enjoyed looking at such a vast array of art. My selections reflect upon what I thought brought the most stimulating and provocative ideas and approaches to this theme, each individual artwork and artist acting as counterpoint.

This forms the first exhibition. There will be evolving components, future iterations to add to this exhibition, including discussions, talks, and areas for response. Living during this pandemic, there are many challenges to give voice to, a time to re-examine every aspect of our ways of doing things, inclusive of voting rights and inclusivity. Poignantly, the Suffragists faced similar obstacles. As my own personal counterpoint, I have been part of the Rodeph Shalom Suffrage Project at my synagogue, collaborating with members on research and action. For my part, I started the Makers Group to make a connection to the Suffragists, how they used the arts to provide much needed visual messaging for their protests. We now have a website devoted to this important historical research and creative work, inviting participation from the public. To learn more about the Rodeph Shalom Suffrage Project click here.

For me, keeping memory alive, while facing loss, it’s beautifully human to remember. In addition to creating “Remembering the Suffragists; Suffragists; 100 Years of Women Voting in the United States, to build a collective memory, I remember a wonderfully gifted artist and dear friend, Judy Gelles, who devoted her life to make the world a better place. I include the last artwork she was working on, “Needs to Be Heard”.

- Patricia Moss-Vreeland 4

About the Curator: An artist, author, poet, and curator, Patricia Moss-Vreeland explores memory and its social impact, through science, history and language. She works in a range of diverse media and genres, incorporating her poetry at times to suggest the ways that language and memory are intertwined.

Collaborating with neuroscientists, she has over two decades of research into the functioning of the human brain and the construction of memory, that has led her to reflect upon memory as a meditation on who we are.

Moss-Vreeland’s work was hailed by the Baltimore Sun as “an invitation to think differently” about memory and the creative process. In her art, she goes beyond expressing herself, to find points of connections, to share knowledge, and to elicit and create a new collective memory.

Moss-Vreeland’s paintings, drawings and mixed-media works have been exhibited nationally at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Institute of Contemporary Art. Her art resides in many permanent collections, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and The Norton Museum. She exhibited her work at the Locks Gallery in Philadelphia for two decades. Moss-Vreeland was selected through a national competition to design the Memorial Room for the Holocaust Museum Houston, a permanent installation that has earned four awards, including the American Institute of Architects Honor Award in Design.

Moss-Vreeland’s recent solo exhibitions include, A Parallel Universe, Trinity College, Hartford, CT, for their 25th Anniversary of Neuroscience; Revelations and Transformation, Layers of Memory, at the Penn Memory Center, Philadelphia, PA; In Search of Meaning: Memory Becomes Us, EKG, University City Science Center, Philadelphia, PA, with a catalogue.

Patricia Moss-Vreeland has authored and designed the book, A Place for Memory: Where Art and Science Meet, and is a TEDx speaker.

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Suffragist Florence Jaffray “Daisy” Harriman (1870-1967) holding a banner with the words “’Failure Is Impossible.’ Susan B. Anthony. Votes for Women.” (circa 1910-1915)

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Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Remembering the Suffragist: 100 Years of Women Voting in the United States Curated by Patricia Moss-Vreeland for InLiquid

Included artists in alphabetical order:

View the exhibition online here!

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Mehgan Rose Abdel-Moneim DOESN’T TURNOUT :( , 2020 DOESN’T TURNOUT :( is a performance work that uses social media as a tool to deliver disruption. Using a combination of humor and political research, a typical cooking video takes a subversive turn.

Watch the Video

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Mehgan Rose Abdel-Moneim

Recipe for Political Disenfranchisement Add 1.5 cups of bad experience with law enforcement, education system, or function of government 1 teaspoon of pandemic or work related barrier 1 teaspoon of nihilism or detachment 1/2 teaspoon confusion or voter ID laws 1.5 cup mashed “my vote won’t count” mentality, but distrust in the government also works 3⁄4 cup of disinformation (or sub lack of information) 1 too few history lessons 1/3 cup exhaustion or apathy Optional: 2 to 3 handfuls of concern over making an uneducated guess, registration issues or laziness Bake for as long as you want Remove from oven to reveal who you will vote for in 2020

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Ellen Benson

To make art with friends during quarantine, I organized a mail art project.

I had come across an Ida Wells US postage stamp so I did some research about her. Known for her outstanding reporting on the horrific violence against African Americans during the era of lynching, Ida Wells was a profile in courage and grit. When the organizers of the famous 1913 Woman Suffrage Parade required that Black women march at the end of the parade, she refused to march. But as the parade progressed, Ida emerged from the crowd and joined the white Illinois delegation, marching between two white supporters. The 19th Amendment, passed in 1920, covered the needs of middle class white women quite well, but some people believed that white suffragists wanted to exclude black women. After the Amendment’s passage, many black women were still denied access to the ballot box, though fraud and intimidation. In this piece, postage stamps and images of BLACK LIVES MATTER are intertwined with the fight for the right of ALL women to vote. Side B of the art mail is a copy of the flag that was used at the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington. I wrote out quotes from Elizabeth Cady Stanton and added my own words about Black Lives.

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Front

Ellen Benson Voting is for ALL Women!, 2020 Handmade envelope, new postage stamps, vintage postage from my husband’s childhood stamp collection, photocopies, paint, oil pastels, ink, decorative tape, miniature flag, rubber stamps 8” x 11” NFS

Back

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Rosalind Bloom

Women have been fighting for their rights for a very long time. That fight is ongoing. Black women and other people of color have had to fight even harder. From Ida B. Wells to AOC they have not backed down. Voting rights are under attack. Equal pay is still a problem. Sexual harassment, rape and sex trafficking are still a problem.

In my art practice I use found images, collage, and mixed media to create work that aims to draw people’s attention to these issues. While not the entirety of my practice, social justice issues have always found their way in.

Rosalind Bloom Black Suffragists, 2020 Photo transfer, found images, collage, oil pain 9” x 12” x 0.5” $200

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Proceeds from sale will go to Black Lives Matt

nted canvas collage, colored pencil, water color, cradled wood panel

ter organization

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Maryanna Buschini Alice Paul arrested in front of the White House, 2020 15 x 12" (framed) Oil on board 14” x 11” x 1” $600

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Maryanne Bushini

Alice Stokes Paul (January 11, 1885 – July 9, 1977) was an American suffragist, feminist, and women’s rights activist, and one of the main leaders and strategists of the campaign for the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits sex discrimination in the right to vote. Paul initiated, and along with Lucy Burns and others, strategized events such as the Woman Suffrage Procession and the Silent Sentinels, which were part of the successful campaign that resulted in the amendment’s passage in 1920.

After 1920, Paul spent a half century as leader of the National Woman’s Party, which fought for the Equal Rights Amendment, written by Paul and Crystal Eastman, to secure constitutional equality for women. She won a large degree of success with the inclusion of women as a group protected against discrimination by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 alongside legal scholar Pauli Murray. She also went to jail for protesting in front of the White House.

Also On Display: Zitkála-Šá, 2020, Oil on board, 14” x 11”, $600

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Merill Comeau Women’s Work is Never Done, 2019 Mixed Media: hand painted repurposed fabrics, thread 192” x 168” NFS

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Merill Comeau

In my art making , I often deconstruct and reconstruct clothing undoing another woman’s work and as I do I think about socio-economics of maker/wearer and textile industry. The process of creating this installation entailed creating yardage of black-painted repurposed fabric evoking mourning and using it to teach myself methods of fabric manipulation employed in hand-sewn garment construction. I was paying homage to the skills and craft of dressmakers. It was challenged learning, evidenced by my clumsy products, each labeled with a tongue in cheek pun referring to the method combined with my emotions such as ‘I’m ruffled” for ruffles and “I’m boxed in” for a boxed pleat.

Also On Display: Lucy Stone: American Suffragist, 2019, Mixed media: commercial and hand painted fabrics, paint, thread, 49” x 21” x 28”, $5,000 Red, White, and Blue, 2018, Mixed media: rust dyed vintage linens, hand painted and block printed repurposed fabrics, composted toile, deconstructed clothing, hand stitching and embroidery, 92” x 106”, NFS

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Annette Cords

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In these handwoven pieces, I explore the feminine craft of weaving by reworking traditional American weave structures. I push the inherent abstract and geometric qualities of the pattern, and then reframe the completed weaving on a contemporary background.

Annette Cords Blooming Leaf of Mexico (yellow), 2019 Hand-woven wool & cotton, on archival inkjet printed background 47� x 42� $1,600

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Danielle Dimston

Danielle Dimston Untitled (skirt or pants, which will it be?), No. 1, 2020 Ink on khadi 8.25� x 6� $800

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Clare Finin I was named after Clare Booth Luce a suffragist, one of the first women congressmen and ambassadors in the United States, as well as successful playwright. Perhaps it was some power that happens in naming, but I seemed to be emboldened in a way unbecoming of women from birth.

Seemingly everyday of my childhood I would be told I was bossy: by my (older) siblings, school yard friends, teachers, and even my own parents. My response, even in kindergarten, would be to straighten up, blink upward towards these older influences who were trying to quell me, and reply to the effect of “you should listen to me, that’s why I am being bossy.” When I was ten, my step-father told me “you catch more flies with honey than vinegar,” assumably trying to soften my blunt and assertive personality. I blinked back at him and asked him “Why would I want to catch flies in the first place?” before twirling around and self-assuredly stomping off. He shook his head slowly, verbally sympathizing with the future men in my life.

I falsely believed that the fight my mother, grandmother, and those before in my lineage, fought was over. I was free and equal, and that the issues of gender equality were largely of the past. I was able to find myself in male dominated professions and hold my own, earn higher educational degrees, and be unflinchingly “bossy.” I would sit on mens legs who refused to stop man-spreading and make room for me on the subway. I would catcall men back on the street and laugh as they recoiled at being sexualized themselves. I thought these the last small remnants in a relatively dead issue that I could laugh at as I bulldozed over the seemingly minority of small-men too afraid to not cling to power. As the oughts rolled by, our communal ideas of feminism grew to encompass a wider range of gender identities, queerness, and of people of color. So much inequality still obviously existed, but I still somehow thought that my personal fight, as a cis, hetro, white woman, was over; now was the time to fight for others.

My idealistic naivety did not come crashing down until just this year. Now, in my midthirties I saw a politician who I believed was beyond reproach. She was smarter than everyone else, better educated, had better policies and plans, had more humility and empathy, and was not afraid to make fun at ridiculous narratives that she, in her 60’s, could sexually terrorize a male marine three times her size and a third of her age. As perfect as I saw this politician as being, she couldn’t even make it to the primaries.

There was no explanation for this other than her womanhood.

The reality I managed to refuse my whole life came crashing down. Society spoke, and there is still not room for bossy women. The glass ceiling my mother would speak of, and I would laugh at, is still in place; it is just polished well enough so I couldn’t see it.

Clare Finin Bossy, 2020

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Mindy Flexer The women’s suffrage movement started in 1840. We could believe it ended in 1965, when the Voting Rights Act granted Black women the right to vote. This was a monumental achievement.

In 2020, we still have work left to do before the struggle for women’s suffrage is over.

The struggle will be over when every woman who can vote, does vote, not just half the women.

The struggle will be over when voter suppression of women is over.

The struggle will be over when women can vote without having to overcome obstacles created by being underpaid or not paid at all for our work, including art making and parenting.

The struggle will be over when there are no barriers to women running for political office.

The struggle will be over when women transform our whole political and economic system.

The struggle will be over when all women have equal access and opportunity.

Along with the fight for women’s liberation in the world, each woman is fighting to liberate her own mind.

Each one of us is fighting to be able to tell how significant we are.

Each one of us is fighting to step up into our full power, in our own lives and in the concentric circles of our families, communities, countries, and planet.

Each one of us is fighting to make common cause, to make things right for every one of us and for all of us.

When the struggle is over, and even whether it ends, is not what matters. What matters is that we are in the struggle together. I pay homage all of us who are in this fight.

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I pay homage to the many powerful women who came before me.

I honor my great grandmothers and my grandmothers, who didn’t get to choose to have education or paid work, and who each fought all day every day for their families.

I honor my mother, who was told to be a mom, and that she could also be either a teacher or a nurse. She became a mom and a professor of math education. She fought for her children and for all children, and all teachers, to have the full use of our minds. While she struggled to balance family and work, she made anything seem possible. She told me I could be anything and do anything.

My mother’s fight for herself enabled me to fight for myself. She is the blueprint my life is built on. She is the North star that has always guided me.

Mindy Flexer Suffrage 2020, 2020

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Sadie E. Francis Nasty Women, 2017 Digital photograph 8� x 10� $100 24

Sadie E. Francis

View of Nasty Mamas and Girls at the Women’s March on Washington, DC, January 2017. A Woman’s fight for the next generation is never done.

Also On Display: Red Light, 2017, Digital photograph, 10” x 9”, $100

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Grant Gee Yun

Over the past couple weeks I have wanted to make an illustration in support for Black lives. I didn’t want to make a piece to appear like I cared simply for publicity. Yet still, as an artist I want to show my support for Black lives regardless of how people may interpret my actions. In particular, I wanted to show my support for one of the most marginalized groups in United States history: Black Women. As a consumer of Black culture and a guest in the Hip Hop community, I feel it is only right for me to be outspoken about the explicit racism that exists everywhere in our country. My stance on Black lives comes NOT as an “Asian American”, “Korean American”, “Asian”, “Korean” but as myself. Now is not the time to tell people how proud you are of being “Asian” or “Asian American.” Now is the time to support BLACK LIVES.

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Grant Gee Yun In Support of Black Women, 2020 Digital NFS

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Judy Gelles Needs To Be Heard, 2020 Digital Color Photograph NFS Courtesy of The Estate of Judy Gelles

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Judy Gelles

“The baby dress with words was my mother’s way of expressing the challenges mothers and daughters faced in her generation. She embroidered the words on the dress and photographed them as part of a new series she was working on before she died.”

- David Gelles, son of Judy Gelles

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Rebecca Giles

The Arabic words say “sawt almar’a thawra,” meaning “the voice of a woman is revolution”. The pink pomegranate half symbolizes power and blood.

Also On Display: Reading is the Way to Become Untrapped, 2020, Watercolor, charcoal, pastel pencil, watercolor pencil, colored pencil, and ink on paper, 6.5” x 7.75”, NFS

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Rebecca Giles The Voice of a Woman is Revolution, 2020 Watercolor, ink, marker, and colored pencil on paper 6� x 7.25� $95

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Cheryl Harper

Hillary Sphinx 2 is the second sphinx for the presidential candidate. I will be making sphinxes of American political women until one becomes president, hopefully in my lifetime. My first Hillary Sphinx was made while she was first lady, and this one was made when she was a senator, carefully honing her skills for a future run for the presidency.

Cheryl Harper Hillary Sphinx 2, 2007 Ceramics 17” x 13” x 7” NFS

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In collaboration with cellist Rachel Icenogle, we had two performances in the installation space. I sang the aria “Dido’s Lament”, and we performed variations on the “Victory March” from Aida, and the Star Spangled Banner in honor of the Great Women’s March that took place in Washington DC on March 3rd, 1913. The Great Women’s March was a turning point for the Suffrage movement, and one of our performances were held on March 3, 2020 - exactly 107 years to the date.

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E Pluribus Unum Performance by Rhona Hofmeyr Watch the Video NFS

Rhona Hofmeyr

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Pamela Hovland (Top from Right to Left): I VOTED, Alice Merwin Eakland; I VOTED, CT Suffrage Group (Bottom from Right to Left): I VOTED, The Wilton Women; I VOTED, Hannah Raymond Ambler 2020 Digital NFS

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Pamela Hovland

A series of six “I VOTED digital stickers� for residents/voters in Wilton CT to post on August 11th, the primary election, and again on November 3rd, the general election. The project celebrates local women involved in the suffrage movement. This project is an attempt to tell a more nuanced story about the sustained effort required to gain equality at the ballot box.

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Blythe King

She is defiant, sublime, and in flux. Her gaze pierces. She challenges conventional attitudes that suppress access and diminish stature. She isn’t an icon, movie star, or diva — she’s an everyday woman. My work transforms superficial, vintage advertising from Montgomery Ward mail order catalogs (circa 1940-80) into divinely evocative multi-layered portraits. Subjects are freed from commodification, social expectations, and stereotypes to become a source of wonder and intrigue. Each individual’s boundless, transcendent nature is revealed. I arrived at my process through experimentation. I combine acrylic transfer, collage, Zen calligraphy, and gold leafing. Rather than using Photoshop to layer digitally, the technique is entirely manual. Transparent skins invite us to look beneath the surface of each woman into the many levels of our own interconnected, non-dualistic nature. Experience has lead me to question how our conditioning — be it social, cultural, environmental, and/or genetic — limits our understanding of who we are. By removing these, we expand horizons and find clarity.

Also On Display: X-ray Vision, 2017, Acrylic transfer, collage, and 23K gold leafing, 20” x 16” x 1”, $1,400

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Blythe King What Goes Around Comes Around, 2017 Acrylic transfer, collage, and 23K gold leafing 24” x 20” x 1” $1,600

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Carole Kunstadt

OVUM II - Fragments of Margaret Fuller’s 1855 essay densely line an ostrich egg’s interior surface, providing a nest for the gestation of her feminist ideals, all nestled on twigs. (In the late 18th century, ostriches were nearly brought to extinction by hunting because their feathers were very fashionable in women’s clothing and the eggs highly collectible in the decorative arts.)

Carole Kunstadt OVUM II, 2016 Linen thread, fractured ostrich egg, twigs, paper: fragments from Woman of the Nineteenth Century, 1855 by Margaret Fuller 8.5” x 10.5” x 5.75” $2,100 41

Deborah Leavy Women’s Suffrage, 100th Anniversary, 2020 Mixed media on canvas (including acrylic on cut canvas, found photos, lace, earring) 12” x 12” x 1.5” $165

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Deborah Leavy

Honoring some of the major figures who worked to secure suffrage for women: 1st row, anonymous marchers; 2nd row, Ida B. Wells, Sojourner Truth, Lucretia Mott, Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, Frederick Douglass; 3rd row, Susan B. Anthony (all listed on verso).

Reaching deep inside myself, I have created a series of assemblages, now numbering more than 30, called Women in Boxes. With them I explore societal influences that women have internalized, for good or evil.

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, however, is to honor women who thought outside the box. They stepped out of their assigned roles to participate in a movement animated by a novel idea: that women should have equal rights with men. Those women dared to fight for the right to vote. A special 100th Anniversary piece features images outside as well as inside the box.

Researching this project stirred a wonderful memory. In 1970, I was one of thousands of women streaming down NYC’s 5th Avenue to honor the 50th anniversary of the suffragists’ success, and to continue the fight for women’s rights. I was 19 years old. Fifty years later I have the privilege of celebrating again. Much has changed, but there is still work to be done. I am happy to still be doing it.

Also On Display: Eve, 2018, Mixed media (acrylic on cut canvas, found image on matboard), 12” x 12” x 1.5”, $100

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Carole Loeffler herstory, 2019-2020 Thrifted frames and shelves, vintage photos, fabric Variable dimensions NFS Detail View (Left)

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Carole Loeffler

herstory is a series of vintage photographs where the woman have been cut out and replaced with domestic, patterned fabric. The women depicted are at the same time - everyone and no one. What do the environments, clothing and situations tell us about her experience?

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Constance McBride

My grandmother was 20 when the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920.

Four years later she married a man seven years her senior. They had two daughters and a son. I didn’t know my grandfather very well but I knew my grandmother; she lived to be 92. She was a strong and independent woman in spite of the fact that she only had an elementary school education and never worked outside of her home. I learned from my aunts that their father made it very clear to them when they came of age that it was a privilege to vote and that they must always do it. I never forgot what they said. I was proud to know that my grandfather, born in 1893, supported a woman’s right to vote.

Years later, my grandmother was forced to give up her home and move to a nursing home. My mother, who also didn’t work outside the home until she was 60, was forced to give up her home and died while living in a nursing home. The women in my life weren’t on the front lines fighting for equality, but they fought in their own small ways to gain equal footing with the men in their life, throughout their time on earth. They both lost their husbands early and they both succeeded in making a life for themselves; with strong wills and rooms of their own. Their independence was taken from them in the end but their lives had meaning and they shouldn’t be forgotten. Women suffer tremendously in life and there are ample reasons to continue the fight for equal rights and social justice today. The Me Too movement and the Black Lives Matter movement are proving once again that without an equal and just society, chaotic circumstances will prevail and peace will remain elusive.

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Constance McBride Who Does She Think She Is?, 2020 Photo and text collage on wood panel 8” x 8” $200

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Selene Nunez-Cruz

Thanks to activist women that fought for the right of vote in national election we can proudly admirer the work of nowadays politician women.

These mixed media portraits honor three of most influential women in our actual world. Their work will pay the way for a future female generations interested in politics.

Selene Nunez-Cruz Portrait of AOC, 2019 Mixed media acrylics, watercolor, ink, and beads on wooden panel 9” x 9” x 1” 48 $100

Constance Old

Constance Old forward from here girls #1, 2013 Mixed media on clayboard 14” x 11” NFS

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Arlene Rush Beyond The Trail of Tears, 2020 Flock velvet, wood board, crystals, and digital archival collage 12” x 12” x 1” NFS 50 of the Sara M. Vance Waddell collection Courtesy

Arlene Rush

Harriet Tubman is centered on a $20 bill, embellished with golden crystals, and in the background are mini one-dollar bills.

It is a commentary on the political state; the year 2020 marks the centennial of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote.

Also On Display: Hope For A Better Future, 2020, Surgical mask, pearls, crystals, and ink, 3.75� x 10.5�, NFS

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Kenechi Unachukwu

As the United States celebrates 100 years of women’s suffrage, it is important to take a step back and note that not all women have been able to exercise the right to vote for the full 100 years. Various state policies, particularly of those in the South, commonly prevented black women from voting by imposing barriers like head taxes and literacy tests. Black women were required to fight for their own rights, as famous female suffragists such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton had agendas primarily focused on the rights of white women. Dually oppressed for both their sex and their race, black women formed their own coalitions; often being excluded from other prominent national women’s rights organizations.

Additionally, African-American women not only fought for their own right to vote, but also for the general elimination of racism and uplifting of their communities. While the passing of the 19th amendment in 1920 was a step in the right direction, it was by no means the last step in the journey.

Black women faced so much adversity to gain their right to vote, and those actions are responsible for more equal opportunities for women across the United States today. Many black women are still fighting similar battles today for the elimination of racism and sexism in our communities.

Also On Display: Stand With Black Women, 2020, Digital photograph, 18” x 12”, open edition, $150

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Kenechi Unachukwu Skin Tone, 2020 35mm Kodak Tri-X Black and White Film 9” x 12” $70

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Exhibition Essay:

Remembering the Suffragists

by Deborah Kostianovsky

As we approach the one-hundred-year anniversary of the women’s right to vote on August 18, 2020, we can begin to formulate a series of questions that not only help us better understand the past, but that might also resonate with our current world. How can we learn about this early uprising against the status quo in a way that captures the complexities and nuances of the movement? How can we honor the determination, the grit and the tenacity of this forward-thinking group of women? What can we learn from this piece of American history that might help us navigate forward in the ongoing, continuing struggle for equal rights across groups of Americans?

What could these pioneers illuminate for us about resistance and protest?

About unity and solidarity? How can we re-examine this historic period through the lens of being a twenty-first-century woman, an African American, an immigrant, or any number of groups still engaged in a fight for equality and justice? Many of these questions are addressed in the upcoming InLiquid online exhibition, curated by Patricia Moss-Vreeland, entitled Remembering the Suffragists, 100 Years of Women Voting in the United States.

Interestingly, many of the suffragists utilized the arts to get their message out, making an art exhibition the ideal lens through which to examine this centennial. This exhibition, which will include a wide range of media, voices, and forms of artistic expression, seeks art that explores how the suffragist movement might bring meaning to each of us today. It is also a call for art and personal experiences related to present day struggles for equal rights. Unlike typical artistic practices which tend to be primarily a solitary endeavor, this exhibit aims to spark dialogue, discussion, 54

involvement, and to build upon a cacophony of ideas. There will be future iterations evolving to include a second round of exhibition, discussions, opportunities to respond to the artwork, and talks with thought leaders such as a feminist historian, and writer about Black Lives Matter. Like the suffragists themselves, the aim is to employ disparate voices to unite and sustain necessary conversations about these historical issues as well as ongoing current struggles for justice. As explained by Moss-Vreeland: “Art’s ability to represent history and personal narrative is its own form of activism. By revisiting history we have the opportunity to question what is written versus what is undocumented, and to carve out the often ignored truths. By remembering, we can continue this historic work led by a group of very diverse women, the Suffragists. It’s in their stories and sacrifices we find courage, grit, persistence, friendship, and often-contrasted feelings.

As we expand our collective history through our unique responses, we build bridges to each other and to the future.”

This exhibit promises to be all the more powerful given the fact that longstanding sexist and racist barriers are being broken during this current election. As I write this on August 11, 2020, Kamala Harris has just become the presumptive nominee for the vice-presidential democratic ticket. This is an electrifying, almost poetically timed victory in the course of historic change initiated by the suffragists. It took ninety-six years to have a woman as a major party’s nominee for president (Hillary Clinton 2016), and it took one hundred years from the ratification of the nineteenth amendment, almost exactly to this day, to have a Black woman nominated for vice president on a major US party’s ticket. As a biracial daughter of immigrants, she is also the first person of Indian descent to be nominated for vice presidency, and the fourth woman in the history of this country to be on a presidential ticket. It is crucial, however, to recognize that when the nineteenth amendment was ratified, millions of African American women were still not allowed to vote, just as Native Americans and Asian immigrants were excluded from being citizens, so the fight continued 55

onward after the amendment in a fragmented, gradual manner. [1] Alongside the recent groundbreaking political nomination, there are some almost eerily striking parallels between the suffragist movement and our current world, making this history all the more relevant. The suffragists had to contend with not only the infringement of World War I on their plans, but also with the Spanish flu pandemic. As poignantly noted by a suffragist in 1918: “Everything conspires against women’s suffrage. Now it is the influenza.” [2] How can we help but conclude that history really does repeat itself, albeit wearing a different cloak? Despite a century between circumstances, the similarities to our current fight for racial justice in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, economic devastation, and a similarly impending election are remarkable. We have a similar constellation of circumstances conspiring against our current necessary fight for justice. And yet, some believe that with chaos, hardship, and justified uprising comes the potential for transformation of a society. As noted in Smithsonian: “While disasters are by definition devastating, sometimes they can lead to changes that are a small silver lining… One hundred years ago, a powerful strain of the flu swept the globe, infecting one third of the world’s population. The aftermath of this disaster, too, led to unexpected social changes, opening up new opportunities for women and in the process irreversibly transforming life in the United States.” [3] Women unexpectedly became indispensable in the workforce, given the fact that men were called to war and were more likely to die in the flu pandemic. [4] We don’t know how our current crises will end, and whether our current protests will open the doors to justice, but there may be pearls of wisdom embedded in history.

So now that the astounding relevance of the upcoming women’s suffragist centennial is abundantly clear, a sneak peek at some of the works in the Remembering the Suffragists exhibit is in order. There is sizzling creativity here in a diversity of mediums and artists, and ways of expanding upon 56

many current issues that relate to the suffragist movement. For example, Ovum II by Carole Kunstadt is a delicately halved ostrich egg inscribed with fragments of Margaret Fuller’s 1885 writings, a feminist pioneer. The artist eloquently notes that it provides “a nest for gestation of her feminist ideals, all nestled on twigs.” Adding to the delicate, fragile nature of both the egg and the new feminist ideals, as well as the expected frivolity of nineteenth century woman’s life, the artist notes the fact that ostriches were nearly brought to extinction around that time due to their use in fashionable women’s clothing and the decorative arts. Another work is a short film clip by Meghan Rose-Abdel-Moneim of a cheerful woman dressed in decidedly colorful homemaker garb, explaining the ingredients in a Recipe for Political Disenfranchisement. Ingredients include 1.5 cups of bad experience with law enforcement, the educational system, or the function of government, 1.5 cups of mashed “my vote won’t count” mentality, among other equally scorching ingredients. It’s an imaginative, ingenious, and sassy recipe, and the finished loaf speaks volumes. And then there are the ‘I Voted’ stickers, entitled A More Perfect Union, by Pamela Hovland. These stickers depict women from Winton, CT, including many suffragists, who cast their first national ballots in 1920. What a powerful message of pride, persistence, and courage. And wouldn’t it be a powerful message of solidarity and historical momentum to wear a similar sticker after casting your vote this year? There are so many other inspiring and provocative pieces in this exhibit. You’ll have to see them for yourself!

Democracy gives us the right to vote and ultimately depends on the vote of the American people. It’s hard to imagine a world where voting is prohibited, based on sex or skin color or any other categorization. It’s also hard to imagine a world where women are not allowed to work, to have their own last name, or even to use a credit card without their husband’s co-signature. Though inroads have been made, the push for justice and equality is far from over. Those seemingly liberating constitutional words that ‘all men are created equal,’ despite being indisputably true, have not 57

yet been fulfilled. This exhibit provides a unique opportunity to look at a historic moment through the thought provoking and powerfully distilling lens of art, and to initiate needed dialogue and thought. According to Robyn Muncy, a historian at the University of Maryland: “It was important to see the nineteenth amendment not as a triumphant culmination, but one landmark in a struggle for equal rights for all citizens that isn’t over yet.� [5] Perhaps, like the suffragists one hundred years ago, our current crises including the pandemic, economic collapse, racial injustice, and justified mistrust of government could ultimately fuel real, needed change in this country. So, go see the exhibit, and participate in the ongoing conversation. And most of all, go vote! Your ancestors fought hard to allow you that right. Use it.

Deborah Kostianovsky

View the exhibition online here!

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[1] Jennifer Schuessler, “The Complex History of the Women’s Suffrage Movement,” The New York Times, August 15, 2019.

[2] Alisha Haridasani Gupta, quote from New York Times-Picayune (1918) in “How the Spanish Flu Almost Upended Women’s Suffrage,” The New York Times, April 28, 2020.

[3] Christine Crudo Blackburn, et al., “How the 1918 Flu Pandemic Helped Advance Women’s Rights,” Smithsonian, March 2, 2018.

[4] Christine Crudo Blackburn, Ibid., Smithsonian, March 2, 2018.

[5] Jennifer Schuessler, quote from Robyn Muncy in “The Complex History of the Women’s Suffrage Movement, The New York Times, August 15, 2019.

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InLiquid

InLiquid is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to creating opportunities and exposure for visual artists and works with more than 280 artists and designers. It serves as a free, online public hub for arts information in the Philadelphia area. Find out more at www.inliquid.org.

Many included artworks are available for purchase. Inquiries for purchases can be directed to Clare Finin at clare@inliquid.org.

1400 N American Street Studio 108 Philadelphia, PA 19122 215-235-3405 www.inliquid.org Back Cover: Deborah Leavy, Women’s Suffrage, 100th Anniversary

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