CLIO TALKS BACK: “Mothers, dare to be...” Words of Courage for Mothers from Cécile Brunschvicg

Credit: Archives du Féminisme (Angers, France)

Mother’s Day celebrations have become a worldwide phenomenon. Even when political and economic situations are at their worst, we rejoice in celebrating mothers (and fathers too). And we reflect on the importance of a mother’s role and responsibilities.

In honor of Mother’s Day 2014, Clio shares with readers the words of a celebrated French women’s suffrage advocate, Cécile Kahn Brunschvicg (1877-1946). The longtime president of the Union Française pour le Suffrage des Femmes and a great philanthropist, Cécile Brunschvicg courageously sustained the campaign for the vote despite myriad setbacks. In 1919, after World War I and following the first positive vote on women’s suffrage in the Chamber of Deputies (which the Senate refused to consider), Cécile Brunschvicg posed the issue in terms of national honor: "It is humiliating to think that we are Frenchwomen, daughters of the land of the Revolution, and that in the year of grace 1919 we are still reduced to demanding the 'rights of woman'."

In 1936 Cécile Brunschvicg would gain fame as one of three women appointed by Léon Blum to his Popular Front ministerial cabinet (1936-1937). The remarks below date from 1933, the very year that Hitler came to power in neighboring Germany and unleashed a series of threats that would culminate not only in war in 1939 but also in the Nazi occupation of France in 1940. Brunschvicg’s observations about differing views of "the family" remain pertinent in many parts of the world today, as does her counsel on the importance of women’s development and participation in their communities as well as in their homes.

Brunschvicg’s tribute, "Mères, osez être" appeared in La Française, 27 May 1933. Translated by Karen Offen.

 "Mothers, Dare to Be"

"Throughout the world Mother’s Day is celebrated, a touching idea that came to us from America, the great sentimental and practical country which is not merely content with recognizing the moral and social value of woman, but which, since many long years, has given her a place and an influence in its public life that increases every day.

"Some people in France are not afraid to affirm that the development of women’s role can only harm the family and they oppose what they call "the development of individualism" to the idea of the family.

"In reality we and they do not share the same understanding of the family.

"For them, the family is a small group entirely dominated by the authority of the father. In exchange for the bread he wins, he has the right to command as a master to the servant-wife and to the children, in whom he seeks more to develop blind submission than to develop their personalities.

"For us, on the contrary, the family is the union of two beings who share the same spiritual and intellectual ideal, who have decided to give life to healthy and happy children. The common household is the source of energy, the possibility to increase the radiance [rayonnement] of each by the free development of his or her own faculties.

"How is it possible not to understand that it is from the perfectioning of the individual that will give birth to the most perfect family and by what aberration can one oppose a healthy individualism to a healthy family.

"On this day, consecrated to the Mother, let us hope that all the women in France will meditate on their role in the family organization. It is easier, in truth, to submit without reflection than to be responsible, and the individualism that we seek comes with rights and responsabilities. What we cannot sanction is that arbitrary hierarchy, the pater familias who embodies the recognition of an a priori sexual superiority, a recognition that has served as the basis for an unjust Code, which denatures the relations between spouses and creates a privileged situation for the father at the mother’s expense.

"Certain men and even certain women will perhaps regret the life of the wife of earlier days, a life extinguished, which satisfied itself with a thousand little nothings of daily life. But let us dare to say that if men find there their convenience, they are not forever happy with it and, all too often, they look outside the household for a companion capable of understanding their preoccupations and their desires. 

"For the children themselves, the concept of the wife confined to the household is certainly not to be recommended. If the mother is to remain the good "minister of the interior," she should also, even in the interest of her familial mission, look outside and meditate on her responsibilities and duties. 

"Any good-hearted man [homme de Coeur] retains a tender memory of his mother for the care and tenderness with which she surrounded him; but the recognition of the best men goes to the éducatrice, to her who inspired in him that which is most profound and most noble. To raise up the soul of her children, the mother must, first of all, elevate her own; in order to help [children] understand life and guide them, she must instruct herself.

"Women, do not sacrifice your personal growth to your children and your husbands; it would be in vain. They will be the first victims. For your happiness, and for the happiness of those you love, we remind you of the counsel of Julie Siegfried, who was an admirable spouse and the best of mothers: 'Women, do not remain passive; mothers, dare to be!'"

Today, women around the world are honored on Mother's Day. This year France celebrates la Fête des Mères on 25 May. For more Mother’s Day goodness, explore our online exhibition MAMA: Motherhood Around the Globe, send your mother an e-card from us, or share your favorite Mother’s Day quotes.

CLIO TALKS BACK: Clio Visits the Sewall-Belmont House & Museum, Washington, D. C. (USA)

Speaking of museums that tell the stories of politically-active women, Clio reminisces about her recent visit to the Sewall-Belmont House & Museum in the capital city of the United States of America.

August 26 is Women’s Equality Day in the U.S., commemorating the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution – the federal amendment that granted full suffrage to all American women. Today American women will also celebrate the campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton for president of the United States. Eighteen million persons, women and men, voted for her in state primary elections – and as Hillary remarked, there are at least eighteen million cracks in the political glass ceiling. But the state-by-state primary election system leading up political party nominating conventions remains rigidly in place.

Prior to the decision to work for a constitutional amendment, the American suffrage leaders had also been campaigning state-by-state. [See Clio’s earlier May blog on Carrie Chapman Catt for her summary of the number of separate campaigns this approach entailed]. Some western states had enacted women’s suffrage on their own, from Wyoming Territory in 1869 (statehood in 1890) to California in 1911. But suffrage advocates had faced rejection after rejection in states further to the east.

A change in tactics seemed essential. Carrie Chapman Catt pushed through the idea of pursuing a constitutional amendment as a far more efficient means of achieving the goal. The text submitted and finally ratified is: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

With the help of the wealthy Alva Belmont, women of the National Woman’s Party including Alice Paul, who spearheaded the militant campaign that ultimately provoked congressional passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, established their headquarters in this lovely house, near the U.S. Supreme Court and Capitol, and the several congressional office buildings. The house, finally purchased by the NWP in 1929, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1974. Inside is a remarkable museum, containing furniture, art, and artifacts from the period of the suffrage struggle as well as the archive of the NWP. The house has recently been renovated, inside and out and the project to digitize materials in the archive is underway.

Clio was impressed by the quality of the museum’s presentation, including the video of the suffrage movement. She could sense the energy and vitality that these young American suffragettes exuded as they planned their campaigns to picket the White House and to defy their jailers after being arrested. Much of this story has been captured by the recent HBO film “Iron-Jawed Angels,” which is a must-see film for those who know little about the drama of the fight for the vote.

For additional information on the Sewall-Belmont House and the National Woman’s Party, Clio suggests consulting the website at www.sewallbelmont.org

CLIO TALKS BACK: Clio’s blog guest of the week: Carrie Chapman Catt (1859-1947).

Catt Collection, Bryn Mawr Archives, accessed through Google images

Carrie Chapman Catt

The battle for women’s suffrage in the USA was undoubtedly the most difficult, precisely because the American Constitution assigned the election laws to the states, not the federal government. Only a constitutional amendment could change this situation, and following the Civil War (1861-65) and the freeing of the slaves, negro men were legally enfranchised by the Fourteenth Amendment. But the women were written out. After decades of campaigning state-by-state, sometimes successfully and more often not, the leaders of the National Women’s Suffrage Association decided to change strategies and try for a constitutional amendment. Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt was the architect of that successful campaign for the amendment, which was ratified by the necessary number of states in 1920. Before that, even though a woman could run for president,as Victoria Woodhull did, she couldn’t vote for a presidential or congressional candidate, except in sparsely-settled states like Wyoming which had enfranchised women in 1869. Other western states had followed (including California in 1911), but the male voters and legislators of the eastern and southern states remained stubbornly hostile to the notion of woman suffrage.

Here, in the words of Carrie Catt and her collaborator Nettie Rogers Shuler, is a brief, passionate account from 1926 of what the women of the suffrage movement in the United States did, over the course of some seventy years (from the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 to ratification of the 19th amendment in 1920) of campaigning for the vote:

"Three years were consumed in the process of writing the word male into the Federal Constitution, two more in completing the enfranchisement of the Negro. Both were strictly Republican party measures and were achieved by the combined political force of a majority party and the military power of the nation. The demand to include women in any further extension of the suffrage, although supported at the time by men of great influence in party and nation, was effectually evaded all along the way by the proposal to 'let the women wait – this is the Negro’s hour, -- the woman’s hour will come.'”

"To get the word male in effect out of the constitution cost the women of the country fifty-two years of pauseless campaign thereafter. During that time they were forced to conduct fifty-six campaigns of referenda to male voters; 480 campaigns to urge Legislatures to submit suffrage amendments to voters; 47 campaigns to induce State constitutional conventions to write woman suffrage into State constitutions; 277 campaigns to persuade State party conventions to include woman suffrage planks; 30 campaigns to urge presidential party conventions to adopt woman suffrage planks in party platforms, and 19 campaigns with 19 successive Congresses. Millions of dollars were raised, mainly in small sums, and expended with economic care. Hundreds of women gave the accumulated possibilities of an entire lifetime, thousands gave years of their lives, hundreds of thousands gave constant interest and such aid as they could. It was a continuous, seemingly endless, chain of activity. Young suffragists who helped forge the last links of that chain were not born when it began. Old suffragists who forged the first links were dead when it ended."

Clio wonders: How could we forget a campaign that was so costly in time and energy? How could it be that every citizen, male or female, does not cherish and exercise the right to vote, won at so great a cost?

Clio says: No citizen, female or male, can ever take for granted the right to express political opinion, wherever that right exists.

Source: Carrie Chapman Catt & Nettie Rogers Shuler, Woman Suffrage and Politics: The Inner Story of the Suffrage Movement (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1926) – from Chapter IX – “The Woman’s Hour that Never Came,” pp. 107-110. Quotes pp. 106-7.