{"id":4008,"date":"2020-03-24T11:35:34","date_gmt":"2020-03-24T15:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cortlandywca.org\/?p=4008"},"modified":"2020-03-24T13:02:32","modified_gmt":"2020-03-24T17:02:32","slug":"womens-history-month-virtual-art-gallery-exhibit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cortlandywca.org\/index.php\/womens-history-month-virtual-art-gallery-exhibit\/","title":{"rendered":"Women’s History Month Virtual Art Gallery Exhibit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cRADICAL TEA TOWELS FOR MARCH\u201d AT YWCA CORTLAND<\/strong><\/h1>\n

by Stephen B. Wilson<\/h2>\n

(Click on any image to view it full screen in a new window; use your web browser’s zoom function to enlarge.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Andrea Rankin, noted women\u2019s-issues historian and venerated activist with Aid to Victims of Violence, has created a compelling exhibit to commemorate Women\u2019s History Month in the first-floor gallery space at YWCA Cortland, located at 14 Clayton Ave.<\/p>\n

The banners, posters, photographs, newspaper clippings, and collages illuminate a wide range of issues\u2014historical and contemporary\u2014that have dominated, and in many cases consumed, the lives of women from the middle of the nineteenth century to the present.<\/p>\n

I walked slowly through the exhibit with Ms. Rankin and was rewarded with information about the heroines of the suffrage movement, the fight for equal pay, the history of the attempt to ratify the proposed Equal Rights Amendment, the local and national opposition to women\u2019s suffrage, the emergence of the \u201cMe Too\u201d movement, and various issues concerning women\u2019s health.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The exhibit is dominated by four banners that hang like bunting from the high arched ceiling.\u00a0 Moving from the entrance to the opposite end of the hallway, the first banner portrays a woman dressed in a knight\u2019s armor, carrying a lance and riding a steed draped in heraldry.\u00a0 In the background is the modern U.S. Capitol building.\u00a0 The caption reads \u201cWomen\u2019s Suffrage Procession, Washington D. C., March 3, 1913.\u201d\u00a0 The second banner is a portrait of Harriet Tubman (an African American woman who is the subject of the currently running film \u201cHarriet\u201d), with the caption, \u201cI was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say I never ran the train off the track and I never lost a passenger.\u201d<\/p>\n

The third banner shows the poignant picture of a woman nursing her new-born child.\u00a0 The caption reads:\u00a0 \u201cWomen bring all voters into the world.\u201d\u00a0 The fourth banner proclaims in broad, bold type:\u00a0 \u201cA woman living here has registered to vote.\u201d\u00a0 The final banner shows the Women\u2019s Suffrage March and Mass Meeting of June 13, 1908.<\/p>\n

When I asked Ms. Rankin about the source of the banners, she explained that they are \u201cRadical Tea Towels\u201d purchased in Seneca Falls, NY, which has been called \u201cground zero\u201d for the movements for women\u2019s rights.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Andrea Rankin clearly has an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of suffragism.\u00a0 She spoke at length and pointed to displays of some of the most influential figures over the history of the fight for women\u2019s rights.\u00a0 These include Alice Paul, whose Quaker mother taught her that men and women were equal.\u00a0 She and her friend Lucy Burns led the Congressional Committee of the National American Women\u2019s Suffrage Association in 1910.\u00a0 Ms. Paul also practiced non-violent direct action ten years before Mahatma Gandhi did.<\/p>\n

Ida B. Wells was an African American journalist, educator, and civil rights leader, who toured the South protesting lynchings.\u00a0 She was also one of the founders of the NAACP and founded the National Association of Colored Women.\u00a0 An accomplished writer, she wrote \u201cSouthern Horrors and Other Writings.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a New York native, was also an eloquent writer who penned her \u201cDeclaration of Sentiments\u201d as a revolutionary call for women\u2019s rights.\u00a0 Sadly, according to Ms. Rankin, Stanton acted in a racist manner when she betrayed her values for political expediency.\u00a0 She and Susan B. Anthony were both abolitionists who fought to end slavery.\u00a0 They thought that women should be enfranchised with black men.\u00a0 Republican politicians of the day thought differently.\u00a0 They argued that black men should vote because they were men and women should not vote simply and especially because they were women. (This exhibit includes a summary of the issue in the essay \u201cWe Finally Won the Vote, but There Was Racism in Our Ranks,\u201d by Andrea Rankin.)<\/p>\n

Andrea\u2019s admiration for strong female activists is not limited to figures from the past.\u00a0 She spoke with obvious respect and affection for the late Elsie Gutchess of Cortland, who for years gathered and preserved information from across the nation about a wide range of subjects of interest to women.\u00a0 Ms. Gutchess was a dedicated benefactress to YWCA Cortland, and before her death Ms. Rankin worked with her to organize thousands of files and books that will go to the Elsie Gutchess Library in a newly restored historical home of Suffragist Isabel Howland in Sherwood, NY.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>During my tour of the display, I stood for what seemed like forever, looking with disgust at clippings from newspapers, including \u201cour own\u201d Cortland Democrat<\/em> and the New York Times<\/em> from 1917, both of which opposed women\u2019s suffrage.\u00a0 These blatantly misogynistic screeds defied belief.\u00a0 Here are some samples from the Democrat<\/em>:\u00a0 \u201cNow is the time for patriotism. . . The place for a woman [to] picket is at the kitchen door.\u00a0 She serves her country there. \u2026\u201d\u00a0 \u201c[Women\u2019s suffrage] means that men will lose 50% of their political power.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cFamily life is being defaced beyond recognition.\u00a0 Leading churchmen, statesmen, doctors, and judges are among the opponents of women\u2019s enfranchisement.\u201d<\/p>\n

But my \u201cfavorite\u201d is the opinion published in the New York Times<\/em> in 1912.\u00a0 \u201cThe situation is dangerous.\u00a0 We often hear the remark nowadays that women will get the vote. . . . And it is true that they will get it and play havoc with it for themselves and society, if men are not wise enough\u2014and it must be said\u2014masculine enough to prevent them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>For readers interested in statistics and economics, there is a display that explores the pay inequity between men and women today.\u00a0 One component shows that a white woman must work for fifteen months before earning the salary that a man doing the same job earns in twelve.\u00a0 A woman of color would have to work for eighteen months for the same income.\u00a0 Because progress toward eliminating this inequity is moving so slowly, one estimate says that the gap will be closed in 2093!<\/p>\n

Another attractive and informative display covers female representation in Congress, the Supreme Court, and state and local legislatures.\u00a0 There is also a history of the creation of and advocacy for the Equal Rights Amendment.<\/p>\n

Although the YWCA facility is closed to the public until further notice in response to the COVID-19 situation, people can view the display on the YWCA website (cortlandywca.org).<\/p>\n

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\u201cRADICAL TEA TOWELS FOR MARCH\u201d AT YWCA CORTLAND by Stephen B. Wilson (Click on any image to view it full screen in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-announcements","category-general","category-recent-news","has_no_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cortlandywca.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cortlandywca.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cortlandywca.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cortlandywca.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cortlandywca.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4008"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/cortlandywca.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4033,"href":"https:\/\/cortlandywca.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4008\/revisions\/4033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cortlandywca.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cortlandywca.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cortlandywca.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}