Workhouse and the herstory

windows at work house are well over your head

When I published the last post about my third visit to Workhouse Arts Center I got a surprise. My friend Tom Palmer had just see the movie about the suffragettes who were imprisoned in the workhouse and written a paper for his master's class about the "Iron Jawed Angels" and women's education. He sent me his entire paper which I thought was very interesting and informative. Seeing that movie on HBO was moving and a part of history or herstory I thought everyone should know and I believe most people do not so if you can get a copy we both recommend it to you.

I asked Tom if I could share his paper with the readers of my blog and he replied I could share it with a comment on how amazing it was to find my post about Lorton at the same time he was just finishing writing about the events that unfolded at the workhouse nearly 100 years ago. What follows is Tom's complete paper including citations. Thank You: Tom!

“Iron Jawed Angels” Overview

The film “Iron Jawed Angels” follows the US women’s suffrage movement from 1912 – 1920, long after the death of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. From fiery beginnings, the US Women’s Suffrage movement had become complacent with a slow, state by state approach to reform in the early 20^thcentury. The National American Women’s Suffrage Association (NAWSA) shunned the brasher British women’s suffrage movement, which was seen as too extreme in their tactics. Carrie Chapman Catt and Anna Howard Shaw, the leaders of NAWSA, preferred backroom political maneuvering over marching and picketing. The movie tells the story of two fiery college graduates—Alice Paul and Lucy Burns—who set out to start a DC chapter of the NAWSA and to organize a women’s voting rights march in Washington, D.C. To grab press attention, a robed suffragette dressed like a Greek goddess sat atop a white horse during their parade. Ms. Paul’s tactics got attention, created a firestorm of controversy, and money poured in. When the NAWSA headquarters wanted to take all of the money raised from the D.C. chapter, Paul and Burns started their own women’s voting rights party called the National Women’s Party (NWP).

Enraging many, the NWP started a campaign of around the clock picketing in front of the White House and slowly started to sway opinions about women’s suffrage. But when the U.S. entered the First World War in 1917, the protests were no longer tolerated and many NWP protesters were thrown in jail under the pretense of “obstructing traffic.” Men attacked them and many suffragettes were beaten up. Alice Paul insisted the picketing continue, and public scrutiny started to build. When Paul and Burns were eventually jailed for protesting, they went on hunger strikes and gained even more attention from the press. The women were severely mistreated in the Lorton (then called Occoquan) facility, and brutally force-fed. When major newspapers picked up the stories of the maltreatment, President Woodrow Wilson agreed to ask congress to pass the women’s voting rights amendment legislation in 1919. By 1920, the constitutional amendment passed through every state legislature, and through Tennessee by one vote. The title “Iron Jawed Angels” is derived from the nickname the suffragettes who took part in the hunger strikes were given, because they clamped their mouths shut and rejected the hard rubber feeding tubes (Weinstein 2004).

The Master Narrative and Women

Even though women have the babies, and perpetuate the human race, men run things. Our master narrative in this country assigns strict gender roles to boys and girls, and deviation is frowned upon. Part of our master narrative dictates that men should be aggressive, emotionally stronger, pushier, and more controlling. Women, as encouraged by our master narrative, are supposed to be more passive, calmer, more loving, and more nurturing. Women spent more than a third of this republic’s history without any voting rights.

The Master narrative assigns men and women different occupations. Men are prevalent in positions of power, the science and math occupations, and the mechanical arts. Women are caregivers, healers, teachers, and assistants. With these roles, the master narrative ensures that businesses can still control vast sums of money and power, wars can be waged and fought to protect these interests, and a dominant male white power group can maintain control.

The movie shows this narrative breaking down somewhat. Voting rights is power, and the “iron jawed angels” courageously grasped at and achieved political rights. Now, almost a century later, women still earn less than men, holding fewer positions of power, and expected to conform to traditional female roles. Some argue that it is because the master narrative keeps them form equalizing. I believe it is also women themselves, who are reluctant to change. Many women buy into the master narrative. I have a sister who was an avid reader and an early achiever in school. But became concerned about popularity, marrying, and having children. Two divorces later, she has two grown girls but she is locked in believing that men are her only way out. Her whole adult life has been male-dependant. I believe that my sister’s story is not unusual. Women are told, and ultimately believe that their lives depend on making strategic relationships with men. This is true around the world. Fortunately, this is changing very slowly as women are taking control of their lives, and carving out their own destinies. Alice Paul and Lucy Burns are excellent examples of how women stopped waiting for men to decide for them.

New information

I learned so much from this movie. I knew that the house near the U.S. Supreme Court was a suffragette house, but had no idea about the history of Ms. Paul and Ms. Burns. I have held a Susan B. Anthony dollar in my hand, and observed her stern eyes looking back at me. I always assumed the suffrage story began and ended with Anthony. I learned very little from my high school textbooks about this movement--just the date 1920. I guess, like many boys, I was turned-off by the suffragette movement. My only recollection of the British women’s suffrage movement, so despised in the film by Catt and her NAWSA, was the comical mother in the 1960s Disney film Mary Poppins. I remember that Disney portrayed women seeking the vote as silly and buffoonish. For me, the significance of the actual history never broke through the sepia photos and grainy kinescope newsreels. That is why I liked the movie “Iron Jawed Angels” so much. Its modern soundtrack, fast editing, and great acting made the era and the women’s movement come alive. Knowing Wilson’s back story of anti Black feelings made me dislike him, and feel like he was a political opportunist when he gave the speech saying that the women’s vote is important to the war effort.

This film taught me that there was a progression of events that led to women gaining the right to vote. It showed me that at the turn of the century, Paul and Burns re-invigorated the struggle by breathing new life into it. By civilly disobeying, they were able to gain media attention to their cause. They were able, through hunger strikes, to ultimately sway the president’s opinion in their favor. All this was new information for me. I had no idea that the concept of hunger strikes went back that far. They preceded Gandhi with this tactic. I never dreamed that brave women utilized that strategy to gain voting rights.

The movie also set in motion for me the curiosity to see whether my notions about the differences between the sexes is real or biased. I went to Busboys and Poets and purchased the book Failing at Fairness: How Our Schools Cheat Girlsby Myra and David Sadker. The film “Iron Jawed Angels” was an excellent reminder that I am ignorant of not only the women’s suffrage movement, but women’s issues and educational issues regarding gender. It was a great call to arms for me.

The Challenges and Successes of Women Today

Conventional wisdom insists that women are simply wired differently than men. Television talk shows remind women that they are from “Venus” not “Mars” and that women should celebrate their differences and not question dominance by men. Educators are not directly addressing these misconceptions. Men clearly do not want to give up their dominant role. A male dominated media perpetuates the unjust laws that result in women not earning as much as men. The male dominated culture influences people to accept that girls should accept traditional roles as wives, nurturers and mothers, and stay away from traditionally male professions. I believe that this is the foremost challenge facing women today. Many women do not believe in their own equality. Many religions add fuel to this buy preaching that women are subservient to men and it is moral to accept that role.

Women also succumb to fear of non-conformity in marriage and sex roles. As Myra and David Sadker discuss in their book Failing at Fairness: How Our Schools Cheat Girls, adolescent girls are often victims of low self-esteem. They are more likely to care more about weight issues, and become obsessed with popularity, being pretty and fitting in. I believe that fashion and societal views of women as sex objects enhances this (Sadker & Sadker, 1995).

The future of the women’s movement is embodied in children. Education about gender roles has great impact on perceptions. Of the 23 leading teacher education texts devoted only 3% of their space to gender issues. Huge challenges face educators who want to investigate whether these differences are real or perceived, and how to best address them in education. Girls get the short end of the stick in curriculum too. In reading, 61 % of stories have male-centric characters, in Social studies, only 2.5% of space to gender issues. Few science textbooks mention female scientists contributions, besides occasional quaint mentions of Marie Curie or others (Zittelman & Sadker, 2002).

What are the successes of women today? The successes include a steady increase in women’s educational attainment and roles in traditionally male-dominated fields. According to the article “Helping Girls Succeed” by Denise Jobe (2002), “More girls than ever are attending college” (p.64). US census data shows that 1,000,000 more women than men had a high school education or higher in 2008. Although women lag slightly behind men in post-graduate degrees, they obtain more Bachelor’s degrees than men. Twice as many women have bachelor degrees as 20 years earlier. (Census, 2008). – “Over a work life, earnings for a worker with a bachelor's degree compared with one who had just a high school diploma increase by about $1 million.” This bodes well for increasingly more women than ever before (Census, 2008).

Paul and Burns would be heartened to know that 65% of women voted in national elections, compared with 62% of men. Fifteen percent of the active military is comprised of women, compared with 2% in 1950. Eighty-four percent of women use computers at home compared with 82% of men. This reverses the previous computer gender gap of the 1980s and 1990s (Census, 2006). 

It is the job of every multiculturally competent teacher to realize the biases of the master narrative regarding women. Women have come a long way, but have so much further to go. By examining history and women’s role in society today, educators must attempt to even the playing field. Educators hidden inclination to re-enforce traditional gender roles and gender interests should be re-examined and changed by educators. For me, Alice Paul and Lucy Burns are excellent role models. They demonstrate how people can reject conformity and achieve the great and often elusive goal of equality.

References

Census Bureau (2008). Women’s history month 2006. U.S. Census Bureau News. February 22

[Press release] Retrieved online at: http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/

releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/006232.html

Census Bureau. (2007). Educational attainment in the population 25 years and over by

Selected characteristics: 2008, Table 2, United States Census Bureau [Web Site]. Retrieved online athttp://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/

education/cps2008.html

Jobe, D. A. (2002) Helping girls succeed. Educational Leadership.January 2002, 64-66.

Sadker, M. Sadker D. (1995) Failing at fairness: How our Schools Cheat Girls. New York, NY:

Simon & Schuster.

Weinstein, P., (Producer) & Von Garnier, K., (Director). (2004). Iron Jawed Angels.[Motion

picture], United States: HBO Independent Productions.

Zittleman, K., Sadker, D. (2002) The unfinished gender revolution. Educational Leadership.

January 2002, 59-63.

arts in Virginia

Lorton's Workhouse Arts Center, view of the buildings across the Quad near the front

Workhouse Barracks currently house artists open studios with a central gallery for each.

This view is looking from the outside in towards the Quad.

Fiber Arts display gallery in one of the barrack studio buildings

Since my show with neighbor poet Peter Montgomery opened last Oct. 24th at the Lorton Workhouse Arts Center I wanted to get my mother down to see the space and the show. It is open Wed. through Sunday and I was visiting last week so we made a date and went down to explore the new center. It was a nice drive down through the wooded parkway in Prince William County and just over the county line in Fairfax County we pulled up and began the exploration. First we got into the main building where the Associate artists have up displays and the gallery gift shop is open as well as the art supply store. We noticed a nice Art-o-mat® like the one I participated in back in 2001 with Clark Whittington the original man who came up with the idea to turn old cigarette vending machines into art vending machines to bolster young and new collectors. I did some of my most popular prints for the Art-o-mat ® It was fun but way too much work for the money. Exposure was great but the income was not quite worth the pains I developed from mass producing small folding prints, cutting cardboard and stenciling boxes... Still I had fun and if you want to see the prints I did you can find them in my web gallery Artomat page. We saw the first floor and then went up to the Poetic Art show on the second floor and read most of the poems and enjoyed a quiet look over the artworks which varied a great deal from my nude figure watercolor to abstract stenciled paintings, collages, photographs color and black and white and even porcelain sculptures that looked like real books.

From Poetic art we went on to the next exciting feature the artists studios in the barrack buildings that used to be prison quarters. This place has been completely gutted and rebuilt specially to suit artists with bright overall lighting and a central hallway for each artist to display some framed work. A gallery is situated at the front where an artist greets visitors who are free to roam and explore. Mom and I had a great time looking and I discovered the print maker Norma Pfaff who is doing an ongoing series of relief prints of chairs. Something that I have seen before and may try my own had at creating. She wasn't in her studio this day but clearly works there a lot and we met her studio mate Karen a painter who did lovely paintings and watercolors and had a nice talk with her. We also ran into my old class mate from Pratt Institute who lives in that area and is an associate artist, Cedrick Baker. He was also at the opening on the 24th so it was a surprise to find him there again in the middle of the week.

The concrete floors were pretty hard and the only drawback to visiting the Workhouse Arts Center for us. We spent about two hours standing and walking and were very happy to get back in the car for a ride back to Manassas. This place is full of history and the open studio model for this arts center was the Alexandria Art League and the Torpedo Arts Center in Old Town Alexandria, VA. also a historic building. I hope to go back and learn more of the history about the Workhouse where Suffragettes were held after a protest in Washington DC at the Whitehouse for several months and nearly died from rough treatment and starvation back about 90 years ago. Women's struggle to get the vote prevailed but not without suffering and the history is alive here. One whole barrack building at the Workhouse Arts Center is devoted to the history a museum at the far end of the central Quad. That will be my first stop on the next visit. Arts instruction, performances and concerts, readings and creative experiences are happy to change the history of the Workhouse but keep the record strong and straight about how this place got it's name.

Wet October

Sweet Gum tree on 10th St. NE turns many colors slowly and the seed pods show up for the first time.

It was planted earlier this year and survived the summer heat with a little help from me watering.

Washington normally has more dry sunny days in October than any other month of the year and the temperatures are just right but this year we had a mix of rainy cloudy gray days that were very disappointing. We got over five inches of rain putting us in the Black for rainfall this year. September was a little dry they say so the rainfall was good and it didn't hurt the students competing in the Solar Decathlon too much this year. It did take some of the joy out of our seasonal autumn display. Wet leaves under gray skies are just not quite what we expect. I went out on Sunday the 1st of November for a walk around my community of Brookland and had a good time catching views of leaves wet and dry. I uploaded a group of my walk in the set named Brookland on my flickr. pages. You can see the pretty wet leaves there along with some of the pumpkins that didn't get smashed up Halloween!

Autumn colors

equality march on Pennsylvania Avenue

Texans brought the biggest flag naturally

yellow dahlia with dark purple red leaves Smithsonian Ripley garden

an exotic orange relative of the tomato at Ripley garden

fuzzy orange relatives of the tomato

potted violet blue tropical flowers in the Smithsonian Haupt gardens

hibiscus at the Smithsonian Haupt garden

crepe myrtle leaves

crepe myrtle leaves

orange sun sets over turkey thicket

Turkey Thicket Community Center orange in the sunset

This time of year is golden orange and bright colors in the warm range abound everywhere you look in nature and in the culture that reflects our connections to the world around us. I have been watching my stack of images pile up while out on lots of interesting adventures in the past month. Yesterday we traveled down to a Poetic Art exhibit and reading which I donated some work for sale to raise money for the Yellow Ribbon Fund and had a great time visiting the Lorton Workhouse Arts Center. What a gem the Workhouse has become. I knew it as the place where imprisoned suffragettes were locked up after a early twentieth century demonstration for Women's votes. The leading ladies were kept in the work house and after a food strike protesting their imprisonment they were brutally force fed with funnels and hoses. They got out and the vote was eventually delivered to Women thanks to their work. Later it became a real prison where Washington DC sent our criminals to serve time and was closed due to over crowding and health problems. Now it is a wonderful open and clean modern arts center. Sadly the exhibition had rules about taking photos that kept me from pulling out my handy Kodak so when we got home Keith and I took a walk and made some local photos of the trees the sky in shades of my favorite orange.

A couple weeks ago we went to the National March for Equality as spectators and later enjoyed some garden time afterwards in the Ripley and Haupt gardens kept by the Smithsonian Institution. I made photos of flowers and fruits some orange and some the opposite blue. The flags and signs and people in the march were exciting and the crowd was much bigger than we expected to see after only six months lead time to plan and implement a national event.

Another project I am giving my time as a volunteer on a artists book project at the Pyramid Atlantic Studios in Silver Spring, Maryland not too far from home. It is a project that started last year as a funds raiser by ten book artists who went to the rehearsals and performances of the City Dance Company and made book art in response to their dances. The story of it's inception is explained nicely by this film excerpt Moving Parts. I am helping to assemble 50 black and red clam shell boxes to hold books for those ten artists dance related books. These boxed book sets are going on sale next month to raise funds for the Pyramid Atlantic and City Dance. While I work with a team I am learning new techniques and meeting new people with who also love book making.

Solar Decathlon 2009 Germany Wins!

View of the winner's house from south facade where we waited in line to get a look inside Germany's house Tuesday morning. Their flag pole doubled as a camera mount for the live feed internet camera shown on the team's web site.

German's house was full of hosts and visitors on Tuesday morning as the sun shinned brightly. This home had a loft (not open to us) that included a bed room and other areas to live above the dinning room and kitchen and bathroom. One unique feature were two hide-a-way beds that were on rollers built as double long steps on the ground level just past the dinning room table.

Photo Voltaic ( PV ) panels covered the entire exterior of German's solar house. The colors black with orange (red) and yellow details reflecting the German flag.

Some of the PV panels were on louvers that opened to let in light on German's solar powered house.




They did it again! Technical University Darmstadt of Germany won the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon after a week of testing and evaluations for ten categories of energy efficiency and aesthetic excellence. This time I got to tour the house on Tuesday it was the first one Keith and I visited when we arrived with all the school K-12 tour groups visiting that day it was a long wait but worth the visit. I got a few photographs while we were waiting in line. I was impressed with Illinois and California's entries who came in second and third place. German team says this house will go back to the University campus and be placed next to the 2007 winning house where they serve as education tools and inspiration to future teams and students from all over Europe. They beat American teams showing even our best schools are not producing savvy architects and engineers because everyone used commercially available solar products to build their houses. We need more money for schools, grants for education and focus on the future of energy production. Buildings use about half of the energy in this country to run and to be built so this is an important technical weakness for America that needs to be addressed to reduce our reliance on foreign oil and cut green house gases.

More photos are posted on my flickr pages.

Solar Decathlon 2009

Hard hat area, caution California men working

pure chaos around the proverbial glass house

VA Tech Team installing decking panels

VA Tech's Solar house

Cornell team with water filtration system of tall grasses

German Team

Every two years in October the national mall comes alive with architects, engineers, carpenters, landscapers... electricians and others who are busy at work rebuilding small houses. This year twenty teams from all over the country and some from other countries for the Energy Department's Solar Decathlon are setting up on the mall. I got a preview on Sunday October 4th and took a few pictures and had a few conversations with the crew members and one very nice orange bearded architectural professor from Wisconsin. The sun was slipping down towards the horizon and the teams were working very hard to get their buildings up, outfitted with solar panels and wired so they could be inspected and begin collecting solar energy to run their homes and a car by October 9th when they open to the public. I have fallen in love with this event. I don't know why exactly but it is such an optimistic experience to see real people working so hard to create a sustainable and energy neutral home right now, right here in DC.

Each team has a website with the story of their design construction and trip to DC as well as galleries of photos of the homes and some have movies too. They are all listed on this web site Get Smart Energy NOW! in an overview article : A Quick Cheat Sheet to Solar Decathlon I enjoyed looking over some of the team web sites once I had been down for my preview in person. I was surprised to see how much of the materials were recycled wood from grain towers and barns in the University of Illinois at Urbana's house for example.

Virginia Tech had a full 10 minute video about their house which was kind of interesting. This time the house looks very slick and shinny compared to the house that VA Tech. built in 2007 but you can find out about all the teams by going to the cheat sheet article. I am looking forward to returning to visit when the work is done and the houses are up and running 100% on their own power.

Official site of the Department of Energy for the Solar Decathlon 2009

September in Colonial Williamsburg VA

The shed with raw dry green bricks protected from rain.

The kiln and some finished bricks from last year's firing.

Colonial Williamsburg brick maker telling us about his job standing next to this year's kiln.

This week I catch up after a really nice week in Williamsburg,VA taking pictures and walking through all sorts of formal and working back yard gardens. I had a nice break from DC down there in the slower pace of Colonial Williamsburg. Keith and I picked up my mom and drove down to her Powhatan Plantation time share to meet Mildred Cunningham her buddy and my sister, brother-in-law and his mom for a week. It was a nice ride with Keith volunteering to do all the driving down interstate 95. We all unpacked and settled in while Mildred and Phyllis (my mom) got our first meal prepared with all the goodies they brought. It reminded me of earlier days when they worked this magic for our families two or three times a day. Now as an adult we had to take up some of the duties of meals and Keith and I did a roast pork dinner one night. Brother-in-law Frank and his mom Elizabeth fixed their speciality Hungarian Chicken Paprika which is in a rich creamy sauce over noodles on another evening. As usual we had plenty of delicious food for every meal including pies from the pie shop and White House rolls from a bakery in Richmond that we all love.

Days we all went our separate ways to follow our own interests reuniting for those delicious dinners and visiting evenings. Keith and I set out the first day on a trip to Colonial Williamsburg (CW) and walked taking pictures all day. First stop was the brick yard where they discussed the way all houses were built in Virginia of the 1700s with home made bricks made on site by itinerant brick makers. They used local clay and created the bricks two at a time in forms. Those wet bricks were laid out in the sun to dry then were stored in a shelter till it was time to build a kiln out of raw green bricks and fire it for almost a whole week round the clock. In CW they make bricks every summer which are fired in the kiln in October and we sat around under the tent as one interpreter explained the process and another laid bricks into the stack to create the brick kiln that will soon be ablaze below with continuous burning wood. This was a very interesting talk and he showed us green bricks, salmon colored bricks, my favorite color orange red (half done and still soft). Then the finished hard red brick and the over done purple gray bricks that are close to the fire. I asked about the pattern we see of bricks in many colonial buildings where they appear to have glazed brick ends between red bricks and he said that all the bricks ends that face the fire are put aside and used to create that decorative brick laying pattern. Those he noted are the hardest bricks and most valuable. Something I have wondered about for years finally answered by a professional brick maker. Where else could you ask that question?

I took some 300+ photos and a couple of videos and I would like to tell you about all of it but I think that might take the rest of the month of October to write it all and instead I have to concentrate on my books and preparation for the Light in October show coming up in just a few weeks. You can go see the pictures from Williamsburg as I edit and post them on flickr.com in my Colonial Williamsburg Set as time allows.

I am also working on a few other interesting projects this month. Neighboring poet and friend Peter Montgomery and I collaborated and got accepted to show one of my figure watercolor drawings with one of his poems. It will be in a exhibition of poet artists collaborations, honoring a heroic local poet soldier, opening Oct. 25th at Old Lorton Work House Arts Center. There is a catalog planned along with the art for sale to raise funds for the families of wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital and Bethesda Navel Medical Center.

In addition I am helping to build boxes for a Pyramid Atlantic fund raiser project of artists books honoring City Dance and Pyramid Atlantic's book artists.