Hmmm, somehow I didn't get Aug 27, 1920, published yesterday, so here it is along with the events on today—August 28—104 years ago today.
August 27—the day after the 19th Amendment was officially added to the U.S. Constitution, four hundred suffragists and the governor of New York, Alfred E. Smith, welcomed Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association, who arrived by train in New York City. Mollie Garrett Hay presented her with a spectacularly large bouquet of yellow chrysanthemums and Canterbury bells. A procession led by six mounted policemen, a brass band, and automobile carrying Catt, and a group of suffragists slowly made its way to Catt’s hotel.
As a dinner celebration at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, Carrie Chapman Catt said:
“This is a glorious, a wonderful day. For many years we have marched up the long hill together. . . . Now we will go separate ways, holding in our hearts tender memories of our comrades in the great war . . .We are no longer petitioners . . ."
There is a statue of Catt with her bouquet and statues of Alice Paul and Mary Church Terrell at the illuminating and inspiring Turning Point Suffragist Memorial, Lorton, Virginia. I just checked the website and discovered my blog post and phonographs about my visit is on the home page. Here is the link:
The next day, Saturday, August 28, 1920, at noon, there was a clamorous nationwide celebration. "Every owner or custodian of a bell, whistle, horn, dishpan, dinner gong, brass drum, or other noise-making instrument" was called upon "to go the limit on noise in celebration of equal suffrage. In Bridgeport, Connecticut, "a tremendous din of factory whistles rent the air intermingling with the ringing of church bells" More than a thousand people joined a horn-honking automobile parade in Birmingham, Alabama. A Fairmont, West Virginia newspaper celebrated: BELLS PROCLAIM THE TRIUMPH OF SUFFRAGE. (In Baltimore, anti-suffragists tried to get the bell in City Hall "tolled mournfully . . . for the death f chivalry and womanly womanhoo.d.")
There was one more glorious celebration on September 25.. So, I'm hoping that you'll stay tuned in for that upcoming post.
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