Mary Philbrook
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">Twice the New Jersey Supreme Court mocked Mary Philbrook for insisting she was a full citizen. First in 1894 when she sued for the right to practice law. Then in 1911, when she represented a would-be voter. In between, Philbrook wrote a report that had more influence on federal power than most men. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">Philbrook was the highest-paid woman on the staff of the Dillingham Commission, a sweeping federal study that resulted in the draconian immigration policies we still endure. She led a team that went undercover to study “white slavery” - prostitution and sex trafficking.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">In her book <em>Inventing the Immigration Problem</em>, Katherine Benton-Cohen @guprofbc documents Philbrook’s authorship of the report “Importation and Harboring of Women for Immoral Purposes.” The report led directly to the White-Slave Traffic Act, better known as the Mann Act.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">Philbrook busted myths in her report: sex trafficking wasn’t a global monopoly run by Jews; not all women doing sex work had been forced into it; not only women were being trafficked. Still, she saw it as an evil that demanded policing. Policing by the federal government.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">The Mann Act’s impact went far beyond the immigration context that Philbrook and the Dillingham Commission worked in. Feds used it to prosecute child pornography, but also to persecute interracial sex. It was instrumental in the expansion of federal surveillance, culminating in the creation of the FBI.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">Did Philbrook, a life-long feminist, find it ironic that she had contributed to federal policing of private life? The Mann Act was hardly her only contribution. In addition to pathbreaking for women lawyers and <a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1345133987673608195" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">her suffrage lawsuit</a>, </span><span style="font-weight:400;">Philbrook went to France during World War I as a lawyer for the American Red Cross. When she returned she joined the National Woman’s Party and devoted the rest of her life to passing a state and federal Equal Rights Amendment. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">The ERA had powerful opposition from the outset. Welfare reformers like the Consumers’ League feared it would undo women-only labor laws they had worked hard to pass. Male labor unions hoped to expand those laws to men, and in the meanwhile appreciated that they reduced competition from women.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">NJ politicians were reluctant to anger labor, the Consumers’ League, and the League of Women Voters by supporting the ERA. Yet Philbrook believed passionately in equality feminism. She lobbied for the ERA in Washington and Trenton into the 1940s, persevering as she was repeatedly told it wasn’t needed. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">In 1944, NJ Governor Walter Edge dismissed Philbrook, saying that the 19th Amdt sufficed as a promise of equal rights. “Personally,” he added, “I think much of the agitation in this connection is absolutely unnecessary and I might add that thousands of intelligent women indicate a similar viewpoint.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">By this point Philbrook is 71 years old. For 50 years the men of New Jersey have been telling her she is a fool.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">She pressed on, determined that the NJ Constitution state clearly that women were equal under the law.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">When New Jersey undertook a constitutional rewrite in the 1940s, she couldn’t win the language she wanted: “No distinction shall be created under the law between the rights of men and women to vote, to hold public office, or to enjoy equally all civil, political, economic and religious rights and privileges." </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">But thanks to last-minute maneuvering by the chair of the Constitutional convention, an ally, she won a compromise. “Whenever in this Constitution the term ‘person,’ ‘persons,’ ‘people,’ or any other personal pronoun is used, the same should be taken to include both sexes.” In addition, all references to men in the Constitution were struck, and “person,” “persons,” or “people” substituted.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">Philbrook died in 1958, still doubtful that the language was strong enough to protect women from discrimination in every circumstance. Twenty years later, the state Supreme Court ruled that it was. “Under our recent 1947 Constitution women were granted rights of employment and property protection equal to those enjoyed by men. This was accomplished by changing the first two words of Art. I, par. I from ‘All men’ to ‘All persons.’”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">The decision was unanimous. It had taken New Jersey women 200 years to win back rights they had at the state’s founding. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">#Suffrage100 </span></p>
Daily Suffragist
<a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1345836828352540675" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Original thread</a>
January 3, 2021
38 states
The Equal Rights Amendment was drafted by Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman in 1923. Alice Paul devoted the rest of her life to its passage. She campaigned for more than 50 years.
Daily Suffragist
<a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1217626784268791808" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Original thread.</a>
15/01/2020
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<h1 id="link-777ac43c" class="css-rsa88z e1h9rw200"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/us/era-virginia-vote.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Virginia Approves the E.R.A., Becoming the 38th State to Back It</a></h1>
</div>
American Joshua
My adult interest in the suffrage movement began with Alice Paul. If Stanton & Anthony - and other women whose names I didn’t yet know - were Moses, then Alice Paul was Joshua, leading us into the Promised Land. Without her the struggle could have taken years longer. <br /><br />Decades before SNCC or Act Up, Alice Paul made political theater that worked. Most of it had never been done before: a massive parade alongside a Presidential inauguration; protesters continually picketing the White House; women as domestic political prisoners. It was genius. <br /><br />Then, after we won the 19th Amendment, Alice Paul wrote the ERA. Her belief in absolute legal and political equality for women spoke to me when I first learned about her from Reva Siegel. Though I now know more about Alice's flaws, it still does. #Suffrage100 #KnowYour19th
Daily Suffragist
<a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1200750884994637829" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Original thread.</a>
30/11/2019
Vote, Virginia!
TODAY is the last day to register to vote in Virginia for Nov 5. If just 4 state legislative seats flip, VA will be the 38th state to ratify the ERA. That would pay an old debt: VA didn’t ratify the 19th Amendment until 1952. #StateoftheWeek #ERANow <br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">November 5th is COMING! Are you <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/voteready?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#voteready</a> ?? October 15th is the final day in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Virginia?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Virginia</a> to register to vote or update an existing registration!<a href="https://t.co/G6PbNdlIEA">https://t.co/G6PbNdlIEA</a> <a href="https://t.co/7RN0IC38F3">pic.twitter.com/7RN0IC38F3</a></p>
— VoteEqualityUS (formerly VAratifyERA) (@VoteEqualityUS) <a href="https://twitter.com/VoteEqualityUS/status/1178461729912709120?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 30, 2019</a></blockquote>
Daily Suffragist
<a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1184174405947138051" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Original thread.</a>
15/10/2019