Author Archives: Nancy B. Kennedy

From anonymity to NBC

Fifteen years ago, I interviewed Rev. Robert Hartwell for my book of weight loss success stories, “How We Did It.” In it, I share the stories of about three dozen people who lost weight using different plans and programs. This past weekend, I caught up with Pastor Hartwell over lunch.

We were having such a great conversation that I totally forgot to take a picture to mark the occasion! So, instead, I’m reprinting his story below. His was a NutriSystem journey, although today Pastor Hartwell says he follows a mostly keto diet. Like him, I found that what worked when you were younger doesn’t always work fifteen years later! But if you want to maintain control of your weight and health, you can find something that works. I’d love to know how you did it!

An astonishing phone call

Most people make their weight loss resolution only after the annual holiday binge. But it was on New Year’s Eve 2007 that the Rev. Robert Hartwell’s weight-loss odyssey came to a dramatic close.

That morning, he stepped on a scale on NBC’s Today Show in front of 10 million people. 

Just how the pastor of Village Lutheran Church in Bronxville, New York, got to this point began around Thanksgiving the previous year. Robert’s church had started a campaign to pay down an $8 million mortgage it had assumed for a building project.

One day, Robert got a baffling call. A former parishioner, someone who kept close ties with the church, offered to make a substantial donation. But there was a catch.

“This donor asked me how committed I was to the project, and I started to tell him what I planned to give,” he says. “The donor brushed that off and said that, instead, he wanted me to commit to losing 70 pounds, and if I did so, he would donate $5,000 for each pound lost.”

Will he accept the challenge?

It was both an intriguing and a heartbreaking offer.

“I was crushed—mortified—that someone had discovered that I was overweight, although of course everyone saw it when I stepped into the pulpit each week,” Robert says. “But this donor said he wanted to know that I was as committed to the project as he was.”

Given the unusual nature of the pledge, Robert talked with church leaders to make sure that accepting the offer wouldn’t cheapen the image or mission of the church. Although the other pastors and deacons found the offer “wacky,” they saw no reason to reject it. So was born “The Skinny on Sacrifice” campaign. 

Although up to this point Robert hadn’t acknowledged his weight problem, he certainly understood how it had happened.

“My life is so hectic. I was always eating on the run. I’d grab a muffin between hospital visits, get home from council meetings at 10:30 at night, exhausted and ravenous, and grab a couple of sandwiches and chips,” he says. “And I was a volume eater—I could eat a half a pizza by myself or eight White Castle burgers at a time.”

By the time the sly donor came into the picture, the six-foot-tall pastor weighed about 270 pounds. After consulting with his parish nurse, Robert took up the challenge. Robert chose NutriSystem, and he followed it to the letter.

How he did it

On a food plan of about 1,500 calories a day, Robert lost 10 pounds almost immediately, and continued to lose two to three pounds a week. He and his wife, Sue, had always walked for pleasure, and Robert made sure he got in his two to three miles a day.

After six months, Robert ramped up his exercise routine in the gym at next-door Concordia College, where he is an adjunct professor [NOTE: Concordia closed its doors in 2021]. A congregant who is a personal trainer showed him how to use the machines for both cardio workouts and strength training. The college atmosphere was stimulating.

“I was there with the 19- and 20-year old baseball players, and they motivated me to keep going,” he says. He began going to the gym five days a week, on top of his family walks.

Let’s go national!

Meanwhile, an employee at the church’s school who happened to be a lighting director for the Today Show brought the pastor’s challenge to the attention of a producer. Wanting a religious-themed holiday feature, the producer asked whether Robert would be willing to weigh in on the show the morning of December 31, 2007.

“I had already told the donor that I wouldn’t weigh in during a church service, and here I was agreeing to do it in front of a live audience on national television,” he laughs. “Barring Jesus projecting it in the sky over the earth, it couldn’t get any bigger than that!”

Robert agreed to do the show, but he had a few conditions: He wanted to be fully clothed, but he didn’t want to wear shoes, and he wanted to bring his own scale. So far, so good. But just before he stepped out onto the stage, someone clipped a microphone to the back of his shirt. “This thing must weigh five pounds!” he protested.

No matter. Robert made the donor’s 70-pound limit, with 8 pounds to spare. Keeping his end of the bargain, the donor wrote a check for $390,000, which church members augmented with their own funds for an even $400,000.

Can I get an Amen?

Since then, Robert’s goal has changed—while he originally targeted 200 as his goal weight, he is maintaining his weight at 180 pounds and is working on strength training and toning. “Age is no friend to loose skin,” he says. He still uses NutriSystem—he finds himself ordering a box now and then because he really enjoys the food and finds it helpful in maintaining his weight. But he has also made his diet rich in omega 3s, healthy grains and low-glycemic carbs and protein.

And, the newly-svelte pastor made a deal of his own. On Ash Wednesday of 2008, “when everyone is thinking of mortality, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” Robert asked parishioners to join in a challenge cooked up with NutriSystem to see how many pounds the church community could lose in a year’s time. The congregation lost thousands of pounds, and many more community members picked up lifelong healthy lifestyles.

Ultimately, a change in lifestyle is what Robert believes makes a difference. “We have even changed the way we plan our fellowship events. In addition to the high sugar foods that people love and often bring, we try to make sure there are healthy options,” he says.

Robert has become an avid runner. He and four others ran the New York City Marathon in November 2011 to raise funds for the church’s Christian school.

“Running is such a great way to stay healthy and to find balance and harmony in the middle of a hectic life,” he says. “I often find myself praying or praising God in my morning runs and thank God that my new healthy lifestyle allows this righteous pleasure.”

Life lessons from the journey

With new insight, Robert says he now believes that weight loss is not only an individual pursuit yielding personal satisfaction, but a goal with wide-ranging possibilities for strengthening family and community ties.

“Food is a short cut. We use food to show love, to reward our children for their accomplishments. It’s ridiculous,” he says. “Food is really a substitute for spending time with each other. We’ve decided we’re not going to do that anymore.”

Influences

Anonymous donor to Village Lutheran Church

His wife, Sue: “She never made me feel guilty about not eating her food.”

Parish nurse Joy Elwell and parishioner Rich Foster, a congregant and personal trainer

God’s grace and motivation to reach new goals

Tips

For our church coffee hours, I’ve encouraged everyone to bring in fruits and vegetables. It costs more, but we feel good about it. I don’t go to donut shops, and I’m not buying that stuff for my kids any more.

Athletic superstar making baseball history

Be honest… when you read that headline about an athletic superstar, you’re thinking baseball player, right? A male… right? But, no, this superstar is a woman!

Jen Pawol is a baseball umpire who is breaking ground in Major League Baseball. I watched her behind the plate a few days ago in a Yankees spring training game. (She called Aaron Judge out looking, and she was right!)

Now I want to see her umpire a regular season MLB game! Maybe even more than I want the Yankees to win the World Series this year. Maybe…

A standout player

Jen Pawol was born in 1977, when Title IX was beginning to provide more opportunities for female athletes. In a baseball-saturated household, she wanted to play Little League baseball. But girls still just didn’t do that. They played softball. And so did Jen.

Jen was a standout player. In New Jersey’s West Milford High School, she was an all-state star in soccer and softball. She earned a softball scholarship to Hofstra University. But in college, Jen still needed money, so she began umpiring softball games.*

Jen was on the 2021 USA Baseball Women’s National Team that won the first Baseball Women’s World Series. But still not finished with her education — and not yet sure of her career path — Pawol went to Hunter College, where she earned an MFA with a concentration in painting. (I want to see her series of paintings of the strike zone!) She continued to umpire softball games while nurturing her career in art.

Baseball’s siren song

Yet her desire to remain in the game brought Pawol to Georgia in 2015 to attend Southern Umpires Camp. She caught the eye of an MLB umpire, Ted Barrett, who invited her an MLB umpiring camp.

“You know I’m a woman, right?” she responded.**

And that was that! Jen resolved to make it in the male-dominated field of baseball umpiring. She left camp with a scholarship to the league’s umpire academy. In June 2016, Pawol made her professional umpiring debut at a minor league game in Dunedin, Florida.***

Just as baseball players move on up through the minor league farm system, Jen progressed through the ranks. In 2023, she was promoted to the AAA level. On February 24, 2024, Pawol umpired at third base for the opening spring training game between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros in West Palm Beach, Florida, She continued to work games throughout the spring.

The challenge ahead

Finally, this year, Yankees fans were treated to the sight of Jen as the home plate umpire for the Yankee-Astros spring training game this past Saturday.

In a way, she says, an umpire has a tougher job than a player.

“As a hitter, it was a big deal to hit over 300,” she says. “But as an umpire, we have to hit 1,000 every night, and the challenge of that is absolutely riveting.”****

Baseball fans now have 162 chances to see Jen umpire a game this regular season. I hope she gets the call!

________________________________________

* You can make good money as an umpire. Our son was a Babe Ruth umpire while in high school, and he earned a Babe Ruth scholarship for his freshman year of college.

** Jen Pawol, American Baseball Umpire. Britannica.com. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jen-Pawol

*** Jen isn’t the first woman to umpire professional baseball. Those who went before her: Bernice Gera (1972), Christine Wren (1975–77), Pam Postema (1977–89), Theresa Cox Fairlady (1989–91), Ria Cortesio (1999–2007), Shanna Kook (2003–04). So few and far between. Also sad: Bernice and Christine shortened their names to the male-sounding Bernie and Chris on application forms, and others had to file lawsuits.

**** “Jen Pawol to make spring training debut, on verge of becoming first MLB woman umpire.” Associated Press, February 23, 2024. https://cbs12.com/sports/content/jen-pawol-to-make-big-league-spring-training-debut-on-verge-of-becoming-first-mlb-woman-umpire-big-league-washington-west-palm-beach-florida-southern-league

Talking suffrage in Princeton, NJ

“The time has come to conquer or submit. For us there is but one choice. We have made it.”

Yes, President Woodrow Wilson said these words in regard to winning World War I. But in 1917, another towering historical figure adopted this battle cry as her own. Suffrage leader (and outspoken Jersey Girl!) Alice Paul put those words on a banner that she paraded in front of Wilson’s home — the White House — on a picket line peopled by women who were tired of waiting for men to grant them the right to vote. They’d decided it was time to conquer.

Off to a bad start

From the start of our country in 1776, women had been shut out from participation in public life. And they protested their second-class status even while the battles of the Revolutionary War raged.

“Remember the ladies,” Abigail Adams admonished her husband, John, who was at the Continental Congress. “If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”

Sadly, the organized fight for the woman’s vote was a long way off, but finally in 1848 five women met for tea at a house in Seneca Falls, New York, and they decided it was time to act. They organized a two-day women’s rights convention at the Seneca Falls Wesleyan Methodist Chapel and formalized their complaints and demands in a document they called The Declaration Of Sentiments and Resolutions. The fight was on!

New Jersey’s spotty history

In my book Women Win the Vote! 19 for the 19th Amendment, I profile nineteen women who devoted their lives to this epic civil rights battle. The nineteen women are both those who were prominent in the fight and those who have been overlooked due to racism and class prejudice. At my upcoming talk for Stone Hill Church of Princeton (NJ) you’ll meet some of them in my illustrated talk, “Choosing to Conquer: The Women Who Won the Vote.” Some were women of faith, some were atheists — but all worked toward the single goal of winning the full rights of citizenship for themselves and their American sisters.

Often forgotten is the fact that the suffrage fight went on at not just the national level, but at the state and local level as well. And New Jersey is an exciting state in suffrage history! Remember I said that from the beginning of our country American women couldn’t vote? That’s not entirely true! In 1776, the New Jersey constitution granted women, African American men and immigrants the right to vote. And yet just a few decades later, a new constitution restricted the elective franchise to free, white males. What happened there?

Zeroing in on Princeton

Because Stone Hill Church is in Princeton, I rummaged around in old newspapers and found ample evidence of suffrage activity in town. Who was for suffrage? Who was against it? Where did the opposing camps meet? And what did Princeton University and seminary students think about women voting? The streets you walk and houses you see today will take on a new layer of meaning when you follow in the footsteps of the suffragists.

I love talking about the three generations of passionate women — and men! — who devoted their lives to righting this glaring civil injustice. Through a trove of vivid historical photos and the actual words the suffragists spoke, you’ll gain an appreciation of the courage and commitment it took for women to carry out their mission — the mission to conquer. Please join me on Monday, October 7 at 6:30 p.m. in Harris Hall at Stone Hill Church of Princeton for more on this exciting topic!

For more information about the event, contact me at nancybkennedyauthor@gmail.com or the church at info@stonehillprinceton.org. Or call the church at 609-924-3816.

A New Jersey utopia lost

In 1897, real estate huckster Silas “Si” Drake bought up a farm on the outskirts of Plainfield, New Jersey, and broke it up into building lots for a new town, which he called Lincoln. His intentions were lofty — Abraham Lincoln was his inspiration.

Obviously not one to shy away from famous people, Drake also wrote to Admiral George Dewey, the Spanish-American War hero, requesting to adopt his surname as his middle name. The Admiral consented, and thus Si became Silas Dewey Drake.

In short order, Silas D. Drake elected himself mayor of Lincoln. His town was in Middlesex County, about 28 miles south of New York City, and situated on two rail lines. His Lincoln Land Company began selling the 1,000 lots he’d carved out of the 60-acre Nelson Runyon farm. He intended the town to rival factory towns like Plainfield. He boasted that he would bring three factories to Lincoln, one of which would employ 500 men. He even petitioned the state legislature to move the state capital from Trenton to Lincoln.

A huckster or a visionary?

It’s easy to laugh at Drake. He was boastful and arrogant, and his ambitions overreaching. “He is a little man, bubbling with energy, horse sense and chivalry,” the newspapers said.* He endorsed products like Paine’s Celery Compound, a supposed cure for everything from nervousness and sleeplessness to “derangements of the liver and kidneys.”**

But when he founded Lincoln, Drake also experimented with some forward-looking social engineering. He declared Lincoln “A Town for Women” and named three women to the six-person town council: Emma Egel, president, and members Olivia Hazard and Mattie Moore.

This is where Abraham Lincoln comes in.

“I go for all sharing the privileges of the government, who assist in bearing its burdens,” Lincoln once said.***

Taking that to mean that women have a rightful place in government, Si said of his shiny new town:

“We want to practically demonstrate to the world that with municipal affairs in the hands of women the common good, the best interests of the community, will be served.”****

“It’s no longer necessary to go West, young woman!” crowed the newspapers.

Two steps back

The newspapers felt it necessary to point out that the three councilwomen were not college educated, and they had never been particularly interested in woman suffrage or women’s rights. They didn’t ride bicycles (bicycles! the horror!) nor did they wear “ultra gowns.” (Someone please explain to me what those garments were!) They were property owners, or the daughters of property owners (men) and “physically wholesome, well bred and domestic, rich in energy, enterprise and common sense.”

Predictably, not everyone was on board with Drake’s vision. Two of the men on the council resigned, not willing to serve with women. Undaunted, Drake set another election and two more women were elected to the council. He also appointed a woman to be station master for one of the town’s two railroad stations.

The vision fades

Alas, in the end, Si didn’t sell enough lots, and in 1900, the venture went bust. “It sprang up out of a corn field like a mushroom in the night and became a hamlet giving hope of future promise,” the town’s “obituary” read.***** Its buyer paid just $16,000 for the property, netting only $1,000 after settling Drake’s debts.

Yet Drake was quick to say that Lincoln’s demise wasn’t owing to the presence of women on the council. Rather, he said, it was simply due to a dip in real estate sales. Today, on a map of Plainfield, there’s a street in the outlying section of town called Lincoln Place. It’s lined with some suspiciously turn-of-the-century-looking homes.

Whatever Si’s motives — a gimmick, his storied chivalry or an honest stab at a more inclusive future — the town’s failure is a shame. In a time when women’s place was still considered to be the home and only the home, It was a worthy experiment!

____________________________

  • * “A Town for Women,” the Gloucester County Democrat (Woodbury, NJ), November 4, 1897, p. 1.
  • ** The Jersey City News (Jersey City, NJ), January 18, 1898, p. 2.
  • *** But Lincoln’s comment is often taken out of context. He went on to say that he would admit those of the white race to suffrage. He also said he backed suffrage for those who pay taxes or bear arms. He knew full well that women could not serve in the military, and that only a precious few could own property in their name. Some say this was one of his little jokes.
  • **** “A Town for Women” (this quote and the following two)
  • ***** “Lincoln to Be Sold Today,” the Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), July 10, 1901, p. 1.

Love in the time of suffrage hikes

In 1912, suffragists working for the woman’s vote started a new form of protest: the long hike.

In December that year, General Rosalie Jones — a military title conferred on the woman who led many of these hikes — walked with 200 women from New York City to Albany to present a suffrage petition. The 170-mile, 13-day hike is considered to be the first such hike undertaken for a cause.

A year later, in February 1913, the General again led a hike, this time a 230-mile jaunt from New York City to Washington, D.C. A few dozen women, and scores of hangers-on, completed the hike, which ended with the women joining their fellow suffragists — 8,000 in all! — on a historic march down Pennsylvania Avenue.

It’s all very lofty to present these hikes in all their dogged and determined glory, but the women who hiked were very human, and a lot of human drama attended their walk. I wrote about one such drama, a love story (maybe) that arose when the women walked into Princeton, New Jersey, on the night of February 13, 1913.

That night, a Princeton University freshman spotted a hiker who instantly captivated him. In my story, you’ll read what happened when “Wee Willie” Cator decided to hike along with the young suffragist, Phoebe Hawn, nicknamed “The Baby Suffragette” by the national papers and “The Brooklyn Baby” by her hometown paper, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

Love or something else?

I’ve since come to wonder whether these stories of suffrage romances were more akin to the modern-day concept of stalking. On this same hike, a Brooklyn teen by the name of Roy B. Trolsen attached himself to another hiker, Helen Bergmark, when the women stopped for the night in Bordentown, NJ.

“We’re going to be married just as soon as the hike is over and we’ll settle down in Philadelphia and I’ll get a job with some civil engineering firm,” he told the press.**

Problem was that Helen didn’t agree to this vision of her future. “No, I am not going to get married. I do not know Roy Trolsen,” she said emphatically. “Whoever started such a report was cruel. It is a hoax.”***

Trolsen’s father chimed in, declaring to the press that his son was not 21-years-old, as Roy claimed, but a 17-year-old boy who was skipping school. He vowed to go retrieve his errant son. “I will stop this foolishness at once!” he said.****

It’s suffrage, stupid

This story read to me more like a case of stalking, if it indeed happened and was not a story dreamed up by the press. The press tended to romanticize the hikers, claiming the real goal of the hike was to attract husbands. They also put words into the General’s mouth, claiming the women had all vowed not to fall victim to Cupid’s arrow for the length of the hike.

As for Roy, he led a life that suggested he was a miscreant from an early age. At age 15, he stole a necklace of his mother’s and was arrested trying to pawn it. In his 20s, his wife divorced him, citing his refusal to work. In his 30s and 40s, he passed bad checks and spent time in a mental institution. In his 50s, he was involved as a truck driver in a scheme dreamed up by a pharmacist to get cut-rate drugs for his shop.

All this to say, poor Helen — and perhaps Phoebe? — was more a victim than a willing partner in these escapades on the hike. And I imagine even more women were targeted, although I suspect they put on a brave face for the public and the newspapers. They were hiking for suffrage and suffrage only, a fact that people couldn’t accept at face value.

Notes

Oh, those myth-making suffragists!

The suffragists were heroes, right? They were saints, don’t you think? Well, maybe they were heroes, but they weren’t saints. Researching my books, I’ve found that the suffragists were stellar myth-makers. They weren’t above burnishing their reputations and their actions through exaggeration and outright lies.

Take, for example, the famous March 3, 1913 suffrage parade in Washington, D.C. Eight thousand women (and men!) marched down Pennsylvania Avenue from the U.S. Capitol Building to the Treasury Building, a distance of about two and a half miles.

People poured in from all over the country to participate in, or to watch, the parade. Railroad companies added hundreds of extra trains to accommodate the crowds. The parade organizers planned the parade for just this exact day, because not only were people coming for the suffrage parade, they were in D.C. for President-elect Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration the next day. These suffragists were savvy!

The only problem was that the inaugural crowd had been swarming into the city for a week. The mobs of mostly men spent their time frequenting the saloons and public houses, and they were drunk and rowdy. They’d thrown off the restraints of polite society, and when the parade began, they harassed and attacked the women. Three hundred women were injured, one hundred of them taken to local hospitals.

Seize the moment!

Because of the failure of the police to protect the women, a congressional hearing was called after the disastrous parade to investigate. This was a tremendous opportunity for the women to enshrine the parade in myth!

In accounts written by the suffragists after the parade, they love to relate one scene in particular. In the telling, Woodrow Wilson arrives at Union Station only to find that the station is deserted. There are no cheering crowds to greet him..

“One of the incoming president’s staff asked, ‘Where are all the people?’

“‘Watching the suffrage parade,’ the police told him.” *

Very inspirational! But, alas, very untrue. Yes, mobs of people were watching the parade, but mobs of people also showed up at Union Station to greet and cheer Wilson as he made his way from a train chartered by Princeton University students (his alma mater) to the Presidential Suite at the station. The moment was fully covered in the newspapers.

The Washington Herald was there

I know you can’t believe everything you read in the paper, but this is a very detailed, almost moment by moment account of Wilson’s arrival. I suppose it could have been dreamed up by the writer. It’s been known to happen, especially in the newspaper environment of the early 1900s. Even the Library of Congress includes the supposed ghost scene in its account of the parade.

But I tend to believe this newspaper article contains the truth of the moment. Generally, people of this era did not speak in sound bites, so I become suspicious when I see a pithy statement like this. People ascribe all sorts of sayings to Susan B. Anthony — “Independence is Happiness!” —but you have question these neat, repeatable clips. (Beware BrainyQuote!)

Nothing but the truth

In fact, here is a photo taken at Union Station on March 3, 1913. I think President Wilson got quite a hearty welcome!

In my next post, we’ll poke into what really happened when the militant suffragists picketed the White House. Did they really chain themselves to the fence? Did they set fires on the White House lawn? You decide.

  • * Both suffrage leader Carrie Chapman Catt (Woman Suffrage and Politics) and suffrage historian Doris Stevens (Jailed for Freedom) repeat this scene in their books. They go so far as to say that President Woodrow Wilson himself asked, quite forlornly, where everyone was!

Put Suffragists on the Mall!

News flash! There’s a movement afoot to construct a monument to the woman suffrage fight on the National Mall. You know… where all the monuments dedicated to men’s achievements are.

I received an email from the National Women’s History Alliance urging me to contact the appropriate congressional representatives about the location of the monument. Which I have done!

Now, I want to spread the word. If you are on board with this project — and I hope you are! — contact the House and Senate using the links in the email, which I’ve pasted below. Thanks a bunch!

National Women’s History Alliance Email

Dear friends involved with the suffrage movement,

I wanted to make sure you knew that since 2020 there has been a drive to fulfill the legislation authorizing a Women’s Suffrage National Monument in Washington D.C., https://www.womensmonument.org

This is exciting news and the effort is steadily progressing.  One early concern is that the eventual Monument should be located (like all the male-oriented ones) on the National Mall.  This very question is being debated in Congress now and your input would be most welcome, particularly before the end of June.

Please encourage your congressional representatives THIS MONTH to support or co-sponsor the bill to have the women’s suffrage monument located on the National Mall. 

If your Representative or Senators have not signed on (see list below), please reach out directly to their DC offices – and ask 10 of your closest friends to do the same!  Those calls make a huge difference. 

Now is the time to influence how this legislative effort is regarded in Congress based on the popular support shown.  Let’s show them how much we believe women’s triumph deserves official, central and permanent recognition on the National Mall.

Here are the government links, and summaries and co-sponsors are below:

Regarding House legislation: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/1318?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22HR+1318%22%5D%7D&s=1&r=1

And regarding Senate legislation: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/886/cosponsors?s=3&r=2&q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22suffrage%22%5D%7D

Thank you for voicing your support and helping this effort succeed.

Robert Cooney, National Women’s History Alliance

Monument contacts:Anna Laymon orKimberly Wallner, Women’s Suffrage National Monument Foundation   womensmonument.org   info@womensmonument.org.

HOUSE BILL        

______________________________________________________

H.R.1318 – Women’s Suffrage National Monument Location Act

118th Congress (2023-2024)

Women’s Suffrage National Monument Location Act

This bill authorizes the location of a monument on the National Mall to commemorate the women’s suffrage movement and the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.

Sponsor:Rep. Joe Neguse, [D-CO-2] (Introduced 03/01/2023)
Committees:House – Natural Resources

Co-Sponsors:                                                                                 * = Original cosponsor

Rep. Lesko, Debbie [R-AZ-8]*

Rep. Fitzpatrick, Brian K. [R-PA-1]*

Rep. Velazquez, Nydia M. [D-NY-7]*

Rep. Porter, Katie [D-CA-47]*

Rep. Wild, Susan [D-PA-7]*

Rep. McGovern, James P. [D-MA-2]*

Resident Commissioner González-Colón, Jenniffer [R-PR-At Large]*

Rep. Watson Coleman, Bonnie [D-NJ-12]*

Rep. Carter, Troy [D-LA-2]*

Rep. Lee, Susie [D-NV-3]*

Rep. Carbajal, Salud O. [D-CA-24]*

Rep. Pettersen, Brittany [D-CO-7]*

Rep. Lofgren, Zoe [D-CA-18]*

Rep. Escobar, Veronica [D-TX-16]

Rep. Bice, Stephanie I. [R-OK-5]

Rep. Green, Al [D-TX-9]

Rep. Lee, Barbara [D-CA-12]

Rep. Lawler, Michael [R-NY-17]

Rep. DeGette, Diana [D-CO-1]

Rep. Landsman, Greg [D-OH-1]

Rep. Gottheimer, Josh [D-NJ-5]

Rep. Krishnamoorthi, Raja [D-IL-8]

Rep. Chavez-DeRemer, Lori [R-OR-5]

Rep. Sherrill, Mikie [D-NJ-11]

Rep. Budzinski, Nikki [D-IL-13]

Rep. Vasquez, Gabe [D-NM-2]

Rep. Manning, Kathy E. [D-NC-6]

SENATE BILL

__________________________________________________________

S.886 – Women’s Suffrage National Monument Location Act

118th Congress (2023-2024) | 

Sponsor:Sen. Tammy Baldwin, [D-WI]    (Introduced 03/21/2023)
Committees:Senate – Energy and Natural Resources

Co-Sponsors:                                                                     * = Original cosponsor

Sen. Blackburn, Marsha [R-TN]*

Sen. Bennet, Michael F. [D-CO]*

Sen. Lummis, Cynthia M. [R-WY]*

Sen. Duckworth, Tammy [D-IL]*

Sen. Gillibrand, Kirsten E. [D-NY]*

Sen. Shaheen, Jeanne [D-NH]*

Sen. Hyde-Smith, Cindy [R-MS]

Sen. Feinstein, Dianne [D-CA]

Sen. Capito, Shelley Moore [R-WV]

Why I Think About War

A few years ago, our family stood shivering in a biting winter wind before the graves of a dozen Revolutionary War soldiers who died at the crossing of the Delaware River. My son, four-years-old then, seemed puzzled.

“Mama, are they hiding down there?” Evan asked.

Uh oh, I thought. I know what’s coming.

“No, sweetie, they’re not hiding,” I said softly.

I waited. Would he want to know more?

“Are they coming back?” he asked.

I took a deep breath.

“No, sweetie, they’re not coming back,” I said.

Glorious but…

We live in an area rich in Revolutionary War history. Here, George Washington crossed the Delaware to claim victories at the battles of Trenton and Princeton. At Princeton Battlefield, Gen. Hugh Mercer, though mortally wounded, refused to leave his men. Farther afield, Molly Pitcher hauled water for the troops and manned a cannon at the Battle of Monmouth.

Surrounded by memorials to the glorious deeds of the patriots, my husband and I nevertheless wondered when our son would begin to question the violence of war, when he would want to know about death.

From an early age, Evan loved Washington Crossing State Park. We’d have lunch at the Taylor General Store on Sundays, stroll past the historic buildings, peek in at the Durham boats. One time, we came across a musket demonstration, and Evan shrieked in delight as militiamen shot across the river at New Jersey.

In particular, Evan loved the visitors center. He liked Emanuel Leutze’s huge painting of the crossing. He liked the gift shop, with its musket pens and cannon pencil sharpeners. But most of all, he liked the movie. He liked sitting in the darkened theater, watching the bloodless, almost cartoonish account of the Battle of Trenton. Guns exploded but didn’t spray bullets; bayonets flashed but didn’t render flesh.

But on that bleak January day as we stood in front of those small, white headstones, I believe Evan’s love affair with the park ended.

Retreat to safety?

Over the years, Evan has remained fascinated with weaponry and battle, yet even now at age 10 he is sensitive about the reality of violence. He spells out words—k-i-l-l—that he can’t bring himself to say. Studying for a test on the American Revolution recently, he turned a page in his social studies book to find Alonzo Chappel’s sketch of Washington and Lafayette at Valley Forge.

“What hardships did the soldiers endure at Valley Forge?” I prompted him.

“Please don’t ask me about that, mom,” he begged, covering the drawing with his hands. “I don’t like to think about the soldiers suffering.”

Evan has lived his entire life with this painting; a copy of it hangs in our living room. To some, the scene evokes courage and perseverance. My son, though, sees only the bandaged and freezing soldiers, some knee-deep in snow bracing themselves against the wind, others with bare feet wrapped in rags huddling around a feeble fire, all of them hungry.

The pleas of your child are hard to resist. I scanned the textbook for less graphic aspects of the war—the Committees of Correspondence seemed a pretty safe topic to me.

But something stopped me. Like Evan at the soldiers’ graves, I had my own moment of revelation.

Facing the facts

I have never been able to stomach violence. I pass up movies having any amount of gore. As a child, I did my own editing of war images. Our family frequently vacationed at battlefield parks; we have photos of my sisters and me atop just about every cannon in the Northeast. Yet I don’t have a single memory of those times.

As an adult, I’ve avoided thinking about war, and on becoming a parent, my denial hardened. When we learned we were having a boy, my first thought wasn’t about snips and snails and puppy dog tails. It was this: The government will never drag my boy off to one of its grubby wars!

But that night while helping Evan study for his test, I had to face my—and Evan’s—reluctance to consider the reality of war. Why should he study it if it makes him uncomfortable? I grumbled.

Yet the irony of my opposition struck me. There I was, comfortable in my own home, secure in a self-determining community in a free and democratic nation, yet willfully I was disregarding the sacrifices others have made on my behalf through the violence of war.

In that moment, I realized how wrong I’d been, that I must force myself to think about war even if it makes me uncomfortable. That leaving my comfort zone in this small way is the least I can do in gratitude to the men and women who have ensured my safety and freedom.

This is what I’ll tell Evan the next time he is faced with the war-studded history of our nation, perhaps at our Memorial Day parade this year. After that, I think it might just be time to head back to Washington Crossing. 

By Nancy B. Kennedy

@ 2008, The Times of Trenton

The Title IX 100

Last year at this time, I made a New Year’s resolution. I vowed to write about Title IX this entire year, the 50th anniversary of the gender equality law. And I kept my resolution! Here it is, one year and one hundred blog posts later. Yay me!

            You can browse through the posts here at my website. In total, the 100 posts add up to around 70,000 words — about the length of a book!

            I started last January simply, with the wording of Title IX.  “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

            Before I knew it, I was drawn into the drama of this law that I once knew nothing about. It has its humorous moments and its heartbreaking moments. It changed a centuries-old male-centric world while remaining relevant to the current day. In short, it was groundbreaking.

Words become deeds

            Until you have the time to read my fractured 100-chapter book, today I’ll share with you in brief bullet points what I learned about the landmark 1972 law this year.

            So, hold onto your seats. Here we go!

* It took the eagle eye of one woman — Bernice Sandler — to spot how an existing law could be turned into a gender equality law.

* We needed Title IX! The two authors of the law, Rep. Edith Green and Rep. Patsy Mink, had both been excluded from the education and jobs they wanted.  

* Title IX was part of sweeping changes in the way Americans thought about women, their place in society and what they could accomplish.

* But a lot was happening in 1972, so the law passed with a whisper instead of a bang.

* At first, no one recognized the bill’s potential to revolutionize the sports world.

* But the athletic fields needed a revolution! Women were excluded there just as in educational programs.

* Once people did make the Title IX sports connection, men didn’t like it. They tried to take the teeth out of the law.

* Women got creative (and sometimes naked) to force entities to comply with the law.

* Title IX’s enemies weren’t always men. And its defenders weren’t always women.

* Most often, progress came — and still comes — through lawsuits.

* Almost all lawsuits are settled out of court. But one high-profile lawsuit might finally go the distance.

* Title IX claims some astonishing victories. Equal pay in some professional women’s sports is one of them.

* Title IX paved the way to the Olympics for women. In 1976, the first women’s basketball team went to the Olympics, and when women dominated team sports in the 1996 Olympics, it became known as the Title IX Olympics.

* It opened a path for athletic careers off the playing field, too. Coaching , broadcasting and sports management, to name just a few.

* Women found success in whatever field they chose because of their athletic experience.

* Title IX’s reach is constantly expanding. It addresses athletic scholarships, sexual harassment, age discrimination, gender issues, COVID-19, school lunches, fraternity hazing, even hair.

* The success stories stemming from Title IX are thrilling! The stories of women “firsts” are inspiring.

* But there’s still more work to be done. Title IX gets a failing grade in many realms. It’ll take a lot more work on our part to reach Title IX’s goal of parity.

It got personal

            For me, personally, writing about Title IX taught me a lot about women’s history. I knew vaguely that women had always been discriminated against — I’d written a book about the woman suffrage movement — but I had no idea of the extent of society’s damning of women.

            But to be more specific, I learned about my own ignorance of the pervasive societal view of women. So often, when I interviewed women for the blog, they shared instances of blatant discrimination. Privately, I was thinking that in my own life, I hadn’t suffered from similar dismissals of women’s personhood. But I had!

            I grew up in a church ruled by men who silence women from public worship, tell them what to wear and box them in to child care and meal preparation. I chose the career of journalism, which was opening up to women in the newsroom but still excluding them from management positions. I specialized in financial journalism and felt the scorn of men who thought women were barely intelligent enough to balance a checkbook.

            Even today, I hear men joking that women are airheads, bad drivers and shopaholics. I bank where the branch manager calls his employees “the girls.” I attend family gatherings where the women cook and clean up while the men watch TV and snore away on the sofa. My husband and I coach our son on how to negotiate his salary and benefits in the job market, which makes me realize that women rarely get this kind of mentorship.

            It takes a village, they say. In reality, it takes a nation. And so the fight for gender equality will go on. Title IX is just a starting point.

A coach steps up

Michigan State is the poster child for universities that violated Title IX in the way they treated (or, rather, didn’t treat) instances of sexual abuse. In 2019, it was found guilty of failing to stop Larry Nassar from criminally assaulting hundreds of female athletes in his role as team doctor (not to mention his criminal actions as a trainer for USA Gymnastics). But it’s not the only such sordid Title IX story.

            In 2009, the head swimming and diving coach for San Jose State University, Sage Hopkins, began hearing stories about the athletic department’s trainer, Scott Shaw. Female athletes were coming to him with complaints about his behavior.

             The swimmers said that Shaw often worked alone with them in the training room. He didn’t explain his treatments before beginning and he didn’t seek their consent. They said Shaw would touch their pelvic area and massage their breasts, and in some cases touch their nipples beneath their clothing. All the while, he was purportedly working on unrelated areas of the body, such as the shoulder, knee or back.

             Seventeen swimmers ultimately complained about Shaw to Hopkins. The coach compiled their accounts into a nearly 300-page file. He notified the athletic department, the university administration and the campus police. In late 2009, the university opened an investigation based on the complaints.

Nope, not guilty

            In 2010, however, the university ruled that Shaw was not guilty of misconduct. They said his methods of “pressure point” therapy were an acceptable treatment for muscle injuries. Shaw suffered no consequences and continued as director of sports medicine.

            “I’m upset that this person abused his power, but I’m even more upset that this larger power allowed him to do that and then still keep his job there,” said former San Jose swimmer Caitlin Macky. “We weren’t taken seriously, and we weren’t protected at the time.”*

            Meanwhile, Hopkins continued to confront the administration. In 2018, he re-reported the allegations. In addition, he documented instances of what he believed to be retaliation against him and his staff for speaking out against Shaw.

Along comes Title IX

            So, here’s where Title IX comes in. Hopkins included the university’s Title IX office when he updated the athletes’ complaints. In June 2020, the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney’s Office initiated a Title IX compliance review of the university.

            During the review, the university reopened its investigation into the 2009 complaints. In addition, two current swimmers came forward with new complaints against Shaw. In this review, it came to light that in the original investigation, the university interviewed just one swimmer about Shaw’s behavior, ignoring all the other women.          

            The DOJ concluded that San Jose had violated Title IX. Shaw’s physical therapy “lacked medical basis, ignored proper protocols and violated the system’s sexual harassment policies.” It required the university to pay $1.6 million to athletes from six teams and mandated an overhaul of the university’s sexual harassment and abuse reporting system.

            In 2021, the university review found that Shaw was responsible for at least five instances of sexual abuse. By then, however, Shaw had retired.      

            But that wasn’t the end of the story. In April 2021, Hopkins filed a lawsuit against San Jose State claiming retaliation for pursuing the athletes’ complaints. In the lawsuit, Steve O’Brien, former deputy athletics director, says he was fired after refusing an order from the university to discipline Hopkins and a staff member. O’Brien believes the order, and his firing, was in response to Hopkins re-reporting the Title IX violations.

            In January 2022, the university settled with Hopkins for $250,000. In addition, the university also agreed to another two settlements totaling $4.9 million to the abuse victims. Hopkins remains the university’s swim coach.

He had their back

            All too often, when it comes to Title IX violations, female athletes are on their own, filing their own lawsuits against their universities, with no one to back them up. In fact, most often they face censure and backlash. San Jose’s women were grateful that their coach had their back.

            “I’m so thankful for Sage Hopkins and the perseverance he showed in advocating for all student-athletes, not just his own,” Caitlin Macky said.**

            And so Title IX inches forward, one step — and most often, one lawsuit — at a time.

                                                ________________________

** Emma Edmund, “San Jose settles retaliation lawsuit, apologizes to Sage Hopkins,” swimswam.com (January 13, 2022).

* Kenny Jacoby and Rachel Axon, “San Jose State reinvestigates claims athletic trainer inappropriately touched swimmers,” USA Today (April 17, 2020).

PHOTO: Sage Hopkins speaking during a ceremony commending him for his advocacy