Shaping the story of woman suffrage
Film examines the Stanton-Anthony friendship
Archived article from Oct 29, 1999
By Amy Vames
In 1851, an unlikely, and at times contentious, friendship was forged that led to one of this century's greatest achievements: the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which gave American women the right to vote.
The struggle to gain that right and the resilient friendship and partnership that propelled it are the subjects of a new Ken Burns documentary, "Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony." The film will air on PBS stations Nov. 7 and 8. Playing a major role in shaping the documentary's script and providing on-screen commentary about the two suffragists was Ann Gordon, editor of the Stanton/Anthony papers at Rutgers.
Gordon, associate research professor of history, says she was contacted by Burns' staff at the suggestion of other consultants to the project. "Most of the other people working in the field knew what I was doing and knew Burns should be working with me because I was sitting on top of everything he needed," Gordon says.
The Stanton/Anthony papers include some 14,000 documents -- letters, newspaper articles, speeches and diaries -- from which selections are made for the six-volume project. The first volume was published in 1997 by the Rutgers University Press; the second is expected early next year.
Gordon's role in the documentary was originally as a program consultant; she helped shape the film's script and did research for Burns' staff. She later was asked to appear on camera commenting about the suffragists. "Being interviewed by Burns himself -- that was very intense," Gordon says. She was also involved in a two-day session with Burns and his staff during which she and the other consultants viewed a first cut of the documentary, then hashed out where they thought changes should be made.
The resulting film follows Stanton's and Anthony's lives, beginning in the early 1800s. The women were a study in contrasts. Stanton was born into a prosperous New York family and eventually married and had seven children. Anthony's Quaker family lived in Massachusetts. Her father's bankruptcy forced her to quit school, although she later became a schoolteacher. She never married, believing that a woman couldn't be truly independent with a husband.
Where Stanton loved parties, socializing and raising her children, Anthony was quieter and untiringly traveled the country trying to drum up support for women's rights. Where Anthony provided the hard facts and figures about woman suffrage, Stanton eloquently shaped them into powerful rhetoric that helped move the suffrage movement forward.
Gordon says that the affection and loyalty the two felt for each other for half a century comes through in the film and that the documentary avoids a common pitfall some historians have succumbed to: seeing either Stanton or Anthony as somehow wronged by the other. The film instead focuses on how Stanton and Anthony overcame their differences to create a movement that changed American women's lives forever. Gordon hopes the Burns documentary will spark more awareness in the public about this important chapter of American history.
Gordon praises Burns, his co-producer Paul Barnes and their crew, who, she says, did an admirable job of pulling together the disparate threads of the story.
"You're dealing with the history of two reformers who didn't even get the right to vote while they were alive, and that's very different from filming war or baseball or even Lewis and Clark. It's a subtler story line than they were used to dealing with. Because it's still not a part of the mainstream of American history, I think they were a little unsure of themselves about what to believe or how to evaluate things." She adds, however, that she is very pleased with the end product.
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