Crystal Eastman (1881-1928) was unrelenting in her fight for equality. When the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920, after years of fighting for the right of women to vote, she wrote: “Men are saying perhaps ‘Thank God, this everlasting fight is over!’ But women, if I know them, are saying, ‘Now at last we can begin.’” She understood that gaining the right to vote was the first step in something much bigger.
Crystal Eastman (1881-1928) was unrelenting in her fight for equality. When the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920, after years of fighting for the right of women to vote, she wrote: “Men are saying perhaps ‘Thank God, this everlasting fight is over!’ But women, if I know them, are saying, ‘Now at last we can begin.’” She understood that gaining the right to vote was the first step in something much bigger.
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Today’s Womanican was unrelenting in her fight for equality. When the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920, after years of fighting for the right of women to vote, she wrote: “Men are saying perhaps ‘Thank God, this everlasting fight is over!’ But women, if I know them, are saying, ‘Now at last we can begin.’” She understood that gaining the right to vote was the first step in something much bigger.
Please welcome Crystal Eastman.
Crystal Eastman was born in Glenora, New York, in 1881. Her parents, Samuel Eastman and Annis Bertha Ford, met at Oberlin College. Samuel was studying to become a minister and Annis to become a teacher.
But Annis ended up following her calling instead – in 1890 she became one of the first women ordained as a Congregational minister in New York and even had her own church. This position was rare for a woman to have at the time. Crystal would later speak highly of her mother: “When my mother preached we hated to miss it. . . . Her voice was music; she spoke simply, without effort, almost without gestures, standing very still. And what she said seemed to come straight from her heart to yours.”
Her mother’s leadership role was not the only thing that distinguished Crystal’s childhood. The family often hosted boarders who needed a place to stay. Crystal said, “There were always clever, interesting, amusing women coming in and out of our house.” This mix of intelligent visitors helped expose her to unconventional ideas growing up. Crystal was also allowed and encouraged to speak her mind. She once complained to her parents that she should not be the only child to do the “women’s work” – after that her parents distributed house chores among their children on a gender-neutral basis. The family referred to Crystal as a “mighty girl.”
Crystal graduated high school in 1899 and attended Vassar Female College. She distinguished herself as an excellent student and after graduating from Vassar in 1903, went on to receive a master’s in sociology from Columbia University.
After some initial apprehension Crystal attended law school. She was one of 16 women in a class of 156 at New York University. She graduated second in her class in 1907. Despite her high potential she couldn’t get a job after graduation because she was a woman. Since she couldn’t find a job as a lawyer in New York, Crystal took one in Pittsburgh to do the first comprehensive study of the causes of workplace accidents and their consequences. Though Crystal made major strides in worker’s compensation and worker’s safety rights, she decided to focus on her energy on women’s suffrage.
In 1910 she married and moved to Wisconsin with her husband, Wallace Benedict. Once there Crystal was recruited as the campaign manager of the Wisconsin Political Equality League and dove head-first into leading the state’s campaign for suffrage. Certain national suffrage groups were only trying to benefit white women in their efforts. But Crystal worked to organize and unite different suffrage groups of all races in Wisconsin and collaborated with Mary White Ovington, the principal
cofounder of the NAACP. Unfortunately, powerful opponents had run a well-funded campaign and squashed the effort for suffrage in Wisconsin. Crystal returned to New York, leaving her marriage and the method of state-by-state campaigns behind.
Crystal wanted to shake things up. She banded together with Lucy Burns, an old friend, and Alice Paul to push for a federal constitutional amendment. In 1913 they threw themselves into their new efforts under the helm of the National American Women’s Suffrage Association, or NAWSA. But the NAWSA was’t as focused on a federal strategy. As Crystal, Lucy, and Alice gained attention for their efforts demonstrating, lobbying, and organizing events in several states they got more pushback from the more traditional members of the NAWSA. So the triad split off and formed the National Women’s Party, or NWP, the first women’s political party in the world.
The NWP was eventually the group that got women’s suffrage over the finish line, while the very people that were first resistant to their tactics claimed the victory as their own.
The 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920. Crystal gave her speech “Now We Begin” to remind people that women’s suffrage was only the beginning of their road to equality, not the final destination. She also spoke out against the disenfranchisement of Black women and the race discrimination that would continue even after the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified.
“Equality under the law,” was the first thing on her agenda. So in 1923 she and other seasoned suffragists, including Alice Paul, drafted the original Equal Rights Amendment. In 1924 Crystal said: “To blot out of every law book in the land, to sweep out of every dusty court-room, to erase from every judge’s mind that centuries-old precedent as to woman’s inferiority and dependence and need for protection, t substitute for it at one blow the simple new precedent of equality, that is a fight worth making. Even if it takes ten years.”
Crystal didn’t know that the ERA’s journey would take much longer.
In addition to her innovative work introducing the ERA, Crystal managed to also be a staunch anti-war advocate, a prolific writer, and went on to found what would become the ACLU – the American Civil Liberties Union. Throughout her life, her “radical” view and unconventional lifestyle led some people to call Crystal the “most dangerous
woman in America.”
Crystal continued to fight for the ERA until her early death in 1928 at the age of 46 .A friend wrote at the time, “She was for thousands a symbol of what the free woman might be.”
Talk to you tomorrow!