Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, December 8, 1915.

Well, let me read you from an article in the Washington Herald on this day in 1950.

Here's the quote.

Suffragists and Antis went to the mat yesterday before the National Democratic

Committee at the Willard Hotel.

What had promised to be a dignified proceeding of great prominence was turned into a near

riot at the close of the hearing. So anytime we hear about a near riot in the

ballroom of the Willard Hotel, we have to talk about it on this show. But look, here's what's really at the heart of this story. We all know that this was an era in which women

suffrage the right to vote was being fiercely debated and we tend to think of

that debate as taking place between men and women but it was also taking place

among women and that is the side of the story that has largely been

forgotten or written out of history so here to discuss this incident and this

larger context is as always nickel hammer of Columbia hello Nicky And our guest for this episode is Kimberly Hamlin, Associate Professor of History at Miami

University in Oxford, Ohio, and the author of a new book, Freethinker, Sex, Suffrage, and the the extraordinary life of Helen Hamilton Gardner

Kimberly welcome to the show hi jody hi nicky thanks so much for having me yeah and you

were telling us kimberly just before we started taping that you published your book the week of that the world went sideways and everyone went into lockdown?

Yes, my books pub date was March 17th, so I had my suitcase packed.

I had all my outfits at the ready only to have to unpack very unceremoniously a few days later.

And we launched this podcast like right around the same time too and so we can we can empathize and putting out big

new projects in the middle of everything going crazy but look here we are here we are and

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