Trick or Treat for Democracy

For Halloween the Social Sciences Librarian chose to dress as a "Golden Lane" suffragist, honoring the women who made inroads toward universal U.S. suffrage when they gathered in St. Louis from around the country in 1916 to stage a protest at the Democratic National Convention. Dressed all in white with yellow sashes, the ladies silently (but reproachfully) lined Locust Street, the path the male conventioneers took from their hotel, in what came to be known as the "Golden Lane". The Democrats included a women's suffrage plank in the 1916 platform and eventually the 19th Amendment was passed (Missouri was the 11th state to ratify) and white women, at least, were able to vote.

At St. Louis Public Library you can check out the book about that event and the women who made suffrage a reality (#Dewey 324.6230977). The book includes a chapter on Virginia Minor (1824-1894), whose identity the Librarian adopted for the day (even though she was no longer around for the "Golden Lane"). Mrs. Minor sued (with her husband/in his name, as she could not bring suit as a woman) for the right to vote in the presidential election and their suit went to the U.S. Supreme Court which ruled unanimously against the Minors in 1875. She was the first president of the St. Louis Suffrage Association when she died she left half of her estate to Susan B. Anthony "in gratitude for the many thousands she has expended for women" and the remainder to two unmarried nieces with the instruction that if either married, her share would revert to the unmarried niece.

Of course true universal suffrage would not be achieved until much later in the 20th century when African-Americans were finally able to vote after the hard-won fight for civil rights. For information regarding the Black women's suffrage movement, see African American Women in the Struggle for the Vote by Rosalyn Terborg-Penn at #Dewey 324.623089.

For your further edification and/or entertainment, please see the 2015 article from the Columbia Journalism Review exploring the difference between the terms "suffragist" and "suffragette" and from Disney's Mary Poppins (DVD available at St. Louis Public Library, along with book, e-book & audiobook), the classic "Sister Suffragette" - and please, remember to VOTE! 

 

 

ELECTION 2016 - Resources for the Informed Missouri Voter (like YOU!)

There is a LOT on the Missouri ballot this November 8 - the St. Louis City ballot, for example, in addition to the Presidential race also has

• U.S. Senate
• U.S. House of Representatives
• FIVE statewide offices (Governor, Lt. Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, & Treasurer)
• FIVE state amendments 
• One state proposition
• One City proposition
• State Senator
• State Representative 
• Three City candidates (circuit attorney, sheriff & treasurer - remember, the August vote was the primary!) AND
• Judges up for retention votes

So before you go to vote (Missouri polls open at 6:00 a.m. & are open until 7:00 p.m.), study up and decide how you are voting, and confirm your registration & polling place at the Missouri Secretary of State’s website (make sure you know where you are going!) The Missouri Secretary of State has also launched a "voter outreach" site where you can plug in your address and see who and what is on your ballot, and will also show where you are supposed to go vote.


To assist with the "study up and decide" task, here are some resources:

The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan political organization that encourages informed and active participation in government, works to increase understanding of major public policy issues, and influences public policy through education and advocacy. Go to the LWV/St. Louis Post-Dispatch Voters Guide & plug in your address or use your location to pull up the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Voters Guide, customized to show only what will be on your ballot on Nov. 8 (uncustomized hard copies available at the Library as well or in your Oct. 28 newspaper).

"Ballotpedia is the online encyclopedia of American politics and elections. [Their] goal is to inform people about politics by providing accurate and objective information about politics at all levels of government." Go to https://ballotpedia.org/Sample_Ballot_Lookup & enter your full address with zip code for a sample ballot with lots of good background info.

St. Louis Public Radio’s Politically Speaking podcast has interviews with most, if not all, of the statewide and local candidates – hear what they have to say about their positions on important issues.

To learn more about the performance of the judges who will be on your Nov. 8 ballot for a retention vote, see the Missouri Bar judicial “scorecard” (link is to judges for City's 22nd Circuit; for County see 21st Circuit). 

The Missouri Secretary of State’s website also has the ballot language, “fair ballot language,” and links to PDFs of the full text of the five amendments and one state proposition on the ballot (& don't forget the City proposition!).


We will add new resources as we hear of them (so give us a head's up if we're missing something by emailing the Social Sciences librarian) - for example, here is a guide to the MO ballot measures from St. Louis Magazine.




Here are some other good resources (what are your favorites?)

 

Zines at Central Library!

St. Louis Public Library has added a collection of zines to the Entertainment, Literature & Biography Room & is celebrating with a grand opening this Thursday October 13, 2016. Click here for more information.

What is a zine, you ask? According to early "ziner" Malcolm Gladwell (in interview with Vox's Ezra Klein), "A zine is a homemade magazine — it’s what you did if you lived in a small town and had some pretensions to cultural importance. You ran your own magazine and ran it off on a Xerox machine and distributed it to your friends. Lots of people had zines in the ’70s and ’80s." When he was 15, Gladwell and some friends had a zine called Ad Hominem: A journal of slander and political opinion. Many of Gladwell's more recent works, including Blink (Dewey 153.44), The Tipping Point (302), and Outliers (302) are available at St. Louis Public Library in paper and digital formats.

You can learn more about zines by coming to Central and exploring the new collection, or check out the book Make A Zine! - A Guide to Self-Publishing Disguised as a Book on How to Produce a Zine (Dewey 070.572) or for interested kids, zine scene (J070.5720285). You may also want to visit the St. Louis Small Press Expo which is happening at Central on October 15, 2016.