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Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grasso from Bloomberg Radio.

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Speaker 1: This year is the hundredth anniversary of the nineteenth Amendment

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Speaker 1: and the American Civil Liberties Union, But you may not

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Speaker 1: know the name of a woman who co wrote the

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Speaker 1: Equal Rights Amendment and co founded the a c l U,

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Speaker 1: Crystal Eastman. A new biography may change that. Amy Aronson,

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Speaker 1: the author of Crystal Eastman, A Revolutionary Life, joins me, Now,

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Speaker 1: when you look at Crystal Eastman and what she accomplished

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Speaker 1: in so many areas, why is it that her name

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Speaker 1: is not really well known today. Well, I think one

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Speaker 1: of the reasons, really, the main reason that Crystal Eastman

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Speaker 1: is not so well known today is oddly enough, paradoxically enough,

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Speaker 1: because she was so active in so many different areas.

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Speaker 1: Eastman I really look at her as a kind of

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Speaker 1: an early model or a proto intersectional activist. That is

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Speaker 1: to say that she was committed to multiple movements. She

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Speaker 1: identified with multiple social justice movements at one time, and

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Speaker 1: she never really prioritized one over the other. Um she

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Speaker 1: always was trying to bridge these multiple movements, try to

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Speaker 1: bring them together under one vast emancipatory rubric, and that

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Speaker 1: in practice ended up making her, you know, something of

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Speaker 1: an iconoclast or a gad fly in almost every different movement,

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Speaker 1: every different organization to which she was committed. She talked

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Speaker 1: about socialism and internationalism and maternalism with the feminists. She

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Speaker 1: talked about race, and she talked about class with the

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Speaker 1: internationalists and the anti war activists. And she was always

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Speaker 1: kind of bringing up these issues, trying to bring together

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Speaker 1: all these different groups to ally themselves around the ways

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Speaker 1: in which they were all unequal. And although this was

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Speaker 1: a unifying vision UM, a very hopeful vision, it's sometimes

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Speaker 1: worked to divide people, to divide loyalties. And I think

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Speaker 1: that over time, you know, what happens through historical memory

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Speaker 1: and what happens when UM scholars and others are constructing

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Speaker 1: narratives is it makes it complicated. It makes it difficult

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Speaker 1: to you know, kind of figure out where she stands.

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Speaker 1: And as a consequence, I think she has at least

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Speaker 1: I found in my research that UM, she has been

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Speaker 1: sort of moved to the margin of every organization and

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Speaker 1: movement in which she was actually you know, a significant

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Speaker 1: voice and a leader UM, and slowly in some cases

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Speaker 1: kind of edged out of those histories. Of those movements

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Speaker 1: and of those organizations. Virginia was just the thirty eight

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Speaker 1: state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, which she co authored.

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Speaker 1: Tell us about her involvement with the Equal Rights Amendment

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Speaker 1: and what led her there well. Eastman was a founding

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Speaker 1: member of the National Woman's Party, which after the vote,

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Speaker 1: was one of nineteen Funny is the organization that you

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Speaker 1: know that drafted UM the Equal Rights Amendment. She was

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Speaker 1: the first person that Alice Paul and Lucy Burns contacted

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Speaker 1: UM on the advice of Jane Adams to start the

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Speaker 1: organization UM, and she remained one of the most outspoken voices,

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Speaker 1: particularly in the founding years nineteen thirteen nineteen fourteen of

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Speaker 1: the National Woman's Party, and she you know, went on

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Speaker 1: to do more work in the anti war movement during

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Speaker 1: the war years and then later went on to to

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Speaker 1: publish and co published The Liberator magazine after the war

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Speaker 1: in nineteen eighteen, but returned to the Fold, returned to

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Speaker 1: kind of primarily working on suffrage and women's issues after

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenty when the vote was won and the e

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Speaker 1: r A was was really an effort by the organization

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Speaker 1: to put forward a single unifying piece of legislation, much

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Speaker 1: like the Suffrage Amendment, was that could solve the myriad

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Speaker 1: problems of inequality that women faced in every aspect of

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Speaker 1: their lives. But it was very controversial. One of the

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Speaker 1: main reasons was that in removing and proposing to remove

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Speaker 1: all gender differences from the law, it would eradicate all

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Speaker 1: of the labor legislation that many progressive women and labor

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Speaker 1: women had worked for decades to try to institute on

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Speaker 1: the eight hour day and other protections for women laborers,

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Speaker 1: and as a consequence, that kind of split progressive women

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Speaker 1: and many former suffragists from the National Women's Party from

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Speaker 1: the e r A. Eastman always believed that the e

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Speaker 1: r A was a unifying document, was a document that

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Speaker 1: would protect all women because she you know, she felt

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Speaker 1: and she articulated this, I talked about this had been

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Speaker 1: in the book. That if the law distinguishes along the

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Speaker 1: lines of gender for any reason, even as a protection,

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Speaker 1: even as a privilege, then the law could decide to

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Speaker 1: distinguish along lines of gender for any other reason. And

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Speaker 1: that she felt was ultimately a problem that to the

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Speaker 1: feminist movement could not tolerate, could not allow, you know,

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Speaker 1: and interestingly, enough in the current debates about the e

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Speaker 1: r A, there now is significant sort of distrust of

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Speaker 1: court decisions and legislation UM that has instituted a lot

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Speaker 1: of equality, that has instituted what many scholars called a

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Speaker 1: de facto e r A. Many feel that we have now,

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Speaker 1: you know, since the or so achieved to the courts

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Speaker 1: and the legislatures. You know what the e r A

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Speaker 1: might have done had it finally been ratified before the

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Speaker 1: original nine two deadline. But many feminists are now articulating,

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Speaker 1: you know, in support of the e r A some

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Speaker 1: of the questions the problems that Eastman articulated so amy

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Speaker 1: she co founded the American Civil Liberties Union. Tell us

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Speaker 1: how that came about, Well, UM, the a c l

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Speaker 1: U was born of the war movement UM. In fact,

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Speaker 1: it was born of an organization that Eastman was the

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Speaker 1: executive secretary of which today would be the executive director

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Speaker 1: of UM, called the American Union against Militarism UH. It

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Speaker 1: was a radical internationalist anti war movement that that was

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Speaker 1: working against war to try to end war around the

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Speaker 1: world permanently. They were you know, seeking world peace and

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Speaker 1: world federation UM as the way to achieve and maintain

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Speaker 1: world peace. UM. Well, once the United States entered World

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Speaker 1: War One in nineteen seventeen. In April of nineteen seventeen, UM,

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Speaker 1: the Western administration signaled and articulated that the kind of

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Speaker 1: anti war descent that they had been doing in the

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Speaker 1: American Union against Militarism would no longer be tolerated. UM.

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Speaker 1: The Espionage Act was passed, and then UH in the

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Speaker 1: following year, nineteen eighteen, the Sedition Act was passed to

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Speaker 1: suppress dissent um, you know, to suppress the articulation of

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Speaker 1: anything that would UM, in the eyes of the administration,

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Speaker 1: harm the American war effort UM and the organization, among

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Speaker 1: other organizations that were affected by this, you know, the

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Speaker 1: socialist press and socialist organizations which had long been been

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Speaker 1: anti war. UM. We're also, of course repressed and affected

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Speaker 1: by this. Many other radicals were affected by this problem,

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Speaker 1: by this legislation, UM, and this direction in this country,

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Speaker 1: the kind of you know, compulsory patriotism that really came

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Speaker 1: along with UM, the entry into the war and UM

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Speaker 1: the alien the UH Sedition Acts and the Espionage Act. UM.

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Speaker 1: But UM, the American Union against Militarism made an organizational

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Speaker 1: decision to overtly try to fight it, UM. And it

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Speaker 1: was out of that effort that the a c l

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Speaker 1: you emerged, you know. They wanted to protect their rights.

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Speaker 1: UM argued that their right to protest against their government,

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Speaker 1: their right to you know, meet and assemble UM, and

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Speaker 1: right uh, you know, against the war was guaranteed to them,

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Speaker 1: was in some ways, UM to Eastman anyway, a kind

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Speaker 1: of natural right that one had in the democratic society.

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Speaker 1: This was a very controversial position to take, UM, not

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Speaker 1: only in the general public, but even within the American

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Speaker 1: Union against Militarism, and many of the leadership UM did

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Speaker 1: not want to, did not feel it was appropriate, did

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Speaker 1: not want to take the risks in UM, you know,

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Speaker 1: in appearing to oppose the government UM. And Eastman's you know,

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Speaker 1: kind of founding status UM of the a c l

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Speaker 1: U was that she was the one who proposed and

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Speaker 1: managed to kind of politic among her colleagues to get

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Speaker 1: past the idea that they had to continue this work

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Speaker 1: that they're you know, their anti war work and their

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Speaker 1: internationalist work, their democratic work was meaningless if they didn't

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Speaker 1: protect these what she considered to be natural basic rights UM,

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Speaker 1: even in wartime. So she wrote a memo and she uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, proposing that UM her, you know, instead of

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Speaker 1: allowing the organization to split from the inside over this

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Speaker 1: question spling the leadership was so divided, instead of allowing

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Speaker 1: that to happen, they would form a separate organization that

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Speaker 1: would be a collaborating organization with the American Union Against

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Speaker 1: Militarism and their internationalist anti war agenda, but that they

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Speaker 1: would also have a separate focused organization to fight for

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Speaker 1: civil liberties during wartime and forever after. UM. And so

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Speaker 1: UM she succeeded in convincing her colleagues to do that. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And in the early days was you know, overseeing that,

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Speaker 1: you know, kind of that that effort. UM. However, she

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Speaker 1: didn't ultimately, UM, maintain her status as the you know,

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Speaker 1: kind of executive director of that new group, UM, although

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Speaker 1: she wanted to, because she was pregnant and she ended

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Speaker 1: up UM having her first child in March of nineteen seventeen,

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Speaker 1: right before the US entered the war. UM, and this

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Speaker 1: kind of took her out of the loop. It was

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Speaker 1: a difficult pregnancy. UM. She had bed rest for three

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Speaker 1: months after and she was not UM you know that UM,

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Speaker 1: you know that that absence as well as her kind

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Speaker 1: of gendered maternal status UM went a long way in

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Speaker 1: you know, making it impossible for her to maintain her

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Speaker 1: leadership position UM in the new organization. Now I should

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Speaker 1: also add quickly that you know, there were other reasons.

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Speaker 1: That was not the only reason. UM. There were other

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Speaker 1: you know, she had other radical associations and other actions

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Speaker 1: that she had taken in positions that she had taken

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Speaker 1: that UM were very controversial within the organization. UM. But

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Speaker 1: you know, to my reading, really the main reason she

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Speaker 1: wasn't able to overcome some of those differences and UM

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Speaker 1: at least maintain more control, if not end up you know,

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Speaker 1: sort of directing the new organization as she had hoped

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Speaker 1: to and as she wanted to, was really because of

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Speaker 1: that of that maternity leave and because of her giving

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Speaker 1: birth to her first child. So explain how she handled

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Speaker 1: being married and being a mother. She struggled with it,

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Speaker 1: you know, as many as many you know, working mothers,

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Speaker 1: working parents UM do today. UM. She was you know,

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Speaker 1: constantly trying to innovate, UM different ways to make marriage

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Speaker 1: and family feminist, UM, to find different ways of balancing

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Speaker 1: marriage and family so that you know, women could maintain

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Speaker 1: their autonomy so that women could work outside the home

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Speaker 1: if they chose to um or um to be you know,

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Speaker 1: remunerated and an equal partner in distributing family funds, even

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Speaker 1: if they were stay at home mothers UM. In an

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Speaker 1: unpublished manuscript that I discovered, UM, she you know, proposed

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Speaker 1: wages for wives in sometime in the early nineteen twenties.

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Speaker 1: It was an unpublished manuscript, so I don't know the

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Speaker 1: exact date, UM, but she, you know, she was looking

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Speaker 1: at ways to create egalitarian marriage for UM, for women

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Speaker 1: despite you know, and allowing women whatever other choices they

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Speaker 1: wanted in the ways UM, they would organize their marriages

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Speaker 1: and organize their family lives. UM. One of her biggest

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Speaker 1: experiments was she UM tried to live separately from her husband.

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Speaker 1: She she wrote an article about this publishing Cosmopolitan in

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Speaker 1: three called marriage under two roofs. And they each had

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Speaker 1: their independent households, UM, and their independent lives and their

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Speaker 1: independent work, but they shared, uh, you know, the support

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Speaker 1: of their children. UM. And that was her idea of

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Speaker 1: a way to maintain a family, maintain equal investment between

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Speaker 1: herself and her husband, Walter Fuller UM. In the development

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Speaker 1: the growth the support of their children, UM, but would

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Speaker 1: give them, um, the freedom to work outside the home

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Speaker 1: and to leave independent lives. And also, she emphasized in

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Speaker 1: that article, UM, the freedoms tore Sue, you know, a

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Speaker 1: kind of marriage that lacked, you know, as many compulsory

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Speaker 1: components as possible. UM. You know she wanted you know,

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Speaker 1: she she wrote that, you know, this way they would

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Speaker 1: have a more a more natural experience of sexuality and

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Speaker 1: of romantic love. Because every time that you would choose

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Speaker 1: to spend the night together, she wrote, you did it

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Speaker 1: because you wanted to. You've made a date and you

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Speaker 1: wanted to do that. And there was no sense of

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Speaker 1: any um kind of compulsory arrangements embedded in in in

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Speaker 1: um the expectations of of marital life and of the

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Speaker 1: marriage contract. UM. And so in many ways, that arrangement,

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Speaker 1: she found, UM, you know, did institute a better marriage,

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Speaker 1: a more feminist marriage, UM, although she continued to struggle

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Speaker 1: with the fact that ultimately, you know, she was de

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Speaker 1: facto a single mother. The children both lived with her.

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Speaker 1: That's what she wanted, UM. But that also then came

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Speaker 1: along with all the additional responsibilities that you know, that

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Speaker 1: single mother's struggle with alone, UM, and you know that

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Speaker 1: remained kind of an unresolved issue for her. UM. She

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Speaker 1: wrote a number of letters, you know, very poignantly describing

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Speaker 1: what sounded very familiar to me UM as a working parent,

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Speaker 1: and you know many others that I know and have

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Speaker 1: studied and read about who are working parents. UM, that

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Speaker 1: you know just how hard it was on her UM

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Speaker 1: to you know, to try to earn a living and

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Speaker 1: support her children and also be UM a supportive parent,

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Speaker 1: UM and a loving mother UM and also uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: an involved and egalitarian wife. Finally, I know that you

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Speaker 1: said that she didn't like to pick among the different

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Speaker 1: areas that she was interested in. But if you had

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Speaker 1: to pick to say what her greatest legacy is today,

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Speaker 1: what would it be? Well, honestly, I think her greatest

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Speaker 1: legacy is the fact that she was this proto you know, intersectionalist,

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Speaker 1: right that she you know, she tried to find the

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Speaker 1: bridges among all these different movements, UM, which is very

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Speaker 1: much a kind of driving force and driving question in

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Speaker 1: UM in activism as well as kind of scholarship and

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Speaker 1: uh intellectualism on the left today. UM. You know, I

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Speaker 1: think that the problems UM, that it raises. You know

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Speaker 1: that her that her loss right, that that losing her

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Speaker 1: her disappearance raises, UM, you know, really are a lesson

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Speaker 1: to us, UM, and are something that you know, can

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Speaker 1: teach us a lot about how we might do things

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Speaker 1: differently in the twenty one century. UM. The particular you know,

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Speaker 1: her achievements as well as her altercations with various leaders

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Speaker 1: and groups, the struggles that she had in trying to

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Speaker 1: bridge all these different movements, UM, in a in a

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Speaker 1: democratic way and in the egalitarian way. UM. You know,

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Speaker 1: I think teach us an enormous amount about how far

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Speaker 1: we've come and how far we still have to go

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Speaker 1: if we're going to UM, you know, kind of make

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Speaker 1: democratic progress on democratic terms and achieve the kind of

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Speaker 1: equality that is visible and is you know, has been articulated, UM,

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Speaker 1: but you know is still you know, so far beyond

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Speaker 1: our beyond our grasp. Thanks for being on Bloomberg Law. Amy.

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Speaker 1: That's Amy Aaronson. Her new book is called Crystal Eastman,

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Speaker 1: A Revolutionary Life. And that's it for this edition of

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Law. Remember you could listen to all the latest

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Speaker 1: legal topics in the news anytime on our Bloomberg Law podcast.

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Speaker 1: You can find them on iTunes, SoundCloud, or at Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: dot com slash podcast slash Law. I'm June Grossel. Thanks

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Speaker 1: so much for listening, and remember to tune into The

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Lawn Show tomorrow night at ten pm Eastern, right

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Speaker 1: here on Bloomberg Radio