hits are recorded, and fans flocked to hear their favorite singers
less known as the city's connection to the 19th amendment, which
legally granted women the right to vote back in 1920 special correspondent
Cat Wise visited an historic hotel in Nashville, where a hard fought
battle for that right was waged.
Nashville's Hermitage Hotel, completed in 1910, just steps from the
state capital has been a favorite gathering spot over the years for
locals, politicians and celebrities including Amelia Earhart and
Elvis Presley. But the hotel is cemented in history because of a
group of women who helped change civil rights in America more than
100 years ago.
What would we have seen here in the lobby? In the summer of 1920,
we would have seen women in white dresses. It was summertime and
summertime in Tennessee is hot. Local historian Carol Busey says
in 1920, it became clear Tennessee was going to be the final state
needed to ratify the 19th amendment.
That summer, local and national suffrage leaders as well as anti
suffragists converged on Nashville. The lobby of the Hermitage Hotel
in some ways is a character in the story because it gets prominent.
This is where all the deals were made. This was the scene of the
action.
It became known as the War of the Roses From a suite on the third
floor suffragists like Carrie Chapman, Catt advocated for the right
to vote wearing yellow bruises and on the eighth floor. Those who
opposed suffrage, including Tennessee native Josephine Pearson, wore
Red Roses
lobby is just a swarm of people debating this documentary from Nashville.
Public Television highlights the tension in the hotel that summer.
And down on the elevator and
best friends who speak to each other.
Subject eating campaign
Heritage Hotel was told you
was a seeing her so
Many of fish fight
says the work done by so many women to earn the right to vote from
the Seneca Falls Convention to the fight at the Hermitage Hotel has
often been overlooked or forgotten in history. There was no awareness
whatsoever of any of the things of related to women's suffrage. In
fact, until the sixties, there was really no such subjects as women's
history offered in colleges, undergraduate or graduate level Hermitage
Hotel Zone history.
He was also lost for a time during the 19 sixties and seventies,
The building fell into disrepair and was closed. Local preservationists
saved it in the hotel underwent major restorations in the early 19
eighties and two thousands.
In 2020. The hotel was named a national historic landmark and another
major remodel began today. The luxury hotel commemorates its suffrage,
history and both subtle and obvious ways.
What happened here deep Patel manages the hotel, the first woman
to do so. So the eighth floor was the floor in which the anti suffrage
is would bring up legislators.
To sway their votes because they noticed that they were wearing the
yellow Rose. And perhaps if they weren't wearing the yellow Rose
would bring them up to the eighth floor and get them drunk of Jack
Daniels. Whiskey Today Room 81 to the infamous Jack Daniel. Sweet
looks quite a bit different than in 1920. But the remain glimpses
of its past and Dallas Dudley is depicted here and you see, the roses
are not to the history and so throughout the guest rooms and throughout
this particular sweet
You will notice artifacts and, um, ways in which we have been able
to celebrate and cherish and respect history like this piece of art
paper cut to resemble the bottom of whisky glass and a bird breaking
through a paper bag and Carrie Chapman Cats former room overlooking
the Capitol building.
The hotel also ensures it's passed through T
A suffrage theme T services offered several times a week. But tell
and I shared a cup on the mezzanine afternoon tea was enjoyed, often
as women gathered, and it was those gathering moments in which the
organization of the suffrage movement began in Seneca Falls. But
in the end, it was men who determined the fate of the 19th amendment
on August 18th 1920.
Here We have a picture of Harry T Burn, who was the youngest legislator
at the time, and he cast the deciding vote. Ekstrom, the Hermitage
is historian explained Burns role in the historic vote had received
a letter from his mother that very morning.
Encouraging him to do the right thing, and he
He had had a red rose in his lapel.
Meaning he was going to vote against it. He it was deadlocked with
the 48 48 tie.
And he changed his vote. Yes, the final vote tally was 52 46 in favor
of ratification. There was pure pandemonium, the suffragist or crying
and hugging each other rose petals were everywhere. Despite the victory
that day, many women, especially black women, continue to face discriminatory
voting laws for decades, the end of the day.
In 1920 men in this hotel in the General Assembly were taking votes
about women's rights. They were making the decisions for women and
about women and we are still in the throes of that very same debate
today.