81 FR 22503 - Establishment of the Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument
Executive Office of the President
Federal Register Volume 81, Issue 73 (April 15, 2016)
Page Range
22503-22509
FR Document
2016-08970
Federal Register, Volume 81 Issue 73 (Friday, April 15, 2016)
[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 73 (Friday, April 15, 2016)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 22503-22509]
From the Federal Register Online [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2016-08970]
[[Page 22503]]
Vol. 81
Friday,
No. 73
April 15, 2016
Part III
The President
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Proclamation 9423--Establishment of the Belmont-Paul Women's Equality
National Monument
Presidential Documents
Federal Register / Vol. 81 , No. 73 / Friday, April 15, 2016 /
Presidential Documents
___________________________________________________________________
Title 3--
The President
[[Page 22505]]
Proclamation 9423 of April 12, 2016
Establishment of the Belmont-Paul Women's
Equality National Monument
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
The Sewall-Belmont House (House), located at 144
Constitution Avenue, Northeast, in Washington, D.C.--a
few steps from the U.S. Capitol--has been home to the
National Woman's Party (NWP) since 1929. From this
House, the NWP's founder Alice Paul wrote new language
in 1943 for the Equal Rights Amendment, which became
known as the ``Alice Paul Amendment,'' and led the
fight for its passage in the Congress. From here,
throughout the 20th century, Paul and the NWP drafted
more than 600 pieces of legislation in support of equal
rights and advocated tirelessly for women's political,
social, and economic equality not just in the United
States but also internationally.
While the House's role in women's history makes it a
nationally significant resource, the building itself
has an interesting past. Robert Sewall constructed the
House on Jenkins Hill, known today as Capitol Hill,
around 1800. Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin
used the House during the Jefferson Administration, and
the House was the site of the only resistance to the
British invasion of Washington, D.C., during the War of
1812. In retaliation, the British set fire to the
House, but by 1820, Sewall had rebuilt it. The House
remained in the Sewall family until 1922, when it was
acquired by Vermont Senator Porter Dale.
The NWP purchased the House in 1929 to serve as its
headquarters. The NWP named it the ``Alva Belmont
House'' in honor of its former president and major
benefactor who had helped purchase the NWP's previous
headquarters. A prominent suffragist herself, Belmont
said of the new headquarters, ``may it stand for years
and years to come, telling of the work that the women
of the United States have accomplished; the example we
have given foreign nations; and our determination that
they shall be--as ourselves--free citizens, recognized
as the equals of men.'' What is now called the Sewall-
Belmont House became the staging ground for the NWP's
advocacy for an equal rights amendment and other
significant domestic and international action for
women's equality.
Alice Paul, the women's suffrage and equal rights
leader closely associated with the Sewall-Belmont
House, led the NWP from its headquarters at the House
from 1929 to 1972. A Quaker and well educated, before
her work in the United States, Paul had been inspired
by the women's suffrage movement in Britain in the
early 20th century. During her years there from 1907 to
1910, she joined with Emmeline Pankhurst, her
daughters, and other suffragettes to secure the vote
for British women. Paul's participation in meetings,
demonstrations, and depositions to Parliament led to
multiple arrests, hunger strikes, and force-feedings.
Paul brought home her focus on women's suffrage when
she returned to the United States in 1910. After
earning a Ph.D. in economics at the University of
Pennsylvania in 1912, she devoted herself to the
American suffrage movement. She feared that the
movement was waning at the national level because
efforts had shifted to State suffrage. Paul believed
that the movement
[[Page 22506]]
needed to concentrate on the passage of a Federal
suffrage amendment to the United States Constitution.
Paul became a member of the National American Woman
Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and by 1912 served as the
chair of its Congressional Committee in Washington,
D.C. In 1913, she and Lucy Burns created a larger
organization, the Congressional Union of Woman
Suffrage, which soon disagreed with NAWSA over tactics.
The Congressional Union split from NAWSA in 1914 and
evolved into the NWP through steps taken in 1916 and
1917.
Paul was the most prominent figure in the final phase
of the battle for the Nineteenth Amendment to the
United States Constitution, ratified in 1920, granting
women the right to vote. As part of her strategy, she
adopted the philosophy to ``hold the party in power
responsible'' from her work on women's suffrage in
Britain. The NWP withheld its support from the existing
political parties until women gained the right to vote,
and ``punished'' those parties in power that did not
support suffrage. In 1913, the day before Woodrow
Wilson's first inauguration, Paul organized a women's
suffrage parade of more than 5,000 participants from
every State in the Union. Through a series of dramatic
nonviolent protests, the NWP demanded that President
Wilson and the Congress address women's issues. The NWP
organized ``Silent Sentinels'' to stand outside the
White House holding banners inscribed with incendiary
phrases directed toward President Wilson. The colorful,
spirited suffrage marches, the suffrage songs, the
violence the women faced as they were physically
attacked and had their banners torn from their hands,
the daily pickets and arrests at the White House, the
recurring jail time, the hunger strikes which resulted
in force-feedings and brutal prison conditions, the
national speaking tours, and newspaper headlines all
created enormous public support for suffrage.
Through most of the last century, the NWP remained a
leading advocate of women's political, social, and
economic equality. Following ratification of the
Nineteenth Amendment, the NWP, under the leadership of
Alice Paul, turned its attention towards the larger
issue of complete equality of men and women under the
law. Paul reorganized the NWP in 1922 to focus on
eliminating all discrimination against women. In 1923,
at the 75th anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention,
the first women's rights convention, Paul proposed an
equal rights amendment to the Constitution, which
became known as the ``Lucretia Mott Amendment,'' and
launched the campaign to win full equality for women.
In 1943, Alice Paul rewrote the amendment, which then
became known as the ``Alice Paul Amendment.'' What we
now refer to as the ``Equal Rights Amendment'' was
introduced in every session of Congress from 1923 until
it finally passed in 1972, though it still has not been
ratified by the required majority: three-fourths of the
States.
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the NWP drafted more
than 600 pieces of legislation in support of equal
rights for women on the State and local levels,
including bills covering divorce and custody rights,
jury service, property rights, ability to enter into
contracts, and the retention of one's maiden name after
marriage. It launched two major ``Women for Congress''
campaigns in 1924 and 1926 and lobbied for the
appointment of women to high Federal positions. The NWP
also worked for Federal and State ``blanket bills'' to
ensure women equal rights and helped change Federal
laws to equalize nationality and citizenship laws for
women. The NWP fought successfully for the repeal of a
statute that prohibited Federal employees from working
for the Federal Government if their spouses also were
Federal employees. The NWP helped eliminate many of the
sex discrimination clauses in the ``codes of fair
competition'' established under the New Deal's National
Recovery Administration, and assisted in the adoption
of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Paul and the
NWP also played a role in getting language protecting
women included in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
[[Page 22507]]
Alice Paul and the NWP did not limit their fight for
women's rights to domestic arenas but also became
active in international feminism as early as the 1920s.
Among other actions, in 1938 Paul formed the World
Woman's Party, which served as the NWP's international
organization. It first assisted Jewish women fleeing
the Holocaust and then became the NWP's office for
promoting equal rights for women around the world. The
NWP helped both Puerto Rican and Cuban women in seeking
the vote, and in 1945 advocated successfully for the
incorporation of language on women's equality in the
United Nations Charter and for the establishment of a
permanent United Nations Commission on the Status of
Women.
The political strategies and tactics of Alice Paul and
the NWP became a blueprint for civil rights
organizations and activities throughout the 20th
century. In 1997, the NWP ceased to be a lobbying
organization and became a non-profit, educational
organization. Today, the House tells the story of a
century of courageous activism by American women.
WHEREAS, section 320301 of title 54, United States Code
(known as the ``Antiquities Act''), authorizes the
President, in the President's discretion, to declare by
public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and
prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic
or scientific interest that are situated upon the lands
owned or controlled by the Federal Government to be
national monuments, and to reserve as a part thereof
parcels of land, the limits of which in all cases shall
be confined to the smallest area compatible with the
proper care and management of the objects to be
protected;
WHEREAS, in 1974, the Secretary of the Interior
designated the Sewall-Belmont House a National Historic
Landmark for its association with Alice Paul, the NWP,
and the fight for equal rights, and later the same year
the Congress enacted legislation creating the Sewall-
Belmont House National Historic Site, an affiliated
area of the National Park System;
WHEREAS, the National Park Service completed a study in
November 2014, which recommended that the Sewall-
Belmont House become a unit of the National Park System
and operate through cooperative management between the
National Park Service and the NWP;
WHEREAS, for the purpose of establishing a national
monument to be administered by the National Park
Service, the NWP has donated to the Federal Government
fee title to the Sewall-Belmont House and the
approximately 0.34 acres of land on which it is
located;
WHEREAS, the National Park Service and the NWP agree
that the NWP should continue to own and manage its
collection, which includes an extensive library and
archival and museum holdings relating to the women's
movement, and the NWP has indicated its intention to
enter into appropriate arrangements with the National
Park Service that would further the preservation of the
permanent collection at the Sewall-Belmont House and
provide for cooperative interpretation and management
activities with the National Park Service;
WHEREAS, it is in the public interest to preserve and
protect the Sewall-Belmont House and the historic
objects associated with it;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the
United States of America, by the authority vested in me
by section 320301 of title 54, United States Code,
hereby proclaim the objects identified above that are
situated upon lands and interests in lands owned or
controlled by the Federal Government to be the Belmont-
Paul Women's Equality National Monument (monument) and,
for the purpose of protecting those objects, reserve as
a part thereof all lands and interests in lands owned
or controlled by the Federal Government within the
boundaries described on the accompanying map, which is
attached to and forms a part of this proclamation. The
reserved Federal lands and interests in lands encompass
approximately 0.34 acres. The boundaries described on
the accompanying map are confined to the smallest area
compatible with the proper care and management of the
objects to be protected.
[[Page 22508]]
All Federal lands and interests in lands within the
boundaries described on the accompanying map are hereby
appropriated and withdrawn from all forms of entry,
location, selection, sale, or other disposition under
the public land laws, from location, entry, and patent
under the mining laws, and from disposition under all
laws relating to mineral and geothermal leasing.
The establishment of the monument is subject to valid
existing rights.
The Secretary of the Interior (Secretary) shall manage
the monument through the National Park Service,
pursuant to applicable legal authorities, consistent
with the purposes and provisions of this proclamation.
The Secretary shall prepare a management plan, with
full public involvement and in coordination with the
NWP, within 3 years of the date of this proclamation.
The management plan shall ensure that the monument
fulfills the following purposes for the benefit of
present and future generations: (1) to preserve and
protect the objects of historic interest associated
with the monument, and (2) to interpret the monument's
objects, resources, and values related to the women's
rights movement. The management plan shall, among other
things, set forth the desired relationship of the
monument to other related resources, programs, and
organizations, both within and outside the National
Park System.
The National Park Service is directed to use applicable
authorities to seek to enter into agreements with
others, and the NWP in particular, to address common
interests and promote management efficiencies,
including provision of visitor services, interpretation
and education, establishment and care of museum
collections, and preservation of historic objects.
Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to revoke
any existing withdrawal, reservation, or appropriation;
however, the monument shall be the dominant
reservation.
Warning is hereby given to all unauthorized persons not
to appropriate, injure, destroy, or remove any feature
of this monument and not to locate or settle upon any
of the lands thereof.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
twelfth day of April, in the year of our Lord two
thousand sixteen, and of the Independence of the United
States of America the two hundred and fortieth.
(Presidential Sig.)
Billing code 3295-F6-P
[[Page 22509]]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TD15AP16.000
[FR Doc. 2016-08970
Filed 4-14-16; 11:15 a.m.]
Billing code 4310-10-C