32 August 15 • 2019
jn
SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Behind the Women’s Vote
Author brings grassroots activists alive for a centennial nod to the 19th Amendment.
A
s women’
s issues — from pay
equity to sexual harassment
— influence the 2020 political
season, so does the centennial com-
memoration of the Constitutional
Amendment giving women voting
powers to influence those issues.
Elaine Weiss, an
award-winning journal-
ist who votes in every
election and whose
family by marriage has
held leadership posi-
tions in the Detroit
Jewish community, is at
the center of centennial events as she
discusses her book detailing leaders
active in the campaign for the 19th
Amendment.
The Woman’
s Hour: The Great Fight
to Win the Vote (Viking) is being
transitioned into a television pro-
duction by Steven Spielberg because
of one impressed reader who carried
women’
s rights to a new level by run-
ning for president. Hillary Clinton
suggested the adaptation.
“I wanted to make this very
important historical story, which has
been overlooked, into something
that people would want to read,”
says Weiss, whose husband, Julian
Krolik, grew up in Detroit, graduated
from Cass Technical High School
and became a professor of astrophys-
ics at Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore.
“It’
s a narrative history with a story,
arc and characters. I wanted my read-
ers to understand these women and
the men who helped, why they would
devote part of their lives to the cause
of winning the vote and what was in
their backgrounds to propel them to
devote themselves to this.
“It wasn’
t professional politicos.
It was grassroots citizens, ordinary
activists who joined together. I want-
ed to view these historical characters
as people. The movement went way
beyond our quick understanding of
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B.
Anthony. There were tens of thou-
sands more.”
Included in her narration are
Jewish leaders important to the
movement, especially as the book
focuses on Tennessee, the last state to
ratify. In contrast, Michigan became
one of the first states to ratify the
amendment 100 years ago on June 10,
1919, and the state is recalled along
with the general history of the peace-
ful suffragists and the more militant
suffragettes beyond Tennessee.
The way an amendment enters the
Constitution is that it must be passed
by Congress with a two-thirds major-
ity and ratified by three-quarters of
the states.
One Jewish leader was artist Anita
Pollitzer, a strong member of the
National Women’
s Party. Another was
Joseph Hanover, a Polish immigrant
who became floor manager for the
suffrage vote in the Tennessee House.
Weiss can relate their commitment
to the community commitment of
her husband’
s family.
“My husband’
s grandfather,
Julian H. Krolik, was the first pres-
ident and one of the founders of
the Jewish Welfare Federation of
Detroit,” she says. A volume of the
Michigan Jewish Historical Society’
s
Michigan Jewish History from 2008
says he also was president of the
North End Clinic, held top offic-
es at United Jewish Charities, the
Jewish Community Center and Sinai
Hospital and was “one of the most
notable leaders of the Allied Jewish
Campaign.” Additionally, he was the
first recipient of the Fred M. Butzel
Award. The two were good friends
and fellow philanthropists.
Her husband’
s grandmother, Golda
Ginsburg Mayer Krolik, seemed to
be of similar nature to the women
described in her granddaugh-
ter-in-law’
s book. As a student at the
University of Michigan, Golda Krolik
was the first woman reporter on the
Michigan Daily.
Golda Krolik went on to serve with
the Jewish Welfare Federation and
the wider-based United Foundation.
Committed to civil rights, she gave
her attention to the Urban League
and the Mayor’
s Committee on Civil
Rights. The author’
s mother-in-law,
Bessie Krolik, was a member of the
committee that built Jewish housing
and then lived in the result.
Barbara Mayer, an aunt and the last
of the relatives still in Michigan, has
been recognized for volunteer efforts
arts&life
Elaine Weiss
NINA SUBIN
TOP TO BOTTOM:
Men sign a petition supporting
the women’
s vote in 1916 in
Missouri. Book: The Women’
s
Hour: The Great Fight to Win the
Vote. Julian H. Krolik, Weiss’
hus-
band’
s grandfather, was a Detroit
Jewish leader.
U.S. PUBLIC DOMAIN
MICHIGAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY
books