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