The Tony nominations were announced in advance of the awards ceremony that will take place on June 16. Among the nominated shows is Suffs, which received 6 nominations. These include Best Musical, as well as Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score, both to writer/composer/actor Shaina Taub. The Broadway run was produced, among others, by Hillary Clinton and Malala Yousafzai. The show tells the story of the Suffragist movement which led to the adoption of the 19th amendment in 1920, giving women the right to vote. The main characters are all based on real-life Suffragists, including Alice Paul, the leader of the National Woman’s Party; African American investigative journalist Ida B. Wells; and Carrie Chapman Catt, Head of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Though not included in the show, there were numerous Jewish women playing significant roles in the Suffragist movement, most notably Maud Nathan, a cousin of Supreme Court justice Benjamin Cardozo. Nathan was a founding member and the president of the New York Consumers League, an officer in the Equal Suffrage League of New York, the first woman to speak at an American synagogue (Shearith Israel, where she spoke on social justice), and was the chair of the Suffrage Committee of the National Progressive Party (a position she was appointed to by former President Theodore Roosevelt). President Woodrow Wilson, who was in office during the time of the Suffragist movement, was not initially a supporter of the cause. What did President Wilson say after meeting with Maud Nathan about the Suffragist issue?

Maud Nathan  is in the public domain via Wikimedia Commons

A. “Though Mrs. Nathan is a passionate advocate for her cause, nothing she said surpassed the wisdom of our Founding Fathers who did not see fit to provide suffrage rights to women.”

B. “The suffrage movement owes a lot to Mrs. Nathan, and I shall consider her wise counsel as I study this issue of such great importance to our nation.”

C. “As much as I respect Mrs. Nathan, I do not see a reason to change my opinion about women’s suffrage, when she can’t even get her own synagogue to let her sit up front.”

D. “When I hear a woman talk so well in the public interest, it actually makes me believe in woman suffrage.”

E. “When I hear a woman talk so well in the public interest, it almost makes me believe in woman suffrage.”

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