Here ’s a sad statistic : Until recently , only eight out of America ’s 411 home park sites were dedicated to women ’s story , and only one national memorial — the Harriet Tubman National Monument in Cambridge , Maryland — honored a adult female ’s legacy .
These numbers modify Tuesday when U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewellannounced thatPresident Obama had named the Washington , D.C. , headquarters of the National Woman ’s Party a interior landmark . Formerly known as theSewall - Belmont House and Museum , it will now be shout out the Belmont - Paul Women ’s Equality National Monument . The new name honour Alva Belmont , the National Woman ’s Party helper , and party laminitis , and strategian Alice Paul , The Washington Postreports .
The Belmont - Paul Women ’s Equality National Monument is an retiring three - story brick house that stand on 144 Constitution Avenue , near the U.S. Capitol . However , it has a rich history , The New York Timeswrites . establish in 1800 by a piece named Robert Sewall , the plate was torched by British troops during the War of 1812 . It was later rebuild , and in 1929 it became home to the National Woman ’s Party , the American women ’s organization that formed in 1917 to struggle for women ’s suffrage .
In 1997 , the National Woman ’s Party became an educational organization , and the nursing home was transform into a museum that house document and memorabilia on suffrage and adult female ’s issues . Until late , it also help as a meeting site and event hall .
Paul and her contemporaries were mocked , threatened , and jailed for their activism . The Belmont - Paul Women ’s Equality National Monument call back this painful history , Obama say in a lecture at the house on Tuesday . “ I require untested girls and boys to come here—10 , 20 , 100 year from now — to experience that fair sex fought for equivalence , it was not just given to them , ” theTimesquotes him as aver . “ I want them to total here and be astonished that there was ever a fourth dimension that charwoman could not vote . I require them to be astound that there was ever a time when woman earned less than men for doing the same workplace . ”
Fittingly , President Obama dedicated the new national memorial on Equal Pay Day , a date that women ’s and civil rights organizations apply to find the disparity between men ’s and women ’s incomes . “ I ’m here to say we will shut down the pay gap , ” Obama said at the opening . “ And if you do n’t believe that we ’re go to shut our wage crack , you require to come visit this house because this house has a tarradiddle to secernate . ”
In 2014 , a modeling outbreak in the brick home ’s depository library cost its administrators $ 75,000 to restore , and heavy snow last winter damage its gutters . With backing from the National Park Service , the house will be restored to its original glory — insure thatBelmont ’s wishfor it to “ stomach for days and years to do , telling of the piece of work that the char of the United States have fulfill ” comes unfeigned .
[ h / tThe Washington Post ]
