Amelia Cordova

Bel Air High School | Bel Air, MD | 9-10th Grade

Inspirational Family Member
My Mom

During the women’s suffrage movement, not only Crystal Eastman was in this movement, but my mom was in it to.  When she was in the women’s suffrage movement, she had to vote for her rights to have a freedom of speech. During that time, she would go to Towson University to study to be a lawyer. When she went to Towson University she also studied economics. With her economics studies, she had gone to go get a master's degree to become a high school social studies teacher for world history.

When she was a teacher, she didn't like being a teacher because it was hard for her to teach the course that she was teaching. So, she wanted to be in social sciences where she can help people solve their problems.

When she was in the women's suffrage, she would secretly join the Pentagon – because of how smart she was in economics – in which she was able to have her own rights into voting and she would have freedom of speech. Not only that but she also went to law school to try to become a lawyer. 
 
During her life in high school, she was the smartest person that had high scores on her AP tests and she was ranked number one in her class. She went to a school that was an all-girls school at Notre Dame Preparatory School where she graduated there in 1988. When she finally decided on a career, she wanted to be a guidance counselor; after that she didn't want to teach anymore.  After going through a master's degree, she went to look for different counties in Maryland to see if there was a spot in counseling, and then she would eventually find a counseling job in Baltimore County Public Schools.  Since the women's suffrage movement, she has changed from being a teacher into a counselor.

Historical Figure I Admire
Crystal Eastman

Crystal Eastman was part of the women's suffrage movement. Imagine that you were in her place and think about what she has gone through for her whole life. Believe it or not, Eastman was a major leader in the suffrage and equal rights movements of the early nineteenth century during her times as a citizen in the U.S..  But Eastman was many things like a labor lawyer and a journalist who modeled legislation. As Eastman took on this position, she had to divorce her husband in 1915 when she refused to accept alimony and wanted to criticize the concept as nothing less than an admission of financial dependency on men.

After she lost her husband in 1915, she began to focus on her careers. For example, Eastman wanted to study law when she went to Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1903, and then went to New York University School of Law in 1907 ranking second in her class when she graduated.  When Eastman had these jobs, her job was to author model legislation and to help create political organizations that would survive the nineteenth century. But one of her biggest jobs was being a member of the commission.  As a member of the commission, Eastman worked for the enactment of health and safety laws in the workplace and drafted the first workers compensation law. The first workers compensation law was when Congress passed the Employers Liability Acts of 1906 and 1908 which provides insurance for workers. This insurance is a form that provides wage replacement and medical benefits to employees that are injured during employment in exchange for mandatory relinquishment.

In addition, when Eastman supported the Equal Rights movement in 1923, she would contribute by writing in feminist journals and about equal rights for women. But before that, Eastman cofounded the National Civil Liberties Bureau, which reestablished in 1920 as the American Civil Liberties Union. This is when the United States entered their first world war during this time.

During World War I, Eastman responded to the institution of the draft and of the laws that are prohibiting criticism of the war by joining forces with Roger Baldwin and Norman Thomas to be in a group within AUAM. Also, in this time frame, Eastman would join the peace movement and would lead the New York branch of the Women's Peace Party throughout the war. During her time with her jobs, she would partner up with her brother Max. Max Eastman gained fame as a Marxist writer and journalist who later rejected socialism and became a supporter of socialist politics, the suffragist movement, and feminism throughout Crystal Eastman's life.

In the end, Crystal Eastman had a bright future that she had during these amazing times when she was part of the women's suffrage movement and being part of the biggest job of all was when she was a member of the commission. As we imagine what she has gone through, people can notice that it's a lot of work to do all these jobs at once like Crystal Eastman can do. But the most important thing of all is that being part of the women's suffrage and the equal rights movements is the devil of torture for women like Eastman. So now that we learned about Eastman, the question is that does any person want to be like Crystal Eastman or not?

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What the Project Means to Me

In my experience of learning about Crystal Eastman, I have learned why she was part of the women's suffrage movement.  When she was part of this movement, she became a major leader as she helped other women to realize that they have the right to vote and they have a freedom of speech.

When she was part of the movement, she showed how women can be anything they want to be when they have their own rights. She did this by journaling her ideas of what things that people can do for our country. When this happened, she was invited to join the equal rights movement. This gave Crystal Eastman a bright future and helped her get a job. When she got a job, she got one as a lawyer and a journalist. This relates to my mom because she had to be smart and work hard just like Crystal Eastman when she was working for the country while being part of the equal rights movement. Through both of my mom's and Eastman's journeys, they both were struggling to get women's rights.

But the difference between the two is that they lived in two different states of the country. My mom lived in Maryland and Crystal Eastman lived in Massachusetts. When I learned about Crystal Eastman I learned how she became a phenomenon in the equal rights movement and when my mom was in the Pentagon but either way, they both had women's right to vote.

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