Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History

Some of my posts take weeks to decide what (how much), to post. This shows in the results. These look and sound over-worked because they are. They have the details and cover much ground but just don’t flow right, which adds to the aggravation of their having taken so long for me to write. They also tend to have more incomplete sentences, missing transition words.

My ROI in time and mental energy on that type of post is less because any such post will need major re-allocation, or at the least, editing of content (re-ordering paragraphs, etc.) after publishing.

This one didn’t.  It comes straight from the heart, almost “as-is.” It was easy to write.

My original inspiration was just to re-post links to an earlier concise but I believe well-stated post  — it had just 5,000 words (with a few exhibits and at the bottom a color-coded table of the Family Court Review’s Editorial board of the time).  Running across this older post, I quickly added an about 2,500 word update-rant-protest-FYI and “I Told You So!”

I then tweeted the 2018 one in that format but promised to move my update commentary to a new post.  This post keeps my promise. Later, I also tweeted excerpts showing all of that post:

New posts need titles. Rather than just copy the other one, I’ve led with the reminder that academic journals have influence, and talked about that here, too.

The emphasis here isn’t on the links and supporting documentation, just on my speaking my mind in light of current developments (see my subtitle for which ones). I wanted it out in just one day with minimal cleanup needed after and met that goal.

Journals, Their Editors, Sponsors + Publishers | #FamilyCourtRvw: The Voice of AFCC w Help from Hofstra — Editorial Board and Access-Visitation Grants as I re-explained/posted May 21, 2018. [Repost with my March 21, 2022 Update**]. (short-link ends “-dXu”)

If I could have five-line titles (or post “subtitles” as some magazines do), this one would be: Why #FamilyCourtReformists (#NFVLCgwu #NSPC et al.) pushing #VAWA Reauthorization with #KaydensLaw Don’t/Won’t and Can’t Afford to expose AFCC]

Because that is indeed what is on my mind at the moment...

So now I have nearly 6,000 words here, including the tags you see next, from the 2018 post.

AFCC’s Family Court Review Editorial Board and Their Respective Affiliations. [Publ. May 21, 2018, with March 21, 2002, update for re-posting]. (generated case-sensitive shortlink ends “-92R”)

It may be helpful here to post the tags from my May, 2018 post, not this one, as active links:

~ ~ ~Here they are.

~ ~ ~

ABOUT JOURNALS, GENERALLY: Besides straight law-school journals, any society (non-profit) generally around some professional expertise, it seems, if they can afford it and clear publisher guidelines, can have such publishers produce (make available on-line, with often many indexes they’d also be listed in) their own, and editor-in-chief / editorial board controlled Issues, Volumes of Issues, and articles (Table of Contents) within each issue — benefitting of course the various editorial boards (which can get long and large) whose members may then add every single time (should they choose) an article gets published onto their resumes or “c.v.’s”.  (Why I know — I’ve read so many resumes!)

Typically journals aren’t just by ordinary people, but white-collar individuals with (often advanced) degrees already in some position of authority — but not always — at a university or within the courts, or (while not the majority, supplemented by) running their own private nonprofits, and/or contracting or consulting for the courts — which is to say — government operations.

Besides straight law schools and the “pay-to-play” specific journals, there are some which blend fields of expertise, i.e., they are “multi-disciplinary.”

AFCC’s FamilyCourtReview is unique with its focus and base within New York State, but there are also others published by the American Psychological Association, and some elsewhere as their own nonprofits which I’ll run across from time to time — seeking diligently and consistently to blend social science and the law (not that AFCC doesn’t also do this), psychology and the law,  Social Science and Public Welfare, and “Socio-legal Scholarship” and a variety of similar names.

I call ’em (repeatedly) as I see ’em on this blog, which makes for some complex posts, but I do  it because I do not approve of the “caste” system in place facilitated and expanded through such journals, particularly where a field’s roots are in some fields historically abusive to women, poorly represented from the start by women, and some of them, with roots in eugenics (which, FYI, sociology leadership has…), and in the context where women being historically excluded from voting, and even later, enrolling in the “East Coast Ivies” USA until the late 1960s-1970s, for God’s sake…  one outlet women (sometimes without any child-rearing or marital experience of their own) were allowed into was professionalizing home economics, child-rearing, child care, and in short places where they could put mothers in their places as non-experts and not knowledgeable on how to raise their own children. These fields within universities were historically in centers run by men anyhow.  I believe the 2018 post has some links to these —

Such centers still exist at Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Temple, Columbia (of course), and even UTexas-Austin, as far as centers promoting the field of responsible fatherhood, and as far as (sometime this will sink in, readers) the RELATED fields of early childhood development, child welfare (as expressed throughout the US HHS system) and, now, with the domestic violence organizations well established (can you spell “funded”?)^^ continuing not only to (behind our backs essentially) collaborate with fatherhood grantees/professionals (and vice versa), but also (example: DVChildWelfare.org/About-us)** also blending in the “Child Welfare” field into both.

In the USA, the ChildWelfare sector (“Children’s Bureau” under HHS) is already laced throughout with responsible fatherhood and fathers-rights (basically) trainings, values, and professionals.  All that seems necessary is to continue “business as usual” but periodically re-brand it every few (every decade or so) with new themes — for example, the DVChildWelfare.org theme is “survivor-focused.”

If this name is familiar (it should be), this is where “Safe & Together Institute” (David Mandel & Associates) long ago positioned himself in Connecticut, in other states and has now been able to take his programming to other continents (Australia) and kingdoms (as in, the United Kingdom)… which I’ve also reported and known, for years, if not the exact details throughout, at least enough basics to understand.. men expressing concern for women managing to get themselves in key positions within a state (or, nonprofit) to draw down BOTH fathers-rights (Marriage/Fatherhood, i.e., Welfare-Reform related) AND domestic violence prevention (1984 FVSPA= HHS based and 1994 VAWA=DOJ-based)-type funds, typically through the state, but the federal government funds the states in these programs too…

If not received directly, doing business as a consultant with DV grantees is still part of the business model. So, now we can see, for example, not just DV org “Futures without Violence” has jumped on this bandwagon (‘gravy train’) but the non-entity #NFVLCgwu (my hashtag) (so-called) promoting by linking to it  — implying “one of us” “on our team” “one of the good guys, like us” (Law.GWU.edu website for NFVLC with “Give Today” link below large photo of similar-aged, politically-correct diversity (an obvious emphasis) similar-aged young children reading (three girls and a boy) together. Although the label is “FAMILY” violence, no parents in this photo, for sure… (see nearby image). I mention because just today I noticed NFVLC linking to a 2009 pdf (unlink a whole string of recent Tweets exultant about VAWA Reauthorization) on behalf of — that is, referring to — David Mandel in his role in Connecticut, as you can see (do the math) a dozen years ago..

One might ask WHY in this context.  I can’t embed others’ Twitter links but will show the image and post the link to that pdf.  Unfortunately, for the time being Twitter is saying “you are rate-limited, try again later,” so I will get to it later.  I can’t even load my home page for the moment…

TinyUrl to a Page at Law.GWU.edu (Kids Reading over “Give Today” link) taken 3/21/2022 for post.

**”Futures Without Violence is leading this endeavor along with an experienced group of partners.” (Below the large logos (which give no indication of size, type, and some, location) are the fine-print listing of “advisory partners,” several of which likewise lack significant details, such as geography, or relevance — but you can see enough to get the idea of the cross-section, public and private, and at least one “Unified Family Court Judge” from Florida…)

^^centralized more through the U.S. Department of HHS than the US Department of Justice/Office on Violence Against Women, it seems.  I’ve explored the former’s grants more than the latter’s because a functional, comprehensive database for the latter  — that is for the US DOJ overall —  doesn’t seem to exist…  (US DOJ Organization (“agencies”) Chart shows the Office on Violence Against Women is one of 13 under “Associate Attorney General,” see bottom-left, checked just now. Here’s another one from Oct., 2021, clearer image).

This is still going on.

The other issue is to maintain some awareness of is publishers pushing social science, specifically.

If you continue reading (as layperson) and look into the history of some of the major publishers (ones I mention by recall here may have been bought since then, or publishing under that brand, but owned by someone else):  Sage, Wiley-Blackwell, Taylor & Francis (An Informa UK plc? company), Routledge etc. — I recommend reading the background of those companies, particularly ones, or imprints, promoting social science and certain professions.

These publishers know where the money (their money if they get the publications) is.  In the UK, although I’d known about Nuffield Foundation for a long time (and its Cafcass connections/sponsorship), I only recently learned about Nuffield College with its focus — per Nuffield’s benefactor’s wishes — to focus on social sciences in the public interest.

Those kinds of resources poured into publications, even enough influence to start colleges within universities, shouldn’t be ignored. … I try not to…

My sticky pages (near top of this blog), I believe the “58 Essays” one (posting links to my Pages at the time) discusses one of the journals which hand-picked AFCC- and Fathers-rights friendly professors from Arizona.  In other words, these discussions about “what to do WITH the United States, what to do IN the United States and (from those editors invited or accepted on an international journal’s board) “what we’re doing IN the United States…” shouldn’t be ignored.

As I learned not long ago, discovering (or, re-discovering) LawAndSociety.org, based a University of Massachusetts-Amherst, participating in what eventually led to some USA DV-advocates being invited to FemAnVi conferences — of course Professor Joan Meier was there; and (predictably) a special issue focusing on parental alienation was involved.

The coordination and networks are already established; platforms for collaboration and communication are many and established; doing this tax-exempt is routine, doing it from some university center also, and talking about THIS population as if were were SOMEONE ELSE’s subject matter (and material resource) to be experimented upon — behavioral modification trials A,B, and C (Batterers Intervention seems to be a favorite, as its “parenting coordination” etc.) — written up, and mutual decision-making FAR AWAY FROM THOSE IMPACTED, routine.

Even within the United States, a wide territory (not even including Alaska and Hawaii and some of the Islands and territories), decision-making within Washington, D.C. on issues impacting the state criminal and (now established, pretty well) family (civil) court jurisdictions as far away as the West Coast — undermines representative government.  It bypasses INFORMED consent, and is part — not the only part — to more and more centralize “operations” with the Federal government, which our founders (signers of the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation and eventually Constitution) sought to rein in and warned about from the very start. — — “A republic — If you can keep it…”

[I looked up three references to this phrase.  All are interesting, especially the only one in top several search results, as it happens, written by a woman and about one…  See footnote.]

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So let me state this post’s title again, review it, publish it, then go back and remove the excess from my May 21, 2018 post.##

(##Minor detail in case some people notice this:  There seems to be a 24 hour (one-day) internal difference within WordPress in recording “dates published.”  It tends to show up one day later on, for example, my sidebar “Last Ten Posts” widget (as automatically assigned a date) that it does right here when I publish it.  I’m not posting daily, so it should be no real problem.)

Journals, Their Editors, Sponsors + Publishers | #FamilyCourtRvw: The Voice of AFCC w Help from Hofstra — Editorial Board and Access-Visitation Grants as I re-explained/posted May 21, 2018. [Repost with my March 21, 2022 Update**]. (short-link ends “-dXu”)

What I won’t do: I’m not going to go through reviewing, making another Editorial Board table (this one didn’t just copy + paste onto the blog, it had to be hand-constructed…) and re-running A/V grants over at TAGGS.HHS.gov for “any and all” for 2022.

For those who haven’t figured this out yet, reading my communications, posts and tweets, I am also setting the groundwork for a more formal protest, if not via some Change.org petition, in my own name, to people in authority, whether or not they give a damn — with the authority comes responsibility, and that does include both federal and U.S. Congress, and to law.gwu.edu who is probably completely within its legal rights to do this — but it’s immoral, and its sponsoring chronic dishonesty which, I say has probably over the years only facilitated more and more “murdered kids” for the press — while giving not one answer for the constant censorship of key elements which would show the campaigning for what it is — a play to get in on the public resources for more trainings, and build a reputation associated with these “good works.” 

I’ve made the point — you need to look these things up, run some reports yourself (it’s free…) think about what you see, and realize what light this sheds on the (see Subtitle) activity now surrounding the campaign for Re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act (USA), in the name of Murdered Kids A,B,C,& D as presented by (cherry-picked) with protective mothers groups and a few more key players you’d better keep an eye on — via “National Safe Parents Coalition” which sprang its new website — per Archives.org — what looks like just a few days before a major Feb. 9, 2022, hearing on that reauthorization.

TYPICAL of this crowd, but I did see it coming (if not that website, the purposes, and some of the new players in the cluster) and talked about it on-line.  In between my own life “exigencies” like negotiating things regarding my own housing (lease), utilities billing / real estate developer giants, and doing this having already (see update) had to flee one state just to put some distance between myself and certain family members (one has died since) responsible for facilitating theft of assets (not just children, which preceded it), to the detriment of most people but the professionals involved in facilitating this, and some of my own family line who just couldn’t handle the concept of “domestic violence protection” and one person — me — actually being serious about it, from the start…

Journals, Their Editors, Sponsors + Publishers | #FamilyCourtRvw: The Voice of AFCC w Help from Hofstra — Editorial Board and Access-Visitation Grants as I re-explained/posted May 21, 2018. [Repost with my March 21, 2022 Update**]. (short-link ends “-dXu”)

Subtitle won’t fit, but there is one: Why #FamilyCourtReformists (#NFVLCgwu #NSPC et al.) pushing #VAWA Reauthorization with #KaydensLaw Don’t/Won’t/Can’t expose AFCC]

The former post’s title:

AFCC’s Family Court Review Editorial Board and Their Respective Affiliations. [Publ. May 21, 2018, with March 21, 2002, update for re-posting]. (generated case-sensitive shortlink ends “-92R”)

(Was about 5,600 words as copyedited /reformatted 2022,** and will be again in a few minutes here.)

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(My “UPDATES” come in two varieties.  Anything below (except the “FOOTNOTE”) was written earlier today onto the former (May, 2018) post.  Anything above here was added later today, on this new post….. (@ 4pm PST 21March, 2022).

UPDATE for Re-Posting. I updated format and re-read the post and just before re-posting (meaning only, Tweet this link again) — I found there was more juice in the tank (I had more to say).  I’ve now said it, will re-tweet this link and probably just put out a new post taking my almost 2,000 words of “in hindsight — why this matters now, too” commentary here over to that new post.  Certain things are on my mind now because it is “now,” so naturally they come up when I’m looking at how they got here.  When I do that, most of my pre-Prologue “prologue” will disappear (from here)…

The topic is 2022 re-authorization of #VAWA and certain groups’ manipulation of that for their personal best interests and profits — not the public’s, and certainly not for those whose interests they’ve continued to say it was in, loudly, often and even with some famous actors tears (Angela Jolie), which “must” make it true… and whose perspective is “certainly the same as” that of women and mothers sent homeless or all but through FamilyCourts as we know them…who’ve been turned into criminals and fugitives in their home states wrongfully, or been jailed for standing up to abuse or reporting it, or for being at some point in that process, out of money to pay their ex-abusers child support demanded after children were extracted from that woman’s care.

While this may read like all “opinion” if you know me, you know how and how much I’ve been following these topics and reading the out put of think tanks/thought-leaders/ nonprofit websites, as I can (and it’s often) academic journals were no subscription payall exists or something is available on-line, and of course periodically, articles claiming to have exposed  something new in this game. Not much IS new in principle, tactics, strategy or operations.  Some names change, but the consistency to obstruct, censor, redirect and distract from the financials has never changed… Nor mine to report it and dig them up…

Nearly four years later (late March, 2022), I’m going to re-publicize (Twitter, perhaps put a link on a new post just for that purpose) this.  To do so I’m changing the border and emphasis colors from bright red to a darker color, and correcting a margin issue, but no other editing planned. (I did some copyeediting for clarity and in a few places, where I thought the wording was “cogent” (good), I formed call-outs looking approximately like this (larger font, this background-color)>

Why Now? As sometimes happens I was reviewing Admin Dashboard for a different post from May, 2018 and found this one instead. WordPress, or at least this theme, organizes the Search Filter (when using “by Date”) by month and year, one month at a time in a drop-down menu). I was actually about to re-arrange and re-publish my 2018 Table of Contents…//LGH March 21, 2022).

Why now indeed….

– – Among the important events in this field as of May, 2018, post highlights is an AFCC-RELATE consultation which took place in the UK –St. Georges(Windsor Castle) — the prior February.

RELATE runs relationship classes and has parallels to programs offered in the United States but its reach and networking doesn’t seem to have a named parallel.  I get the sense among AFCC leadership of regret that we (Americans) are just not more like their cross-Atlantic (the UK), cross-Pacific (Australia), and of course cross-our-northern border Canadians in our governments and especially our family courts… “Oh WHY can’t we do it the UK way?  Those pesky civil rights, Bill of Rights, and emphasis on individual rights — for women TOO you say? — mentality of the USA! — but we can do some work-arounds, like federalizing the family courts top-down..”

The closest probable parallel to AFCC within the UK (I’d say) might be the organization “Resolution First” which is a family law solicitors’ (membership) association — not “Relate.”**

**I’ve posted elsewhere (on this blog). RELATE operates as a federation and has operations in other Commonwealth Countries.  For specifics, look it up or see those other posts where I did (i.e., don’t quote me on this by-recall quick summary). I did (recently: 2022) find AFCC members in Denver, Colorado (at the IAALS at Denver University) seeking to establish Australia’s RELATE classes as a great practice in the USA — if you read the details and (like I keep recommending) look for those entity registrations.

One major event in my personal life between May, 2018, in fact, within the next two months, was the necessity to flee the State of California as a senior, directly due to ongoing fiduciary abuse facilitated to start with by the chronic disruption and dismantling of my work life and social supports in the family courts system, where I was because of a need to file for emergency protection from domestic violence many years previous.

The impact on family lines is intergenerational. Knowing this, hearing “technical assistance and training” organizations or university-based centers (George Washington University, recently University of California-Irvine) advertise how they are helping STOP the intergenerational transmission of violence against women (now further diluted as “Gender-Based Violence” sometimes makes my blood boil.  This is systematic and not-so-subtle language modification to further dilute the truth on violence targeting women because we are women, and independent minded mothers because of our independence (typically from putting up any longer with many forms of assault, battery, intimidation and what against any stranger would be criminal and prosecutable behaviors) and because we are female.

Similar language dilution of the reality of violence against women from the late 1970s until now went from “battered” to “abused” to “domestic violence” to “intimate partner violence” or “family violence” as can be seen throughout organization name changes; with each merger or new source of funding often a name change.  Right now — and I know many will disagree — the pushing throughout of “coercive control” and passing laws regarding it, is the same — it’s a set-up for women, and it also minimizes those who were battered and assaulted with what’s also called coercive control. It’s also a legal tool which can in “in a flash” be turned against a non-violent individual and further erosion of privacy.

When women-led organizations (but almost always there’s a very vocal and activist man in tow) do this to other women, I often look to see how many of those women have ever been mothers themselves.  How many have lost careers and years of work lives in the family courts, and not too surprisingly, it turns out to be — few.  They’ve had job stability in the extreme and even more media “clout” through proclaiming concern about women (like me)…  The perspective is not the same, and I question whether it’s perspective alone that has blinded them to any sense of moral responsibility while claiming the moral upper ground AS IF on our,  or our kind’s, behalf…

I too have aged-out children, but I don’t haul them around conference circuits (nor would they come) to stump for, basically, corrupt campaigns or advocacy networks (with righteous and politically correct topics on their outer labels), exploiting the fact that they witnessed abuse or their mother was abused.  My children were stolen overnight and alienated via some of the programs I list below (because they existed, it was possible).  But had they not been, the family court process was still compromising work, safety and my own ability to BE a decent parent and mother for those children….  While the experience made an activist out of me (in these formats only:  reporting it..), it did not make a fool out of me, once I discovered (and being in California round the time it was uncovered) the existence of the primary themes of this blog, and how others seek to handle (conceal) that influence.

Now that I’ve just had my say, I expect I’ll take that “say” to a new post and link to this one’s updates, which will shorten the intro to this one, but keep its few other format and copyediting (for clarity, and a few “call-outs” sections) parts.

Post title: AFCC’s “Family Court Review” editorial board and their respective affiliations. (@ May 21, 2018) (generated case-sensitive shortlink ends “-92R”) (5,600 words as copyedited 2022,**

(**Now 7,500 with my new indignant comments (& Twitter image) on recent VAWA activity just below referencing a self-proclaimed “Center” (fairly recent) and (not showing this post) a so-called “National Safe Parents Coalition,” website seems to have activated only February, 2022 (just in time to push for Feb. 9, 2022 VAWA testimony) featuring some old, some new faces in the “Our Broken Family Courts” (etc.) Crowd. Neither the Center nor the “Coalition” seem to be a registered business entity or dba.  Nor is (see my comment) that I can see the Battered Mothers Custody Conference (“BMCC”) I’ve been protesting — and I was a battered mother and regularly network with others; we know the routine, and we understand that VAWA didn’t help us much then in family courts and under this regime isn’t likely to now — but the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts IS and has been for years.  So are universities, whether public OR private in the USA — but not their centers, unless some center also formed its own nonprofit housed there.

“Prologue,” then I repeat the Title & Link and provide tables of the Family Court Review Editorial Board with (minor) explanations also. Please publicize and share this post now and, periodically, later (weeks, months, etc.  If data changes, most links provided should show updates) It may also help some new to this field understand some characteristics of Family Courts’ behavior within the United States of America that do not apply to other countries!

As I (update this) ongoing attempts to federalize the family courts — which are NOT federal jurisdiction unless some appeal makes it up to the U.S. District Courts or even the Supreme Court, by a self-labeled, long-standing coalition, intent on re-writing (adding) part to the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act to facilitate (for their benefit — no connection to benefit for the public is even attempted; the rationale is full of implicit assumptions, unproved, and I happen to believe deliberately off-track) more trainings for judges — as though the AFCC and its members either weren’t already providing this (in more than one country) in fact, as though it did not exist as either a positive OR negative force in the problems reported.  Specific groups I’ve continued to report on have chosen some leadership, come out under new labels (one university center, another non-entity “Coalition”) and are constantly congratulating each other for the achievement of this major goal. Look at this condescending offer, just a day or two old:

We are so grateful to @RepBrianFitz(PA), who led VAWA #KaydensLaw & worked very closely with us through the entire process. //Now we  @NFVLCgwu turn to offering states ready to improve their custody laws tech assistance in adopting the federal protective Kayden’s Law Provisions.

This is outrageously contrary to our representative form of government!

I have known for years (see this blog and my Twitter profile in recent years) which organizations have collaborated to coverup — specifically AFCC and the federal grants incentives (as a whole) consistently in their reporting, their advocacy and working “overtime” to ensure traumatized or otherwise highly-motivated (i.e., justifiably angry at the family courts) mothers they followed, contacted, recruited (whether from news headlines — Moms with publicity power mattered; recently murdered kids (court-facilitated) seem to be worth more in this cause), and, working closely with (one example for a handy list of who — by type– has been involved) Battered Mothers’ Custody Conference organizers and non-Mom presenters (pattern: alternate a survivor mom with an expert in presentations:  politically correct (with this cause) mothers are featured, others who talk finance or, say “access-visitation” information for the first decade of BMCC were typically ignored, sidelined, or if they made it  on-stage, silenced almost mid-sentence (this happened to me about a decade ago).  Their output doesn’t feature even what I have here — it just doesn’t “fit” with the coordinated community response  — we must maintain “solidarity” theme promoted.

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[[If you want my further development of this theme, in part, go to the top of this post, which was written AFTER what you just read here.   More elaboration on “our form of government” also on this Footnote on the “A Republic, If You Can Keep It” quip attributed to Benjamin Franklin, whether or not he actually said it….

FOOTNOTE: Did Franklin even say, “A Republic If You Can Keep It” — and, more to the point, why is the woman whose question he was answering at the time only characterized as “a woman?” (perspectives 1998, 2020 and 2019 in that order).Another women (also of some position and connection obviously — Princeton) notices; 3rd of 3 references below.

The phrase “A republic if you can keep it” came to my mind; I only looked up some references and enclosed links, as my blog isn’t only for Americans, to place in in date and time. If I hadn’t found the third reference so interesting, I wouldn’t have footnoted all three…//LGH.

(1998 perspective at ConstitutionCenter.org, by a Richard Beeman, Ph.D. (see bottom for its university partner), raises some good points. This is clearly written for education and for teachers, grades K-12, as part of a larger website:

Dr. Richard Beeman is professor of history and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. The University is NCC’s academic partner, and for the year 1997 – 98. Dr. Beeman serves as vice chair of our Distinguished Scholars Advisory Panel.

Grade: 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, K

Standards: 2 – Time, Continuity, and Change, 5 – Individuals, Groups, and Institutions, 9 – Global Connections, 10 – Civic Ideals and Practices

For: Educators, Students

Tags: History

“A Republic, if We Can Keep It” (Feb. 4, 2020 perspective at Atlantic.com, by “Adam J. White (“A resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and an assistant professor of law at George Mason University.”), referencing Neil Gorsuch book by the same name and talking about the self-restraint that would be needed for a republic to succeed.  Notice Ben Franklin supposedly quipped this in 1787.. Without subtracting from the points he made, please also read:

Oct. 29, 2019, in the Washington Post in Made by History/Perspective,

“What we get wrong about “A Republic, If You Can Keep It” | Erasing the women of the founding era makes it harder to see women as leaders today” (She talks about the woman who asked the question for which we have a famous answer…influential in Philadelphia at the time: )

By Zara Anishanslin / Zara Anishanslin is an associate professor of history and art history at the University of Delaware, and author of “Portrait of a Woman in Silk: Hidden Histories of the British Atlantic World.” In 2020-21, she will be a fellow at the Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton University.

This short account of how this politically-savvy woman’s (meaning who (allegedly) asked Ben Franklin, after the Constitutional Convention — “so what have we got?” — influence and the story changed over the centuries makes its point:

They’ve missed the most important element of the story: Who asked Franklin the question that sparked his witty response? It was Elizabeth Willing Powel, a pivotal woman of the founding era who has been erased from this story. Her erasure not only creates a founding-era political history artificially devoid of women, but it also makes it harder to imagine contemporary women such as Pelosi — or Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — as political leaders.

The first record of the anecdote appears in a 1787 journal kept by one of the delegates to the convention, James McHenry of Maryland.  …“Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia” was well-known. During the Constitutional Convention, Powel used her elegant townhouse as a political salon, hosting dinner parties and gatherings that provided a sociable space for political movers and shakers — and their wives — to meet and discuss politics. Powel was born into two of Philadelphia’s wealthiest and most politically connected families; her father, her mother’s grandfather, her uncle, her brother and her husband, Samuel Powel, all served as mayors of Philadelphia. Her husband served as both the last Colonial and the first post-revolutionary Philadelphia mayor.

…The Powels were close friends with George and Martha Washington. When George Washington expressed doubts about a second term in office, she wrote advising him — successfully — to stand for a second term. Washington kept that letter until he died.

..Most critically, the central role of Powel was erased in the 20th century. The setting of the story moved from Powel’s townhouse to the streets outside Independence Hall, privileging an idea of the public square where only men’s ideas were heard. But private quarters played a prominent role in political debates. For women like Powel, shut out as they were from institutional politics, domestic spaces were among the few places they could engage in political discussion — and lead the conversation while hosting politicians. …

The role of Powel herself changed over time, too. First forgotten as the host of the exchange, she was then recast as a nervous but ordinary woman rather than a “lady remarkable for her understanding and wit.” This version of the story affirmed the genius of the Founders, keeping infallible, elite white men at the center of the nation’s history. While Powel receded, Franklin remained omnipresent, a founding sage dispensing wisdom to lesser Americans — particularly women, the anonymous “lady” who replaces Powel implies — who need his guidance.

Even when she is still mentioned by name, as in Walter Isaacson’s best-selling book “Benjamin Franklin: An American Life” (2003), she is described as an “anxious lady” who “accosted” Franklin, asking “what have you given us” rather than “what we have got”— a change implying her passive role in the political process. She is cast as a shrill, inappropriate woman, excluded from the politics of the nation’s founding.

In Pelosi’s and Gorsuch’s tellings, Powel is forgotten entirely.