As part of our “Women on Wednesdays” series, please join the Women & Politics Institute for a virtual conversation  with American University alumna Dr. Elisabeth Griffith, CAS/Ph.D ‘84, author of the book, Formidable: American Women and the Fight for Equality: 1920-2020and WPI Executive Director Betsy Fischer Martin.

In a “sweeping, century-long perspective,” Dr. Griffith chronicles the efforts of white and Black women to advance their sometimes competing causes following the "incomplete victory” of the Nineteenth Amendment. She also explores how women today are still fighting for political power and true equality for all. Hillary Clinton calls Formidable “an essential history of the struggle by both Black and white women to achieve their equal rights." Order the book here

Dr. Elisabeth Griffith is a historian known for her expertise on women's history, politics, leadership, and education. She is the author of In Her Own Right, a biography of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Formidable: American Women and the Fight for Equality: 1920-2020. Griffith teaches women's history courses for the Smithsonian Associates and at D.C. independent bookstore, Politics & Prose.

From 1988 to 2010, Dr. Griffith was Headmistress of The Madeira School, an all girls’ boarding and day high school in McLean, Virginia. She graduated from Wellesley College, earned her doctorate from American University, and was a Kennedy Fellow at Harvard.

Betsy Fischer Martin is an Emmy-winning journalist and former TV news executive. Currently, she is the Executive Director of the Women & Politics Institute at American University and a faculty member in the School of Public Affairs, where she teaches courses on campaigns and elections. During her earlier career in television news, she spent 23 years at NBC News serving as the longtime Executive Producer of Meet the Press with Tim Russert and as the Managing Editor of NBC News Political Programming.

A native of New Orleans, Fischer Martin did her undergraduate and graduate work at American University in Washington, DC. She is a cum laude graduate of their School of Public Affairs and earned a master’s degree in Broadcast Journalism from the AU School of Communication.

“Women On Wednesdays”: Dr. Elisabeth Griffith - “Formidable”