How it felt when America got a first woman presidential nominee

PHILADELPHIA — Finally. That’s how millions of people felt Thursday night as a woman accepted, for the first time, a major party’s nomination for president.

From the floor of the Democratic National Convention to watch parties across the nation, on TVs and laptops and smartphones, Americans beheld history — or, as some feminists would call it, herstory.

“How far we’ve come! This is what Susan B. Anthony and the suffragists fought for a century ago,’’ said Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women. “Hillary did this for all the politicians to come.’’

Analysis: Clinton's speech carries weight of history

Hillary Clinton acknowledged the "milestone'' about a half-hour into her speech: "I'm so happy this day has come,'' she said. "Because when any barrier falls in America, it clears the way for everyone. ... After all, when there are no ceilings, the sky's the limit."

Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide

Many of those with no regard for the former first lady and secretary of State granted the significance of the moment.

The moment came 168 years and nine days after the first women’s rights conference in Seneca Falls; 150 years after Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded the first organization dedicated to suffrage for women of all races; 144 years after Anthony’s conviction for voting — Republican — in the 1872 presidential election.

It came 96 years after approval of the 19th Amendment barring gender discrimination in voting.

And it came here in the Cradle of Liberty, which in 1920 was by far the largest city in the nation where women still could not vote.

History, made! Hillary Clinton accepts Democratic nomination

Amid the cheers, balloons and fireworks, a few thought of the suffragists of a century ago who dreamed of such a night and paid for their vision.

They thought of suffrage protesters like Alice Paul, on hunger strike, confined to a jail psychiatric ward and force-fed fed raw eggs through a tube; like Lucy Burns, held down by five people and fed through her nostrils because she refused to open her mouth; like Dora Lewis, knocked out when guards threw her against a metal railing, inducing a heart attack in her cellmate, who thought Lewis was dead.

This was their night, too.

Here, as witnessed by journalists of the USA TODAY Network, is how it felt on a night America made herstory.

The centenarian

Geraldine “Jerry” Emmett waited a lifetime — and then some — for the moment.

There were times when the peppy, 102-year-old “libber” from Prescott, Ariz., doubted she’d live to see it.

Emmett, one of about 425,000 Americans born before approval of the 19th Amendment, considered watching Clinton’s acceptance speech in her pajamas from her delegation’s hotel room. It had been a long, hot week.

But she rested all morning so she could come to the convention hall and hear the speech in person. Her lifelong friend Carolyn Warner rolled her through the arena in a wheelchair, and members of the state delegation helped her to a stadium seat near the Arizona banner in Section 113.

A striking sight with her perfectly curled white hair, she cheered and clapped for Clinton, whom she’s long admired. When the nominee was first lady, she started a Hillary Clinton fan club.

A wide smile broke across Emmett’s face as Clinton came on stage, and stayed there until Clinton accepted the nomination.

“That’s when I cried,” she said. “I was thrilled — and I only cry when I’m thrilled!”

— Yvonne Wingett Sanchez

The feminist

All week, Eleanor Smeal connected with fellow travelers on a four-decade trek to break what the Democratic nominee once called “that highest and hardest glass ceiling.’’

Over and over, in so many words, Smeal heard the same thing: “Oh my God, Ellie, we’ve made it!”

Then came Clinton's speech — "magnificent,” Smeal said. “A lot of my own life flashed before me. So many of the things Hillary has worked on, I have worked on.”

Smeal is one of the nation’s most prominent feminists, former president of the National Organization for Women and now president of the Feminist Majority Foundation. She’s been at the forefront of nearly every major women’s rights victory, from laws protecting women’s reproductive rights to the integration of Little League.

She called Clinton’s nomination a landmark accomplishment of modern feminism.

“It’s very, very important, not just to women of the U.S.,” she said. “Hillary is like a beacon. Women leaders in every country know her. It will open the doors to them, too.”

Smeal, once a young movement firebrand, celebrates her 77th birthday Saturday. But on Thursday night, she said, she got her present.

— Margie Fishman

The ‘astronaut’

“As a little girl, I dreamed of being an astronaut,” said Michele Thomas, a delegate from Bowling Green, Ky. “This is sort of like landing on the moon for women.”

Thomas, who celebrated her 53rd wedding anniversary here with her husband, Jack, on Wednesday, said she thought about her nine grandchildren, five of whom are girls.

“Things will never be the same again,” she said.

— Mary Troyan

The teacher

Tyler Murphy occupied just one seat in the convention hall, but he felt as if he had dozens of eighth-graders sitting with him. The 28-year-old social studies teacher from Flatwoods, Ky., was a Clinton delegate — a role that will make up a key part of his lesson plan when school opens Aug. 10.

“I can teach the content, but to be actually involved is overwhelming,” Murphy said.

He said Clinton’s nomination gave him a teaching tool: “My students don’t remember a time where it was unusual for a mother to have a job — or the right to vote.”

Gender discrimination might fade if Clinton wins in November, he said, but it won't disappear. “If we forget, we run the risk of going back,’’ he said, “and no one wants that, except for maybe Donald Trump.’’

Murphy plans to relay the delegate experience to his students — in a nonpartisan way. “There is an important role that citizens play, and I can show them that it is not out of reach,” Murphy said. “We talk about hashtag activism, where they put something on social media and think they’re doing their part. Well, they’re not. There’s more.”

— Mary Troyan

The student

This was the first national convention for Taylor Kane, an 18-year-old with an uncommon sense of history who hopes Clinton’s nomination will galvanize other girls and young women.

She attended the Democratic Women's Caucus meeting during the week, but couldn't get a ticket for the speech Thursday night. So she watched at home on TV with her 51-year-old mother. Also watching: her stepfather, a Republican who seemed to like the speech, and her dog Jynx — a female — whose eyes were glued to the set.

"It was so inspirational!'' she exclaimed. "My mom was tearing up, watching, for the first time in her life, a woman presidential nominee. It makes me proud to be a feminist. This is such a monumental moment for women and girls.''

“A lot of my friends say they’ve never felt discriminated against, but when we talk about it, they admit people are taking us for granted, like challenging our intellects because we’re girls — even our teachers," she said. “But a lot of us don’t think we’re oppressed. They figure, ‘I’m a girl. That’s just the way it is.’’’

The Mount Laurel, N.J., resident will be a freshman this fall at George Washington University, where she’ll major in political communications. For her, feminist history has been a revelation.

In school, she said, “I don’t think we ever heard about Susan B. Anthony. We learned about Franklin Roosevelt, but not Eleanor. I wondered, ‘Why have I never learned about this before?'"

Having learned about the early suffragists, like Mount Laurel’s own Alice Paul, Kane  believes they’d be pleased — “because this is what they worked for” — and amazed, “because a female president is sooo out there!'"

— Rick Hampson

The heartbroken

Thursday night was “a big moment in history,’’ Sarah Knowlton conceded. Still, she was hurting.

She was a Bernie Sanders delegate from South Bend, Ind., so politically besotted that even the landmark in women’s rights was “like throwing salt in fresh wounds.”

Before the speech Knowlton said Clinton could help ease the pain by acknowledging in her acceptance speech the hard work done by Sanders’ supporters. She got her wish. Clinton thanked Sanders for a good campaign, adding: "To all your supporters around the country, I want you to know — I heard you. Your cause is our cause.''

On Tuesday, Knowlton left the convention hall in tears, “heartbroken” that Sanders had moved to give Clinton the nomination by acclamation. It dashed her last hope for a miracle that would give him the nomination.

“I needed just to get some air,” she said. “I sat down and I cried and I called my boyfriend. It just broke our hearts.”

Will she vote for Clinton? Being in close to the former secretary of State’s delegates at the convention at least helped her accept how the nomination race played out.

“I’ve had time to kind of process that this is a big moment for Clinton supporters and women who have been fighting this fight their whole entire life,” she said. “I understand Hillary being the nominee is a big deal for them and what I’m feeling now — the heartbreak — is what they felt ... eight years ago."

— Nicole Guadiano

The activist

Mayo Makinde got involved in the Black Lives Matters movement after Trayvon Martin's death. It got personal after a police officer pulled him over near Ohio State University for nothing more, he said, than driving a nice car in a nice neighborhood at night.

The 35-year-old delegate from Columbus came here supporting Sanders because, among other things, he liked how the Vermont senator treated people from Black Lives Matter at his rallies. He even allowed them on stage.

So he was listening when Clinton told Sanders supporters, "your cause is our cause."

Makinde, whose convention credentials bore a yellow Black Lives Matter sticker, said that closed the deal; he’ll vote for Clinton.

— Sherry Coolidge

The transgender

Monica DePaul of Jacksonville, Fla., is the state’s first transgender delegate and one of two dozen, a record number, attending the convention from all over the country.

An English teacher at the University of North Florida, DePaul, 29, began her male-to-female transition four years ago. Her gender hasn’t been an issue during the four-day convention, she said. But had the gathering been held in North Carolina or other states with “religious freedom” laws, she could have been denied service at a hotel or restaurant or even the right to use the women’s bathroom.

Clinton "acknowledged us” during her acceptance speech, and DePaul is grateful.

As a woman, DePaul said, “I know it’s historical and everything, but I just don’t think it needs to be as big of a deal as it is. I feel like we’re finally living in times where it shouldn’t matter.  But then again, most elected officials are white males, so I suppose it does. I just don’t want it to.”

The veteran

Ruby Gilliam is 93. The delegate from Minerva, Ohio, spent her childhood being told, “Little girls don’t do this. Little girls don’t do that.” She proved otherwise.

She went to college when it wasn’t common. In World War II she joined the women's division of the Naval Reserve. She  went on to serve as the Carroll County Democratic Party chairwoman for 35 years.This was her eighth convention.

Partially blind and slow moving, she walked into the arena with a rhinestone “Hillary” pin and a hat hand-decorated with red tulle, tinsel and Clinton photos.

"I think I am overwhelmed," she said when the speech ended. "I never thought to see a woman nominated for president. This is one of the best nights of my life."

— Sherry Coolidge