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Wednesday, August 26, 2020

Into the Storm


     As the twentieth century dawned, women had full suffrage in only four states – Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho and Utah. Women failed to win full voting rights in any additional states until the dam broke in 1910,  when the state of Washington granted women’s suffrage.

Alice Paul
     That same year, Alice Paul returned to the United States from London, where she had been studying and working as a case worker in a settlement house. While in England, she became involved in the struggle for women’s rights. Through her experiences with arrests, imprisonments, hunger strikes, and forced feedings, she learned how to generate publicity for the cause and how to capitalize on that publicity from the British leaders of the movement. Paul returned to the University of Pennsylvania to continue her studies and began participating in National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) activities, including speaking at the national convention.
     Finally, in the culmination of a long struggle, California women won the right to vote in 1911.
     In 1912, the Progressive Party, led by Theodore Roosevelt, included voting rights for women in their platform. That same year, women won the right to vote in Oregon, Arizona, and Kansas. But eastern states continued to stand in staunch opposition to the cause.


     After earning her Ph.D. in sociology in 1912, Paul dedicated herself to American suffrage efforts. She strongly supported a federal suffrage, which ran contrary to the entrenched state-by-state plan of the NASWA. She and Lucy Burns, who had also been involved in England’s women’s rights movement, joined forces. Paul asked to be assigned to the association’s Congressional Committee.
     One of her first major efforts on the committee was to plan and execute a parade in Washington, D.C. to bring national attention to the suffrage movement and to put pressure on newly elected President Woodrow Wilson. The event was scheduled the day before his inauguration in in March 1913.

     She recruited approximately 8000 marchers from around the country and organized floats, bands and chariots to intersperse with the suffragists. A contingent of men who supported women’s suffrage made up one unit. To placate the southern marchers, the black women were asked to march at the end of the procession.


     Many participants carried banners or wore sashes demanding votes for women. The parade was led by notable labor lawyer Inez Milholland, dressed in white and riding a white horse,  and by a huge banner proclaiming, "We Demand an Amendment to the United States Constitution Enfranchising the Women of the Country."


     The police force was insufficient to keep the peace. More than half-a-million people turned out to view the parade, including large numbers of men in town for the inauguration. When the crowd pushed into the streets, creating chaos and preventing the procession from passing, many of the policemen did nothing to protect the marchers. Approximately 100 women sustained injuries and were hospitalized. Ultimately, national guardsmen were called in to restore order. A Senate hearing was called later in the week to review the  performance of the police. Many women recounted the inaction of the police and one Senator testified to the badge numbers of police officers he had seen standing idly by rather than coming to the aid of the marchers.
     The parade succeeded in bringing national attention to the movement. That same year, the Alaska Territory granted full suffrage to women.
      Paul's methods and her emphasis on the goal of a federal amendment created tension with Anna Shaw, president of NAWSA, and other leaders of the organization. They thought Paul was moving too aggressively in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere and were unhappy that she didn’t support their state-by-state approach. Disagreements about strategy and methods led to a break with NAWSA.


      By the beginning of 1914, Alice Paul and Lucy Burns had formed the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage to campaign for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing suffrage for women throughout the United States of America.
     The fight was on.

Ann Markim



17 comments:

  1. Thanks for this -- fascinating as always.

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  2. Wonderful post. We must never forget the struggle these brave women endured.

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    1. Thanks so much. I've learned a lot of aspects of the suffrage movement which has made me respect the determined women even more.

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  3. Paul was a force to be reckoned with. She is the personal hero/heroine of a dear friend of mine. Doris

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    1. I can understand why. After all my research, I have come to credit her with the passage of the amendment in Congress.

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  4. Really fascinating. So much more to the suffrage movement than I ever knew.

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    2. Same here. The research has been fascinating. Thanks for stopping by.

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  5. Love,love love all this. This is so important to remember, especially now.

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  6. Ann, WOW! Nice blog. I always look forward to reading yours and I get all excited again about the women's movement. If we're ever done with this Covid keeping everyone distanced, we may finally get to meet each other at Seneca Falls. Keep it in mind. Wishing you much success with The Claim and I'm sure it will be. I know I've got it written down.

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  7. Thank you, Beverly. Seneca Falls is still on my "To Do" list, and I'd love to meet you there.

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  8. It's hard to imagine there was a time when women had no right to vote and that they would have to fight to be able to vote.
    This was a wonderful and powerful blog, Ann. I know you researched it well and I liked the pictures. And on top of that the timing for such a blog was perfect...weeks before a a presidential election.
    All the best to you, Ann...

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    1. Thanks so much. I started this research two years ago for my book, THE CAUSE, but kept following threads into different and earlier aspects. As an ERA supporter in the 70's, I have a deep respect for the generations of women who came before.

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