Alice Paul Collection

newberrylibrary:

Though Women’s History Month is winding down, we thought we’d post some amusing pages from Alice Duer Miller’s Are Women People? A Book of Rhymes for Suffrage Times, published in 1915.

One of our favorite quotations:

Why We Oppose Votes for Men…

5. Because men are too emotional to vote. Their conduct at baseball games and political conventions shows this, while their innate tendency to appeal to force renders them peculiarly unfit for the task of government.

indypendenthistory:

(via “A Woman Living Here Has Registered to Vote”. American Visions of Liberty and Freedom. Missouri History Museum.)

gynostar:

Vintage anti-suffrage cartoons reveal the fears of men terrified of losing privilege. Their worst fear is that women will do to them exactly what they’ve done to women. I guess some things never change.

coolchicksfromhistory:

Front page of the March 8, 1913 “Woman’s journal and suffrage news” with the headline: “Parade struggles to victory despite disgraceful scenes” showing images of the women’s suffrage parade in Washington, March 3, 1913.

coolchicksfromhistory:

Official Program

Washington DC suffrage parade

March 3, 1913

The program (available in its entirety via the Library of Congress) includes biographies of the women who were involved in planning the parade or led sections of the parade.  Many of these women are identified solely by their husband’s name.  Mrs. John Breckenridge Newman is described as “the second American woman to be appointed to a position outside the United States,” yet her first name is never given.  

Some were listed by their husband’s name with a note giving their first name and maiden name.  For example, Mrs. A. H. Van Buren  who organized the actress’s section “is sometimes called by her own name of Dorothy Bernard.”  In fact, Dorothy appeared in 93 films between 1908 and 1956 and would have been better known by her own name.  In 1913 alone, she had six films debut.  

Other married women were listed by their own first names, including both famous activists such as Carrie Chapman Catt and women who were likely well known only in their community such as society matron Emma S. Tenney.  

coolchicksfromhistory:

Crowd converging on marchers and blocking parade route during March 3, 1913, inaugural suffrage procession, Washington, D.C.

coolchicksfromhistory:

Earlier this month, The Washington Post published two articles (1,2) on the role of black women in the March 3, 1913 suffrage parade.

[Alice] Paul, a white woman, was convinced that other white women would not march with black women. In response to several inquiries, she had quietly discouraged blacks from participating. She confided her fears to a sympathetic editor: “As far as I can see, we must have a white procession, or a Negro procession, or no procession at all.”

… But just days before the parade, she became more receptive to the possibility. What brought matters to a head was a letter from Nellie M. Quander, a schoolteacher and Howard graduate, who said that Howard women wanted to take part. Usually prompt to reply, Paul took a week to respond. She suggested Quander “call” at the headquarters of Paul’s parent organization, the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Records do not reflect a meeting.

Complaints of discrimination reached the association, which wired orders to permit black marchers.

The sisters of Delta Sigma Theta from Howard University were given a place in the procession next to the New York delegation.  The Illinois delegation told Ida B. Wells (above) to march with an all black delegation.  Ida is believed to have ignored the attempt to racially segregate the Illinois group by joining the Illinois delegation mid-march.

While the parade did break into a near riot, the presence of black marchers is not considered a factor in the violence.

coolchicksfromhistory:

Washington DC suffrage parade

March 3, 1913

In 1893, New Zealand became the first modern country to grant women full voting rights.

Maori women were granted voting rights along with white women.  Maori men had been granted universal suffrage in 1876 with four seats in parliament reserved for Maori representatives.   

coolchicksfromhistory:

“Countries Where Women Have Partial Suffrage” - Sweden

Washington, DC suffrage parade, March 3 1913

All images via the Library of Congress

Sweden first established women’s suffrage in the 18th century when taxpaying guild members were granted voting rights but those rights were repealed by the 1771 constitution.  In 1862, the right to vote in local elections was reestablished for taxpaying women.  Swedish women did not achieve full suffrage until the 1921 election.

coolchicksfromhistory:

Inez Milholland Boissevain at the National American Woman Suffrage Association parade on March 3, 1913 in Washington, D.C.

Inez was a suffragette, attorney, journalist, and social justice advocate. During the summer between her sophomore and junior years at Vassar College, Inez joined Britain’s militant suffrage movement, participating in several English demonstrations.  When she returned to Vassar, she organized the college’s first suffrage meetings in direct disobedience to the anti-suffrage college president.  

After graduating from Vassar, Inez attended New York University’s School of Law.  As an attorney, she practiced divorce, criminal, and labor law.  She was a member of a number of prominent social justice organizations including the National American Woman Suffrage Association, the Women’s Trade Union League, the National Child Labor Committee, and the NAACP.

Inez helped to organize the March 3, 1913 parade in Washington, DC.  In the photo above she is preparing to lead the parade dressed in white robes and astride a white horse.  She carried a banner that read, “Forward Out of Darkness, Leave Behind the Night, Forward Out of Error, Forward Into Light.”

Four months later, Inez married Dutch importer Eugen Jan Boissevain.  She proposed to him and considered this a mark of the new freedom of women.

During World War I, Inez served as a war correspondent and peace advocate.  She returned to the US in 1916 and embarked on a pro-suffrage speaking tour of twelve western states.  On October 22, 1916, Inez collapsed while giving a speech in Los Angeles. She died of pernicious anemia at the age of thirty on November 25, 1916.

Inez was immediately declared a martyr of the suffrage movement.  A memorial service was held for her in the US Capitol’s Statuary Hall on Christmas Day 1916. Three weeks later, 300 women attempted to met with President Wilson and give him the suffrage resolutions drafted during Inez’s memorial service.  He refused to meet with them, setting off the Silent Sentinel protests that lasted from 1917 to 1919.