Suffragists: First to Picket the White House, Jan 10, 1917
“Suffrage Special” Envoys Seek Women’s Voting Bloc
In April 1916, the Congressional Union (CU) organized the “Suffrage Special,” a five-week railroad tour to appeal to “the four million enfranchised women of the west” to support a federal suffrage amendment and to vote against Democratic Party candidates, who failed to endorse women’s suffrage. In early June 1916, the CU formed the National Woman’s Party (NWP), also briefly known as the Woman’s Party of Western Voters, which initially included only women voters, not their disenfranchised sisters. In March 1917, the NWP and CU united into a single organization–the NWP.
Chicago Mob Attacks Suffragists While Police Do Nothing
During the 1916 presidential campaign, the Congressional Union and its recently formed National Woman’s Party of Western Voters appealed to women voters to oppose Woodrow Wilson and all Democratic congressional candidates for failing to pass a suffrage amendment. On October 19, 1916, a mob suddenly attacked this racially diverse group of NWP protesters outside the International Amphitheatre in Chicago where Wilson was speaking. Participant Josephine Pearce told the New York Times she “saw policemen deliberately stand nearby and laugh at us while we were being beaten and the banners torn from our hands.”
Carrie Chapman Catt’s “Winning Plan”
Carrie Chapman Catt (1859–1947) reluctantly assumed a second term as NAWSA president in December 1915, after years of suffrage work internationally and in New York. She declared the American movement in “crisis” and at a crossroads, as suggested by this newsletter. At NAWSA’s September 1916 convention in Atlantic City, Catt unveiled her “winning plan,” whereby victory depended on avoiding “detours” into states considered hopeless, namely much of the South, while funding more promising state campaigns, lobbying for a federal amendment, and building support for future ratification efforts.
The Woman’s Hour—A Bellwether of Success to Come
Five thousand artists entered a poster contest held by NAWSA to launch their 1917 campaign. New York illustrator Edward A. Poucher won the $250 first prize, drawing inspiration from Carrie Chapman Catt’s rousing 1916 convention speech challenging suffragists to abandon their complacency. In an obvious reference to women yielding to “The Negro’s Hour” after the Civil War, Catt declared that “The Woman’s Hour has struck.” In 1917, women won full voting rights in New York and partial rights in other states.
Political Spectacle and the Importance of Banners
Suffrage banners transformed traditionally masculine streetscapes into colorful spaces of female empowerment. During parades, banners identified who was marching and why. When picketing, they were simple but effective rhetorical devices to convey disapproval and pressure politicians. Painstakingly sewn, they often contained thought-provoking or inspirational messages, like the “Faith and Daring” example shown here, lifted from verse four of Dame Ethel Smyth’s famous anthem of the suffrage movement, The March of Women. Even wordless banners, such as these tricolor flags, conveyed meaning by signaling the bearer’s allegiance to the National Woman’s Party, whose purple, white, and gold colors suggested a connection to militant British suffragism.
Suffragists are First to Picket White House
After years of lobbying, petitioning, and parading, suffragists felt that their tactics were growing stale and ineffective. On January 10, 1917, frustrated at President Woodrow Wilson’s flagrant dismissal of their demands, the Congressional Union instituted the practice of picketing the White House, the first political activists to do so. News articles reported that “wintry blasts turned their lips blue,” but they remained at their posts, keeping warm with hot chocolate and fur coats while standing on wooden boards and hot bricks.
Pennsylvania Day on the Picket Line
Every day, women marched in a line from Congressional Union headquarters to the White House to assume their stations as “silent sentinels.” To maintain press interest, women representing specific states, organizations, and occupations were scheduled on different days. Nearly 2,000 suffragists traveled from 30 states to take shifts. On January 24, 1917, a group of twenty suffragists, organized by Ella Riegel of Bryn Mawr, left Philadelphia and arrived by noon for “Pennsylvania Day.” On February 3, 1917, “College Day” brought women from several colleges and universities to join the picket line.
Silent Sentinel Alison Hopkins on New Jersey Day
The protesters called themselves “Silent Sentinels” because they stood without speaking as a gesture of strength and restraint. Alison Turnbull Hopkins, New Jersey NWP chairman, positioned herself for maximum benefit, ensuring that President Woodrow Wilson could not avoid seeing her when passing through the White House gates on New Jersey Day, January 30, 1917. Her husband, John A. Hopkins, served on the Democratic National Committee in 1916 and helped run Wilson’s campaign in their state.
“The Consent of the Governed”
The pickets endured intimidation and insult almost from the beginning, with little boys—encouraged by older onlookers—calling them names and spitting at them. Later, more threatening crowds gathered, incensed at the suffragists’ “unpatriotic” messages. Starting on June 22, women began to be arrested, including a group of ten on July 4, 1917, who carried a banner quoting the Declaration of Independence, a scene drawn by political cartoonist Nina Allender. Geologist Helena Hill Weed, daughter of a former congressman and a vice-president of the Daughters of the American Revolution, was among those sentenced to three days in District Jail.
The Infamous Kaiser Wilson Banner
For several days in mid-August 1917, attacks on the pickets reached a fevered pitch, fueled by sailors and soldiers enraged by banners comparing Woodrow Wilson to German emperor Wilhelm II. This one, held by Virginia Arnold, questioned Wilson’s supposed sympathy for self-government. August 14 was especially violent, and when unable to keep replenishing their torn banners, the pickets withdrew to the balcony of NWP headquarters, only to have sailors scale the wall. A gunshot ripped through a window. This colorful fragment was retrieved from the White House sidewalk by passerby Anne B. Cushman, who sent it to the NWP in 1943.
[Women in the U.S. finally gained the right to vote when the 19th Amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920. ]
