The first picket line – College day in the picket line.
The first picket line – College day in the picket line, February 1917. Library of Congress.
Women Want Liberty Airplane Group (“Suffbird”).
Women Want Liberty Airplane Group (“Suffbird”), 1916. The New York Historical.
The New York Historical.
National Women’s Party, The Suffragist, Volume VI, Number 32.
National Women’s Party, The Suffragist, Volume VI, Number 32, August 31, 1918. Butler Center for Arkansas Studies. Central Arkansas Library System.
Document Text |
Summary |
| Twenty-two women do not hunger strike for five days for an adventure or a fad. We never forgot for a moment that we were trying to show to others that to call democratic a government that is not just is farcical. In our arrests and imprisonments, the tremendous injustice of the government’s attitude to the women of the country was emphasized. | Twenty-two women do not hunger strike for five days because it is fun or fashionable. We never forgot that we were trying to show that calling our government a democracy is a joke. Our arrests and imprisonments prove that this government does not treat women fairly. |
National Women’s Party, The Suffragist, Volume VI, Number 32, August 31, 1918. Butler Center for Arkansas Studies. Central Arkansas Library System.
Background
The intensity of the fight for suffrage increased in the 1910s. Lead by radicals like Alice Paul, suffragists staged stunts that caught public attention to raise awareness for their cause. Suffrage parades were staged all over the country, but suffragists also engaged in more extreme forms of civil disobedience.
About the Resources
The first two images commemorate a particularly daring suffrage stunt that took place in December 1916. When President Woodrow Wilson announced that he would attend the lighting of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, suffragists Leda Richberg-Hornsby and Ida Blair took notice. Leda was the first woman graduate of the Wright Flying School. Ida was the publicity chairman of the New York Woman Suffrage Party. The two women hatched a plan for Leda to fly Ida over the harbor during the lighting ceremony. When they were directly above the president’s yacht, Ida would throw suffrage leaflets so that they rained down over all the gathered dignitaries. Their airplane was painted in the suffrage movement’s colors and had a banner that read “Women Want Liberty Too,” so that everyone gathered to watch the event would know what they stood for. Unfortunately, the stunt did not go according to plan. The plane crashed after takeoff and never made it to the harbor. But their attempt was covered in the New York Sun.
The second image shows the “Silent Sentinels.” These suffragists stood quietly outside the White House from January 1917 to June 1919 to pressure President Woodrow Wilson into supporting a women’s suffrage amendment. More than 2,000 women participated. Hundreds were arrested. The newspapers eagerly covered the ongoing drama, leading to an uptick in sympathy and support for the suffrage movement.
The final article and image relate the experiences of suffragists who went on hunger strike. A hunger strike is when someone refuses to eat as an act of protest. Many leading suffragists went on hunger strike when they were imprisoned for their other protest activities. Hunger striking takes a terrible toll on the body. Even worse, prison guards would force feed hunger-striking women to keep them alive, a process that was both violent and painful. Images and accounts from malnourished and mistreated suffragists increased sympathy for the protesters and the suffrage cause.
Vocabulary
- amendment: A legal alteration made to the Constitution to better protect the rights of citizens of the United States.
- civil disobedience: A nonviolent form of political protest in which participants intentionally break the law for moral reasons.
- hunger strike: A form of political protest in which participants refuse to eat until certain demands are met.
- sentinel: A person whose job is to keep watch.
- suffrage: The right of voting; in this era, suffrage often referred specifically to women’s suffrage, or the right of women to vote.
- suffragist: A person who campaigned to win women the right to vote.
Discussion Questions
- Why did suffragists risk their lives and safety to commit these stunts? What does that tell us about the participating suffragists?
- Were these stunts? Why or why not?
- Why do you think women’s suffrage activism got more extreme in the 1910s?
Suggested Activities
- Pair this resource with Life Story: Alice Paul and Race and the Suffrage Parade for a more comprehensive lesson about the radical tactics of the late suffrage movement.
- Compare this resource with other suffrage activist resources like Together for Home and Family, Arguments for and Against Suffrage, Reaching Spanish-Speaking Voters, Black Suffragists, and Mabel Lee on the Women’s Suffrage Movement and ask students the following questions: were all of these different approaches necessary to make change in the US? In your opinion, were some more effective than others? Why?
- For a longer history of the fight for women’s suffrage, see
Themes
POWER AND POLITICS; ACTIVISM AND SOCIAL CHANGE
