Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. We have
Speaker 1: got a few episodes in our podcast archive that connect
Speaker 1: in some way to the movement for women's suffrage in
Speaker 1: both the United States and the UK. One thing that's
Speaker 1: come up a few times in those shows is violence
Speaker 1: committed against the women who were protesting for the right
Speaker 1: to vote, often at the hands of law enforcement. For example,
Speaker 1: in our two partn on Sofia do Leap Sing, we
Speaker 1: talked about a protest in London that came to be
Speaker 1: known as Black Friday, and that's when about two hundred
Speaker 1: protesters from the Women's Social and Political Union were assaulted
Speaker 1: by police outside of Parliament. In the United States, we
Speaker 1: have alluded to, but never directly discussed, a similarly infamous event,
Speaker 1: and that was the Night of Terror, which was a
Speaker 1: November nineteen seventeen incident in which the guards at Occoquan
Speaker 1: workhouse assaulted and terrorized thirty three women from the National
Speaker 1: Woman's Party. They were part of a group known as
Speaker 1: the Silent Sentinels. They were serving sentences of up to
Speaker 1: six months for charges like obstructing sidewalk traffic after peacefully
Speaker 1: protesting in front of the White House. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: start by tacking through a really quick recap of women's
Speaker 1: suffrage organizations in the United States, because this whole story
Speaker 1: grows out of a series of ideological splits that happened
Speaker 1: within the movement. There were, of course, other suffrage organizations
Speaker 1: besides the ones that were about to talk about, all
Speaker 1: with their own goals and strategies, but these are the
Speaker 1: ones that are directly connected to today's story. The Seneca
Speaker 1: Falls Convention in eighty eight, which we've talked about before,
Speaker 1: was the first dedicated convention for women's rights in the
Speaker 1: United States, and at the time the idea of women
Speaker 1: getting the right to vote was really pretty radical. The
Speaker 1: resolution to add the right to vote to the conventions
Speaker 1: Declaration of Sentiments passed by only a very narrow margin.
Speaker 1: After the Seneca Falls Convention, women's rights leaders and organizers
Speaker 1: continued to meet at national and local conventions for more
Speaker 1: than a decade before the movement was put on hold
Speaker 1: during the Civil War, and once the war was over,
Speaker 1: women's rights leaders found common ground with people who were
Speaker 1: trying to protect the rights of newly freed slaves and
Speaker 1: other black citizens, and the result was the American Equal
Speaker 1: Rights Association, formed in eighteen sixty six, which was dedicated
Speaker 1: to pursuing equal rights for all citizens. This organization didn't
Speaker 1: last though. Three years later, attendees at its annual meeting
Speaker 1: disagreed over whether to support the fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution,
Speaker 1: which had been passed by Congress and was awaiting ratification
Speaker 1: by the States. The Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed voting rights without
Speaker 1: regard to race or prior condition of servitude, but it
Speaker 1: didn't have any mention of sex. The result of this
Speaker 1: disagreement was a schism within the organization. Susan B. Anthony
Speaker 1: and Elizabeth Katie Stanton launched the National Woman's Suffrage Association,
Speaker 1: dedicated to fighting for voting rights only for women. Lucy Stone,
Speaker 1: Julia Ward Howe and others who supported the Fifteenth Amendment
Speaker 1: formed the American Woman's Suffrage Association. We talk about some
Speaker 1: more of the details in our past podcast on all
Speaker 1: of this and how that separation took place in our
Speaker 1: episode about Frederick Douglas. Yeah, it's part of this long arc,
Speaker 1: but we don't want to repeat all those details again here.
Speaker 1: In eighteen ninety, after twenty one years of operating separately
Speaker 1: from one another, the American Woman Suffrage Association and the
Speaker 1: National Woman's Suffrage Association once again merged, forming the National
Speaker 1: American Woman Suffrage Association or n a w s A.
Speaker 1: There's some disagreement over whether to spell out the letters
Speaker 1: or to say now is A. It's leaders included Lucy
Speaker 1: Stone and Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Katie Stanton, so
Speaker 1: basically the leaders of the previous organizations that had combined,
Speaker 1: and its purpose was once again to secure the right
Speaker 1: to vote for women. This time, the strategy was to
Speaker 1: start small and to get individual municipalities and states to
Speaker 1: grant women the right to vote. According to this strategy,
Speaker 1: getting enough state to state success would put pressure on
Speaker 1: the federal government to pass nationwide legislation for women's suffrage.
Speaker 1: And this brings us at last to the women directly
Speaker 1: involved in today's episode. Even though it focused on winning
Speaker 1: the vote state by state and not through Congress, the
Speaker 1: n a w s A never disbanded its Congressional committee
Speaker 1: and in ve Alice Paul and Lucy Burns were appointed
Speaker 1: to be the committee's joint chairs. Both women had spent
Speaker 1: some time in England and they've been involved with Emmiline
Speaker 1: Pankhurst and the Women's Social and Political Union that was
Speaker 1: the more radical arm of the suffrage movement in Britain
Speaker 1: who's members were the ones proudly reclaiming the derisive nickname
Speaker 1: of suffragettes. Paul and Burns were directly familiar with WSPU
Speaker 1: tactics like vandalism and hunger strikes, which were intended to
Speaker 1: aggressively draw attention to the issue of women's rights and
Speaker 1: to put pressure on the government for a solution. Paul
Speaker 1: and Burns had actually met for the first time at
Speaker 1: a police station in London after being arrested at a protest.
Speaker 1: Paul Burns both wanted the n a w s A
Speaker 1: to adopt at least some of the wsp USE tactics,
Speaker 1: and they weren't at all content to allow the Congressional
Speaker 1: Committee to languish as the organization focused on local and
Speaker 1: state rather than national efforts. So they convinced the n
Speaker 1: A w s A to organize an enormous protest parade,
Speaker 1: the Woman's Suffrage Progression, to be held on March third,
Speaker 1: nineteen thirteen, and to be accompanied by open air meetings
Speaker 1: and speeches. This day was chosen for a specific reason.
Speaker 1: It was the day before the inauguration of present in A.
Speaker 1: Woodrow Wilson. The n a w s A was no
Speaker 1: stranger to parades. Parades were a long standing part of
Speaker 1: the organization's strategy, along with organizing conventions and meetings and
Speaker 1: publishing literally hundreds of books and pamphlets. But the parade
Speaker 1: was much bigger than anything that n a w s
Speaker 1: A had arranged before, and it was also intended to
Speaker 1: be a national event rather than a local or a
Speaker 1: regional one. Between five thousand and eight thousand marchers were
Speaker 1: involved in this parade, along with twenty floats, nine marching bands,
Speaker 1: and four mounted brigades. It was to end with an
Speaker 1: allegorical tableau outside the U. S. Treasury Building, in which
Speaker 1: women who were dressed as liberty, justice, charity, peace and
Speaker 1: hope would symbolically surround a central figure representing Columbia. Leading
Speaker 1: the parade was activist and labor lawyer and as Milholland.
Speaker 1: If that name rings a bell from from past podcasts,
Speaker 1: She later married Eugen Boassavan, who remay and the St
Speaker 1: Vincent Malay. After Maholland's death, I to b Wells. Barnett
Speaker 1: also marched in the parade with the Illinois Contingent, refusing
Speaker 1: to comply with the racial segregation that organizers were encouraging
Speaker 1: for the participating groups. Other well known participants included Helen Keller,
Speaker 1: Nellie Blygh, and Katherine Dexter McCormick. The parade started off well,
Speaker 1: aside from a delay and getting started, but as it
Speaker 1: moved down Pennsylvania Avenue, the street became completely blocked by
Speaker 1: a huge crowd of spectators, most of the men who
Speaker 1: had come to Washington for the inauguration. As the crowd
Speaker 1: closed in on the marchers, they were trapped. In addition
Speaker 1: to heckling, taunting, tripping, and even assaulting the marchers, the men,
Speaker 1: who vastly outnumbered the women, blocked the parade route completely,
Speaker 1: including trapping ambulances. In this log jam, more than a
Speaker 1: hundred women were injured and had to be hospitalized. This
Speaker 1: also completely took the crowd away from the train station
Speaker 1: that was intended to meet the incoming president. So when
Speaker 1: Woodrow Wilson got off his train and was like where
Speaker 1: is everybody? People said they are all at the suffrage parade.
Speaker 1: Police overwhelmingly did not intervene in this chaos. They didn't
Speaker 1: really do anything to maintain crowd control, as the spectators
Speaker 1: completely blocked the street. A cavalry union had to eventually
Speaker 1: be dispatched from Fort Meyer to restore order. Police Chief
Speaker 1: Richard Sylvester weathered heavy criticism over the handling of the march,
Speaker 1: especially since there were no similar incidents on Inauguration Day
Speaker 1: the next day. This led to a congressional investigation that
Speaker 1: ultimately exonerated Sylvester of malicious intent towards the suffragists, while
Speaker 1: also criticizing his lack of action on the day. Even
Speaker 1: though he was ultimately dismissed as police chief, a lot
Speaker 1: of people in the suffrage movement felt like the whole
Speaker 1: incident had been whitewashed. Following the parade, the naw SA
Speaker 1: was worried that Paul and Burns were simply too radical,
Speaker 1: that their methods were too aggressive, and that they might
Speaker 1: turn to the sorts of vandalism and property damage that
Speaker 1: was becoming a hallmark of the movement's most radical wing
Speaker 1: in the United Kingdom. So in nineteen thirteen, Paul and
Speaker 1: Burns struck out on their own to form the Congressional
Speaker 1: Union for Woman's Suffrage or see You. They remained involved
Speaker 1: with the naws AS Congressional Committee for a time, but
Speaker 1: their ideological differences ultimately led the two organizations to sever
Speaker 1: all ties with one another. You hear over and over
Speaker 1: again when reading about this that Paul and Burns were
Speaker 1: just too radical, and I was expecting and doing the
Speaker 1: research that I was going to find that they were
Speaker 1: doing things like setting people's houses on fire, which was
Speaker 1: happening in the in the UK. No, that was not
Speaker 1: what was happening at all, which we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about more in a minute. They were really not actions
Speaker 1: that we would consider radical today. In nineteen sixteen, the
Speaker 1: two women established the Woman's Party of Western Voters. Several
Speaker 1: states in the West had already granted women the right
Speaker 1: to vote, and this party encouraged the women who were
Speaker 1: living in those states to vote for candidates who supported
Speaker 1: women's rights in a national push for women's suffrage. This
Speaker 1: included campaigning against Woodrow Wilson, since no progress had been
Speaker 1: made towards getting women the right to vote during his
Speaker 1: first term in office. Meanwhile, the CEU continued working towards
Speaker 1: voting rights in the states where women still couldn't vote. Then,
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventeen, the two groups merged to form the
Speaker 1: National Woman's Party, or n w P. The Silent Sentinels
Speaker 1: who were arrested in nineteen seventeen were part of the
Speaker 1: n w P, And we're going to talk more about
Speaker 1: that after we first paused for a little sponsor break.
Speaker 1: After Woodrow Wilson was elected to his second term as
Speaker 1: president in nineteen sixteen, the National Women's Party decided to
Speaker 1: put more direct pressure on the White House and Congress
Speaker 1: to make some kind of progress forward national voting rights
Speaker 1: for women. They became even more determined to do this
Speaker 1: after having a meeting with the President on January nine,
Speaker 1: nineteen and which he told NWP members to concert public
Speaker 1: opinion on behalf of woman's suffrage. The next day, they
Speaker 1: started a protest directly outside the White House that would
Speaker 1: continue for months. In the n w p S Weekly Journal,
Speaker 1: which was the suffragist Elizabeth Katie Stanton's daughter, Harriet Stanton Blanche,
Speaker 1: described it this way, quote, we must go to him
Speaker 1: every day. We must have a continuous delegation to the
Speaker 1: President of the United States, if he is to realize
Speaker 1: the never ceasing insistent demand of women that he take
Speaker 1: action where he is responsible. We may not be admitted
Speaker 1: within the doors, but we can at least stand at
Speaker 1: the gates. We may not be allowed to raise our
Speaker 1: voices and speak to the President, but we can address
Speaker 1: him just the same because our message will be inscribed
Speaker 1: upon the banners which we carry in our hands. Let
Speaker 1: us post our silent sentinels at the gates of the
Speaker 1: White House. And this was the protest that was viewed
Speaker 1: extremely radical at the time, standing outside the White House
Speaker 1: with banners silently Yea. Lucy Burns played a huge part
Speaker 1: in this protest. She was often the one leading the
Speaker 1: pickets who silently demonstrated outside the White House every day,
Speaker 1: no matter what the weather, sometimes enduring illness and frost
Speaker 1: bite in the process. For the sake of both publicity
Speaker 1: and trying to draw more women into the movement, the
Speaker 1: protests sometimes had them days, such as a particular College
Speaker 1: Day or Working Women Day. That one was actually held
Speaker 1: on Sunday so the women protesting could do it without
Speaker 1: losing a day's pay. At first, the President tolerated their
Speaker 1: presence there in front of the White House. On the
Speaker 1: way in or out of the White House, he would
Speaker 1: smile and tip his hat, and on particularly cold days,
Speaker 1: he would invite them in for tea. Although they consistently
Speaker 1: turned down that invitation, and although passers by often heckled
Speaker 1: the Silent Sentinels, the protest got a mixed but overall
Speaker 1: not violent reaction from the general public in its early months.
Speaker 1: All of this changed when the United States entered World
Speaker 1: War One on April six, after which point the Silent
Speaker 1: Sentinels and started encountering more and more resistance to their
Speaker 1: picket outside the White House. Many people already felt like
Speaker 1: their place was at home, not picketing on the sidewalk.
Speaker 1: They're also calls for national unity in the face of
Speaker 1: the United States involvement in the war, and a growing
Speaker 1: sense that it was just not the time for women
Speaker 1: to be focused on their own voting rights rather than
Speaker 1: other national concerns. Passers by started more aggressively harassing the
Speaker 1: women that were protesting, and the President eventually lost his
Speaker 1: patients as well. He had previously told the DC police
Speaker 1: to leave the women alone as long as they weren't
Speaker 1: blocking the sidewalk, but he finally rescinded that instruction, and
Speaker 1: the first wave of arrests took place on June twenty two,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventeen. That day, Wilson wrote a letter to his
Speaker 1: daughter in which he said that the suffragists were quote
Speaker 1: bent on making their cause as obnoxious as possible once
Speaker 1: again by standing outside the White House with signs silently
Speaker 1: it silently between. Then in November of nine hundreds of women,
Speaker 1: including women from at least twenty six different states, were
Speaker 1: arrested and charged with obstructing sidewalk traffic, unlawful assembly, or
Speaker 1: the nebulous violating an ordinance. Also, there are lots of
Speaker 1: pictures of this protest, and they really consistently show the
Speaker 1: women who were protesting either walking in a single file
Speaker 1: line or standing single file, either right up against or
Speaker 1: right in front of the White House. Spence, they were
Speaker 1: definitely not obstructing the sidewalk. Although the Espionage Act had
Speaker 1: been passed in part to try to cut down on
Speaker 1: anti war protests, and it could have been applied to
Speaker 1: the suffrage demonstrations as well. The women often carried large
Speaker 1: banners emblazoned with quotes from the president's speeches about freedom
Speaker 1: and democracy. The administration was smart enough to know that
Speaker 1: it would not look good to use the Espionage Act
Speaker 1: to prosecute women who were carrying banners that were bearing
Speaker 1: the president's own words. So by July, after the the
Speaker 1: arrests had been going on for a couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: the President had started to consider the whole protests to
Speaker 1: be an embarrassment, especially since several prominent women were now
Speaker 1: in jail for it. So he pardoned all of the
Speaker 1: suffragists who had been incarcerated. At first they refused to
Speaker 1: accept his pardon, but then they did, and then they
Speaker 1: went right back to picketing at the White House. As
Speaker 1: the protest went on, the banners the women were carrying
Speaker 1: became more and more provocative. One red kaiser Wilson, have
Speaker 1: you forgotten your sympathy for the Germans because they were
Speaker 1: not self governed? Twenty million American women are not self governed.
Speaker 1: Take the beam out of your own eye. Another read
Speaker 1: to the envoys of Russia. President Wilson and Envoy Root
Speaker 1: are deceiving Russia. They say, we are in democracy. Help
Speaker 1: us win a world war so that democracies may survive.
Speaker 1: We the women of America, tell you America is not
Speaker 1: a democracy twin see, million American women are denied the
Speaker 1: right to vote. President Wilson is the chief opponent of
Speaker 1: their national enfranchisement. Help us make this nation really free.
Speaker 1: Tell our government that it must liberate its people before
Speaker 1: it can claim free Russia as an ally. As an asside,
Speaker 1: that is a lot of words to put on banners.
Speaker 1: They were very large banners. Yes, I have seen them,
Speaker 1: and I'm always sort of amazed that they managed to
Speaker 1: get all of that on there. But just in case
Speaker 1: people were wondering, yes, all of those words were on banners. Uh.
Speaker 1: These banners particularly outraged members of the military, some of
Speaker 1: whom began harassing and even even assaulting the suffragists as
Speaker 1: well as destroying their banners. Police did little to intervene
Speaker 1: other than arresting the picketers themselves. In October, DC police
Speaker 1: and is that anyone arrested for protesting outside the White
Speaker 1: House would be sentenced to six months in prison for
Speaker 1: obstructing the sidewalk, when normally if anyone was obstructing the sidewalk,
Speaker 1: it was the people protesting that are people heckling them,
Speaker 1: not the protesters themselves. But they brought those hecklers to
Speaker 1: the sidewalk is the logic that probably got used at
Speaker 1: the time. Nevertheless, they persisted, with Alice Paul leading the
Speaker 1: picket line from the NWP headquarters to the White House itself.
Speaker 1: The very next day after that announcement was made, carrying
Speaker 1: a banner that said, the time has come to conquer
Speaker 1: or submit, For there is but one choice. We have
Speaker 1: made it as promised, they were once again arrested, convicted,
Speaker 1: and imprisoned. As this cycle of arrests and incarcerations wore on,
Speaker 1: law enforcement tried a new approach, making the whole process
Speaker 1: so unpleasant and humiliating that perhaps the women would just
Speaker 1: give up. Conditions were poor at every prison and workhouse
Speaker 1: in the area, but at Acoquan Workhouse they were particularly bad.
Speaker 1: Silent sentinels started being transferred to the workhouse from the
Speaker 1: more commonly used district jail. At the workhouse, their personal possessions,
Speaker 1: including toiletries, toothbrushes, and columbs, were confiscated, and they weren't
Speaker 1: given any kind of replacements apart from one single bar
Speaker 1: of soap that was shared by everyone in the dormitory.
Speaker 1: Most of the suffragists were actually afraid to use this
Speaker 1: communal bar of soap due to the risk of spreading disease.
Speaker 1: The women who were typically incarcerated at the workhouse had
Speaker 1: very little medical care, and some of them had active
Speaker 1: infections of diseases like tuberculosis and syphilis. The food was
Speaker 1: largely inedible and infested with worms, dead flies, and mouse droppings.
Speaker 1: Usually the only water available was in an open bucket
Speaker 1: that was shared by everyone. Betting was so filthy that
Speaker 1: the matrons who had to handle it during inspections and
Speaker 1: searches did so wearing gloves, although these women were still
Speaker 1: expected to sleep on it. The suffragists were also denied exercise,
Speaker 1: reading and writing materials legal counsel and visitors. Prison authorities
Speaker 1: also tried to make the silent sentinels uncomfortable by using
Speaker 1: racism as a wedge. They integrated the dormitory where the
Speaker 1: suffragists slept. This was obviously during the gym crow era. Still,
Speaker 1: they arranged the beds so that they alternated with a
Speaker 1: white suffragist in one bed and then a black woman,
Speaker 1: who was often serving a sentence for prostitution, in the
Speaker 1: next bed. They also assigned some of the suffragist the
Speaker 1: job of repainting the quote colored restrooms. Meanwhile, many of
Speaker 1: the suffragists tried to make the argument that they should
Speaker 1: be treated as political prisoners and not common criminals. They
Speaker 1: tried to advocate for better conditions, sometimes for themselves and
Speaker 1: sometimes for the workhouse population as a whole. Suffragists who
Speaker 1: made a fuss were punished for it. At least one
Speaker 1: matron was fired allegedly for treating the incarcerated suffragists kindly.
Speaker 1: As all of this stretched on, several of the suffragists
Speaker 1: turned to a tactic that had already been in use
Speaker 1: in the British movement for women's suffrage, which was hunger strikes.
Speaker 1: And as it happened in the UK, prison officials are
Speaker 1: turning to force beating them, which was a painful, embarrassing
Speaker 1: and dangerous process. Although some people were for sped in
Speaker 1: the workhouse, Alice Paul was actually transferred to the psychotic
Speaker 1: ward of the district jail and then for sped there
Speaker 1: three times a day. On the night of November fourteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventeen, conditions at Occoquan Workhouse got much worse. A
Speaker 1: group of women had been sent there after being arrested
Speaker 1: on the tenth many of them for at least the
Speaker 1: second time, Accoquan Superintendent William H. Whittaker told the facilities
Speaker 1: guards to teach the women a lesson. They were physically
Speaker 1: dragged from the dormitory and other common areas to quote
Speaker 1: punishment cells and beaten. Many of them left manacled or
Speaker 1: handcuffed overnight and threatened with being gagged and straight jacketed
Speaker 1: and unice. Dana Brandon's account quote, I firmly believe that,
Speaker 1: no matter how we behave, Whittaker was determined to attack
Speaker 1: us as part of the government's plans to suppress the picketing.
Speaker 1: There were six to ten guards in the room, others
Speaker 1: collected on the porch forty to fifty, and all these
Speaker 1: in with Whittaker when he first entered. Instantly the horror,
Speaker 1: the furniture was a returned, and the room was a
Speaker 1: scene of havoc. Whittaker, in the center of the room
Speaker 1: directed the whole attack, inciting the guards to every brutality.
Speaker 1: In the account of Mary Nolan, aged seventy three, quote,
Speaker 1: I saw Dorothy Day brought in. The two men handling
Speaker 1: her were twisting her arms above her head. Then suddenly
Speaker 1: they lifted her up and banged her down over the
Speaker 1: arm of an iron bench twice. Nolan's account continues, at
Speaker 1: the end of the corridor, they pushed me through a door,
Speaker 1: then I lost my balance and fell against the iron bed.
Speaker 1: Mrs Cosu struck the wall. Then they threw two mats
Speaker 1: in and two dirty blankets. She continues a little bit
Speaker 1: later in her account, quote, we had lain there a
Speaker 1: few minutes, trying to get our breath when Mrs Lewis
Speaker 1: doubled over and handled like a sack of something was
Speaker 1: thrown in her head, struck the iron bed. We thought
Speaker 1: she was dead. She didn't move. We were crying over
Speaker 1: her when we lifted her to the pad on my bed.
Speaker 1: Mrs Coasu had a heart attack that night, which her
Speaker 1: cellmates believed was brought on by the horror of thinking
Speaker 1: that Mrs Lewis was dead, and the guards refused to
Speaker 1: send a doctor. By this point, the Silent Sentinels had
Speaker 1: legal counsel working outside the prison to secure their release.
Speaker 1: This included Dudley Field Malone, who had run Wilson's reelection
Speaker 1: campaign in California and had been Collector of the Port
Speaker 1: of New York before resigning in protest over the suffrage issue,
Speaker 1: and as they heard of the events of the night
Speaker 1: of the fourteenth, Malone and other lawyers obtained a writ
Speaker 1: of habeas corpus ordering that the incarcerated women be brought
Speaker 1: to court. At first, Superintendent Whittaker tried to hide out
Speaker 1: in his home to avoid being served with the writ.
Speaker 1: When the suffrages finally appeared in court on November twenty three,
Speaker 1: a lot of them had to be carried in on stretchers.
Speaker 1: After their court appearance, a few of the women who
Speaker 1: were in the worst condition were paroled, and the rest
Speaker 1: were sent to the district jail, where the entire group
Speaker 1: decided to go on a hunger strike together. The District
Speaker 1: of Columbia couldn't afford to for speed so many of them,
Speaker 1: and that, combined with the ongoing legal action, led to
Speaker 1: their release over November. And we're gonna talk about what
Speaker 1: happened after they were released, but first we are gonna
Speaker 1: all take a little break in here from one of
Speaker 1: our sponsors. This ongoing cycle of demonstrations and arrests and
Speaker 1: imprisonments had roused some public sympathy for the Silent Sentinels,
Speaker 1: especially since several of the women involved were the wives
Speaker 1: or daughters of prominent men. This was even more true
Speaker 1: as the words started to spread of conditions at both
Speaker 1: the workhouse and the district jail. Photographs of recently released
Speaker 1: women wrapped in blankets and clearly traumatized on their way
Speaker 1: out of the facilities played a role in garnering sympathy
Speaker 1: as well. Eventually, a district court ruled that their arrests
Speaker 1: had not been justified in the first place and ordered
Speaker 1: the District of Columbia to pay all the court costs.
Speaker 1: Superintendent Whittaker and Louis zincom Warden of the District Jail
Speaker 1: were both suspended and later fired. All of the high
Speaker 1: profile arrests and the incidents that had happened while the
Speaker 1: women were incarcerated really started to make suffrage a moral
Speaker 1: issue for President Woodrow Wilson, and running into tandem with
Speaker 1: the women from the n WP being arrested and incarcerated
Speaker 1: and having a whole high profile horror behind bars. Then
Speaker 1: National American Women Women's Suffrage Association had also framed itself
Speaker 1: as a patriotic organization supporting the war effort, while also
Speaker 1: diplomatically making a case that the United States making the
Speaker 1: world safe for democracy included enfranchising all of its own
Speaker 1: citizens at home, not just the male ones. So with
Speaker 1: pressure coming from multiple directions, in January of nineteen eighteen,
Speaker 1: after years of being coy and evasive at best, Woodrow
Speaker 1: Wilson publicly announced his support for the constitutional Amendment for
Speaker 1: women's suffrage that had been introduced all the way back
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy eight and failed every time it had
Speaker 1: come up for vote. Even with the president's support, though,
Speaker 1: it still didn't have enough congressional support to pass in
Speaker 1: both houses of Congress in nineteen eighteen, So the n
Speaker 1: w P kept on with its protests, still getting arrested
Speaker 1: in cycles. Throughout all of this, they started lighting what
Speaker 1: they called watch fires of Freedom outside of public buildings.
Speaker 1: These were urns in which they set fire to the
Speaker 1: texts of Wilson's speeches that related to freedom and democracy.
Speaker 1: They also embarked on a cross country speaking tour in
Speaker 1: prison garb called the Prison Special. As I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: they kept being arrested, and they kept being incarcerated, but
Speaker 1: there wasn't another incident as traumatic as the Night of Terror. Finally,
Speaker 1: after a nineteen eighteen election cycle in which the n
Speaker 1: A w s A, the n w P, and other
Speaker 1: organizations had aggressively campaigned for candidates who would support the amendment.
Speaker 1: The House of Representatives passed it in May of nineteen
Speaker 1: nineteen in the Senate followed in June. From there, the
Speaker 1: Nineteenth of Men meant needed to be ratified by thirty
Speaker 1: six of the then forty eight states. The NWP and
Speaker 1: other women's rights organizations kept up with their advocacy all
Speaker 1: through the rest of nineteen nineteen and into nineteen twenty.
Speaker 1: A ratification flag hung at the n WP headquarters, with
Speaker 1: a new star sewn on each time a state ratified
Speaker 1: the amendment. The Nineteenth Amendment finally got enough support from
Speaker 1: the states when Tennessee ratified it on August eighteenth nine.
Speaker 1: It was signed into law on August, and with that,
Speaker 1: the n w P turned their focus to an equal
Speaker 1: rights amendment. The n A W s A eventually evolved
Speaker 1: into the League of Women Voters. The Equal Rights Amendment
Speaker 1: could be a whole other podcast. So when we talk
Speaker 1: about the nineteenth Amendment, a lot of times we hear
Speaker 1: it as and then women had the right to vote.
Speaker 1: But the n a W s A and the nwp's
Speaker 1: work throughout this whole period was overwhelmingly by and about
Speaker 1: white women. Both organizations were really fearful of losing the
Speaker 1: support of Southern white women and of Southern legislators in general,
Speaker 1: so whenever the subject of race came up, they mostly
Speaker 1: worked to appease Jim Crow attitudes rather than actually working
Speaker 1: for the right to vote for all women. And the
Speaker 1: MWPS more radical tactics, which really were standing outside the
Speaker 1: White House until you got rested. At this point, they
Speaker 1: really effectively excluded black women. A strategy that included picketing
Speaker 1: outside the White House and being arrested and incarcerated over
Speaker 1: and over was inherently far riskier for black women than
Speaker 1: for white women. Similarly, the ultimate effects of the Nineteenth
Speaker 1: Amendment were focused on white women. When the Nineteenth Amendment
Speaker 1: was signed into law, it combined with the fifteenth Amendment
Speaker 1: to give all citizens the right to vote, regardless of sex, race, color,
Speaker 1: or previous condition of servitude. Both amendments were extremely straightforward
Speaker 1: on this point, with almost identical language beginning quote the
Speaker 1: right of citizens of the United States to vote shall
Speaker 1: not be denied or bridged by the United States or
Speaker 1: by any State on account of and then the Nineteenth
Speaker 1: Amendment ends that sentence with sex. The Fifteenth Amendment ends
Speaker 1: it with race, color, or previous conditioners of servitude, but
Speaker 1: in practice, in the decades following the ratification of the
Speaker 1: Fifteenth Amendment after the end of the Civil War, many
Speaker 1: states had passed laws that made no reference directly to race,
Speaker 1: but they selectively made it a lot harder for people
Speaker 1: of color, particularly black people, to vote. Poll taxes disproportionately
Speaker 1: affected the black population, who were often among the nation's
Speaker 1: poorest citizens, especially since centuries of enslavement meant that many
Speaker 1: black families had been prevented from earning any money. Impossible
Speaker 1: to pass literacy tests were subjectively graded by white government officials,
Speaker 1: and in many states were only required of those whose
Speaker 1: grandfathers had not been registered to vote. Since most black
Speaker 1: citizens grandfathers had not been allowed to vote, this meant
Speaker 1: that only black citizens had to take this impossible test,
Speaker 1: and outside the realm of law, white supremacist organizations like
Speaker 1: the Ku Klux Klan actively intimidated, threatened, harassed, and even
Speaker 1: murdered people to keep black citizens from voting. So, even
Speaker 1: though the letter of the nineteenth Amendment gave all women
Speaker 1: the right to vote, and it's often celebrated as all
Speaker 1: women getting the right to vote, and practice, Black women
Speaker 1: were overwhelmingly excluded from actually exercising that right. Even after
Speaker 1: the Civil Rights Movement and the passage of the Civil
Speaker 1: Rights Act of nineteen sixty four, discriminatory laws that don't
Speaker 1: specifically mentioned race, but disproportionately affect minorities, particularly black people,
Speaker 1: continue to be an issue in the United States, such
Speaker 1: the Night of Terror and it's aftermath. This is actually
Speaker 1: why sometimes on the Internet there is this picture of
Speaker 1: a bunch of women in bathing suits. They're actually eating pie,
Speaker 1: But this the caption that circulates with this picture all
Speaker 1: the time is that it's women in their bathing suits
Speaker 1: eating pizza during the suffrage movement to annoy men, right,
Speaker 1: And it outrages me every time I see it, because
Speaker 1: the suffrage movement was not a pizza party, and it
Speaker 1: was not done to annoy men. It was done at
Speaker 1: a lot of personal cost to the women involved with
Speaker 1: it to get women the right of vote. It's actually
Speaker 1: a picture of a pie eating contest that happened like
Speaker 1: way late. It was not any kind of early suffrage thing.
Speaker 1: It was like way late in the whole movement had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with its painting contests. So every time
Speaker 1: I see it, that's one of those things that's always
Speaker 1: been so weird to me in that like someone there's
Speaker 1: some genesis point where they looked at that picture and said,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm gonna completely lie about what this is,
Speaker 1: Like what was their goal? I don't know, but you
Speaker 1: know I have I have an overall rule about correcting
Speaker 1: people on the Internet, and and it's only to correct
Speaker 1: people if you're preventing embarrassment and or preventing harm. And
Speaker 1: I will correct people on that picture because I think
Speaker 1: it's harmful to spread the idea that the suffrage movement
Speaker 1: was like a whimsical fun party time right embarked upon
Speaker 1: to annoy men like like it was a fun little
Speaker 1: activity for some ladies. It was not remotely. Do you
Speaker 1: have um pie eating contest? Listener mail, It's not contest,
Speaker 1: but it is a less violence, uh topic than then.
Speaker 1: This story has been today. Um. This is from Sarah
Speaker 1: and it came in recently about our episode about Theodosja
Speaker 1: Burr Alston and it says the title is another Theodoja
Speaker 1: burt story. Uh. And Sarah says she's been a fan
Speaker 1: of the show for many years, and she learned this
Speaker 1: story on vacation in the Outer Banks. We did a
Speaker 1: ghost tour in Manio on Roanoke Island, and Theodoja's was
Speaker 1: one of the stories we heard. This is definitely a
Speaker 1: highly unlikely story, told in colorful, embellish detailed by our guide,
Speaker 1: who was quite a character himself, but it's interesting and
Speaker 1: I'm paraphrasing his telling here. The patriot was taking by
Speaker 1: pirates off the coast of Nag's Head, and it was
Speaker 1: extremely violent and traumatic for the passengers. Left alive to
Speaker 1: be ransomed, Theodosia became history. Racle direct quote. Pirates are
Speaker 1: very superstitious by nature, and the one thing that terrifies
Speaker 1: them as a crazy woman. It's bad luck to have
Speaker 1: one on your ship. So they put her ashore near
Speaker 1: Nag's Head and left her there. She carried her portrait
Speaker 1: with her. She was found on a beach by a banker,
Speaker 1: our first time hearing that term too, and he brought
Speaker 1: her home to his wife. She was physically ill and
Speaker 1: so traumatized by the events of the voyage that she
Speaker 1: had amnesia, but she couldn't tell them anything about herself
Speaker 1: or even her name. She remained living with the family
Speaker 1: and Nag's head, keeping the portrait hanging near her bed,
Speaker 1: never able to recall her earlier life, many years went by,
Speaker 1: until finally, in eighteen sixty nine, Theodosia was very ill
Speaker 1: and the family called a doctor for her. The doctor
Speaker 1: cared for her as she passed away in the family,
Speaker 1: who didn't have any money, asked him if he'd be
Speaker 1: willing to accept something of value from their home in
Speaker 1: lieu of payment. He took the portrait. Ever since then,
Speaker 1: Theodosia is said to wander the beach looking for her
Speaker 1: lost portrait. Of course, the timeline here is pretty far fetched.
Speaker 1: Theodosia would have lived to be eighty six years old
Speaker 1: in the scenario, extremely unlikely given her health problems. My
Speaker 1: sister and I did a bunch of reading up on
Speaker 1: the story and came across the various versions you mentioned
Speaker 1: in the show. I just wanted to share one more
Speaker 1: with you. Thank you so much for the show. We
Speaker 1: love it, Sarah. Thank you for this story. Sarah. That
Speaker 1: is deed pretty far fetched, and it does sound so
Speaker 1: much like a story that you would hear on like
Speaker 1: a a coastal historical tour. I went on one of
Speaker 1: Charleston one time, and I had a tour guide who
Speaker 1: was He was such a character, and he was so
Speaker 1: funny and so knowledgeable, and also he would say things
Speaker 1: and I would kind of go, I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: that's legit. So anyway, if you would like to write
Speaker 1: to us about this or any other podcast, where at
Speaker 1: History podcast at how stepworks dot com. We're also at
Speaker 1: missed in History all across our social media and if
Speaker 1: you come to our website, which is missed in History
Speaker 1: dot com, you will find show No. It's for all
Speaker 1: the episodes Holly and I have ever worked on together,
Speaker 1: and a searchable archive of every episode ever. So come
Speaker 1: and see us at missed in History dot com