Group of suffragettes standing outside Parliament, London, circa 1910

Suffragette Alberta Hill, 1914.

New Yorker Alberta Hill was the secretary of the Women’s Political Union and assistant to Harriot Stanton Blatch.  

In 1915 she married Francis Smith, an assistant to Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, in the Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel on Staten Island.  At the close of the ceremony, officiant Father O’Donnell asked her if she planned on obeying her husband.*  ”No,” replied Alberta.

The New York Times ran “Says She’ll Not Obey Husband” as part of the headline announcing the marriage.  The Times seems to have been running a suffragette special wedding section— also featured was the wedding of Anna Elizabeth Windsor and Charles Gutman of Long Island, New York.  The bride wore a gold bracelet presented to her for obtaining the largest number of votes in favor of the women’s suffrage amendment at a church fair.  No word as to whether or not the bride planned to obey.

*”Obey” is not part of Catholic wedding vows.  I blame Henry VIII for that nonsense.

Suffrage tent tour at Suffolk County Fair, Long Island, New York, 1914

“Women’s Political Union suffrage tent—Children (checked) cared for here no charge.”

Ernestine Hara, circa 1917

Ernestine was born on January 25, 1896 to an anarchist family in Craiova, Romania.  At the age of 11, she immigrated to New York with her family.  Through her radical political connections, Ernestine became involved in the suffrage movement, joining the 1917 picket of Wilson’s White House.

She was arrested for picketing and sentenced to 30 days in the Occoquan Workhouse.  In the workhouse, Ernestine helped develop a work stop protest to underscore their status as political prisoners which eventual lead to suffragette prisoners being transferred to the city jail.

Although she went to prison for women’s suffrage, her involvement in the suffrage movement began and ended with the 1917 pickets.  The bulk of Ernestine’s career was spent in union organizing, mostly on the west coast.  She became involved with the Los Angeles chapter of NOW around 1969 when she was in her 70s.

 Emmeline Pankhurst

The Dignity of the Franchise - Punch Caricature - 1905

Qualified Voter, “Ah, you may pay rates an’ taxes, an’ you may ‘ave responserbilities an’ all; but when it come to votin’, you must leave it to us men!”

Doris Stevens (1892-1963) circa 1917/1918

Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Doris graduated from Oberlin College and worked as a teacher before becoming an organizer for the National American Woman Suffrage Association.   

Doris was a founding member of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage in 1913 and worked as an organizer for the group.  Other founding members included Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, Mabel Vernon, Olympia Brown, Mary Ritter Beard, Belle Case La Follette, Helen Keller, Maria Montessori, Dorothy Day and Crystal Eastman.   

In 1916, the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage became the National Woman’s Party.  Doris was the youngest member of the party’s national executive committee.  More militant than Carrie Chapman Catt’s National American Woman Suffrage Association, the National Woman’s Party took inspiration from the Women’s Social and Political Union in Britain. 

Picketing the president for his inaction on the suffrage question was a central activity of the National Woman’s Party.  Doris was arrested for picketing in 1917 and served three days of a 60 day sentence at Occoquan Workhouse before being pardoned. Doris was again arrested in 1919 when she was part of a demonstration at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City.  These experiences would inform Jailed for Freedom, her landmark 1920 book on the suffrage movement.

Doris split from the National Woman’s Party in 1947 because she objected to the party’s focus on international rights over domestic organizing.  She became involved in the Lucy Stone League, an organization that supported the right of women to retain their birth names after marriage.  Doris herself retained her birth name through two marriages. 

Doris passed away in 1963 at the age of 70.

Lillian Lenton

Dame Millicent Fawcett  (1847 - 1929) Suffragist.She was also a founder of Newnham College in Cambridge!

suffragette

An Arrest When the Suffragettes Began a Riot in Parliament, London, 1912

Elin Wagner

 Jane Addams. She was the first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Sept. 6, 1860 - May 21, 1935.

suffragists marching for the womans vote.