The Last Women Jailed for Suffrage (episode 173)

On February 24, 1919, President Woodrow Wilson visited Boston on his way home from the peace conference that ended World War I, expecting to find adoring supporters.  Instead, he was greeted by members of the National Women’s Party. After a long campaign that had the 19th amendment on the verge of passing, they now blamed Wilson for dragging his feet and shifting his attention from suffrage to the peace treaty and the League of Nations.  The protesters marched to the Massachusetts State House, where they refused to disperse for the president’s arrival. 25 women were arrested and taken to the Charles Street Jail, where sixteen of them would become known as the last women to be jailed for suffrage.


The Last Women Arrested for Suffrage

Boston Book Club

Tina Cassidy’s Mr. President, How Long Must We Wait: Alice Paul, Woodrow Wilson, and the Fight for the Right to Vote was published in 2019, and it fits perfectly with this week’s episode.  Suffrage leader Alice Paul was at the center of the fight to pass the 19th amendment, and she worked alongside local leaders to organize and lead the protests in Boston in February 1919.  Here’s what Kirkus Reviews has to say about the book:

A remarkable tale of the woman who drove the fight for women’s suffrage.

Former Boston Globe journalist Cassidy, now chief content officer for InkHouse, chronicles the life of Alice Paul, a Quaker from New Jersey who became one of the leaders in the struggle for women’s rights in the early 1900s—and beyond. She was the daughter of a wealthy banker and earned multiple graduate degrees. While she was studying social justice in Birmingham, England, she was profoundly moved by the “suffragettes” Christabel Pankhurst and her mother, Emmeline. Raised to expect equality for all, she stayed in London and joined the fight. She was arrested multiple times in six months, went on a hunger strike, and suffered permanent physical damage from force-feeding. Running parallel to Paul’s story, Cassidy gives us the background of the suffragist’s biggest stumbling block, Woodrow Wilson. Born in Virginia, his father, a minister, authored a booklet outlining his misguided argument for how the Bible condones slavery. Wilson’s outlook was firmly fixed along those lines, and he even said, “universal suffrage is at the foundation of every evil in this country.” He cast himself as a progressive, but that didn’t include women or blacks. Paul joined the fight for equality in America, a struggle that was not as confrontational as England’s but just as dedicated. While those in charge fought for states’ resolutions, she felt an amendment to the Constitution was absolutely necessary. To say Paul was the driving force is not an exaggeration. She was tireless, always sure of her tactics and willing to endure many setbacks, arrests, and Wilson’s continued obstinacy. Dedicated women like Inez Milholland, Alva Belmont, and Lucy Burns stood right beside her.

This book should be required reading until Alice Paul becomes a household name. She not only fought for voting rights and the 19th Amendment; she kept fighting for another 50 years.

Upcoming Event

Like this week’s podcast, the upcoming talk called Sartorial Suffrage at the Boston Athenaeum was also inspired by the centennial of suffrage in the US.  It will be led by Dr. Kimberly Alexander of UNH, Sara Georgini of the Adams Papers at the MHS, and Theo Tyson, who is a fellow of American Art and Culture at the Athenaeum.  Together, they’ll look at the cultural connections between women’s fashion and the political movements for and against women’s suffrage. Here’s how the Athenaeum describes it:

In celebration of International Women’s Day 2020, we will take the afternoon to discuss the implications and influences of fashion, clothing, and dress on the women’s suffrage movement. Theo Tyson – who curated the Athenaeum’s current installation “(Anti)SUFFRAGE” – will use the installation as a point of departure to delve into the dogma, designs, and demands of suffrage and anti-suffrage attire. She will be joined by fashion historians Sara Georgini, Series Editor for the Papers of John Adams, part of the Adams Papers editorial project at the Massachusetts Historical Society and author of Household Gods: The Religious Lives of the Adams Family and Kimberly Alexander, PhD, Lecturer in Museum Studies at the University of New Hampshire and author of Treasures Afoot: Shoe Stories from the Georgian Era.  Guided tours of our current installation (Anti)SUFFRAGE will be held immediately following the conversation.

The event will begin at noon on Friday, March 6.  It is free for Athenaeum members and $10 for nonmembers.  Advanced registration is required. 

Transcript

Music

Jake:
[0:04] Welcome to Hub history, where we go far beyond the Freedom Trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston. The Hub of the Universe.
This is Episode 1 73 Arrested for suffrage. Hi, I’m Jake.
This week, I’ll be talking about the last American women who went to jail in the name of suffrage.
On February 24th 1919 President Woodrow Wilson stopped in Boston for just a few hours on his way home from the peace conference that ended the first World War.
He expected to find adoring supporters. Instead, he was greeted by members of the National Women’s Party.
After a long campaign that had the 19th amendment on the verge of passing.
They now blamed Wilson for dragging his feet and shifting his attention from suffrage to the peace treaty in the League of Nations, the protesters marched to the Massachusetts statehouse, where they refused to disperse for the president’s motorcade.
25 women were arrested and taken to the Charles Street jail, where 16 of them would become known as the last women to be jailed for suffrage.

[1:08] But before we talk about the radical suffragists who confronted a president, it’s time for this week’s Boston Book Club selection and our upcoming historical event.

[1:17] My pick for the bust in Book Club this week is a 2019 book by Tina Cassidy called Mr President. How Long must We Wait?
Alice, Paul, Woodrow Wilson and the Fight for the Right to Vote as we’ll find out in just a few minutes.
Suffrage leader Alice Paul was at the center of the fight to pass the 19th Amendment, though she wasn’t from Boston. She worked alongside local leaders to organize and push through the protests at the heart of this week’s episode.
Instead of a description by the publisher, I’ll leave you with this from Kirkus Reviews, a remarkable tale of the woman who drove the fight for women’s suffrage.
Former Boston Globe journalist Cassidy, now chief content officer for Ink House, chronicles the life of Alice Paul, a Quaker from New Jersey who became one of the leaders in the struggle for women’s rights in the early 19 hundreds and beyond.
She was the daughter of a wealthy banker and earned multiple graduate degrees while she was studying social justice in Birmingham, England.
She was profoundly moved by the suffragettes Krista Bell, Pankhurst and her mother in Moline raised to expect equality for all. She stayed in London and joined the fight.
She was arrested multiple times in six months, went on a hunger strike and suffered permanent physical damage from force feeding.

[2:33] Running parallel to Paul’s story cast, he gives us the background of the suffragists biggest stumbling block Woodrow Wilson board in Virginia.
His father, a minister, authored a booklet outlining his misguided argument for how the Bible Condoned slavery.
Wilson’s outlook was firmly fixed along those lines, and he even said universal suffrage is at the foundation of every evil in this country.
He cast himself as a progressive, but that didn’t include women or blacks.
Paul joined the fight for equality in America, a struggle that was not his confrontational is England’s but just is dedicated.
While those in charge fought for the state’s resolutions, she felt an amendment to the Constitution was absolutely necessary.
To say Paul was the driving force is not an exaggeration. She was tireless, always server tactics and willing to endure many setbacks, arrests and Wilson’s continued obstinacy.
Dedicated women like Inez Milholland, Ava Belmont and Lucy Burns stood right beside her this book should be required reading until Alice Paul becomes a household name.
She not only fought for voting rights in the 19th Amendment, she kept fighting for another 50 years.

[3:47] And for our upcoming event this weekend, featuring a talk at the Boston Athenaeum that was also inspired by the centennial of suffrage in the U. S.
At noon on Friday, March 6, the Athenaeum will host a talk called Sartorial Suffrage.
It’ll be led by Dr Kimberly Alexander of UNH, Sarah Georgie, Any of the Atoms, papers at the MHS and Theo Taison, who’s a fellow American Art and culture at the Athenaeum.

[4:13] Together, they look at the cultural connections between women’s fashion and the political movements for and against women’s suffrage.
Here’s how the Athenaeum describes it In celebration of International Women’s Day. 2020 will take the afternoon to discuss the implications and influences of fashion, clothing and dress on the women’s suffrage movement.
Theo Taison, who curated the Athenaeum, is current installation.
Anti suffrage will use the installation as a point of departure to delve into the dogma, designs and demands of suffrage and anti suffrage attire.
She’ll be joined by fashion historian Sarah Georgie Anne and Kimberly Alexander.
Guided tours of our current installation, anti suffrage will be held immediately following the conversation.
The events free for Athenaeum members, or $10 for non members advanced registration is required.
We’ll have a link to more information as well as a link to buy Mr President, How long must we wait?
And this week’s show notes at hub history dot com slash 173 Before I start the show, I want to take just a moment and thank everyone who supports Hub history on patriotic.

[5:22] This podcast is a labor of love, something Nikki and I tackle in our evenings and weekends.
With your support, we don’t have to worry about paying the expenses of creating a weekly podcast and weaken slowly make improvements to the show over time.
One improvement that I’d like to make is investing in some new recording hardware.
There’s a product that’s halfway between a field recorder and a mixer that’s been generating a lot of buzz in the podcast world over the past couple of years.
Owning it would simplify the process of interviewing guests remotely and would allow us to conduct some of our interviews in person for the first time.
I’ll add that to the wish list and say thank you one more time to everyone who supports Hub history.
Your contribution of $2.5 dollars or even $10 a month, covers the ongoing expenses of the show and hopefully lets us by a board like this.
At some point, if you’re not supporting us yet, you’d like to just go to patri on dot com slash hub history or visit hub history dot com and click on the Support US link. And thanks again.
Now it’s time for this week’s main topic.

[6:26] President. Wilson arrived in Boston on February 24th 1919.
He was returning from the first presidential visit to Europe, where he took part in negotiating the Treaty of Versailles, which ended the first World War.
He was now eager to announce his plan for a League of Nations to the American people, passing briefly through Boston on his way back to Washington.

[6:48] After landing at Commonwealth Pier in South Boston, a motorcade would carry the president up to Summer Street up Winter Street and then up Park Street to the State House.
He was scheduled to proceed from there, down Beacon Street, around the public garden and out comma, finally ending up with the Copley Plaza Hotel for lunch.
All along his route, armed sailors, soldiers and Marines lined the streets is both an honor guard and a security cordon.
After lunch, he was scheduled to give an address at Mechanics Hall in Huntington have then it was off to South Station for an overnight train to D. C.
A group of activists from the National Women’s Party had other plans.
The suffragist organization, considered by other groups in the movement to be radicals, have been picketing Wilson’s White House for over two years, a constitutional amendment that would have granted women or at least white women.
The right to vote was stalled in the Senate, and it needed just one more vote to pass.
The end of the legislative session was coming up in just over a week, the National Women’s Party, one of the president to use his considerable influence to whip that last vote.
And on February 24th they were bringing their protests to Boston.

[7:59] At about 11 a.m. A group of women marched from the local National Women’s Party headquarters to the corner of Beacon and Park streets.
A reviewing stand had been erected in front of the State House, where dignitaries and wounded veterans of the Great War would watch the presidential motorcade passed by.
At the head of the column of women, Katherine Morey carried an American flag.
The demonstrators behind her carried a number of protest banners, the largest of which said, Mr President, you said to the United States Senate on September 30th we shall not only be distrusted but shall deserve to be distrusted.
If we do not enfranchise women, you alone can remove this distrust now by securing the one vote needed to pass the suffrage amendment before March 4th.

[8:44] Banners in hand, they forced their way past the sailors who lined Beacon Street and formed a row directly in front of the reviewing stand.
There, they made sure their banners were visible from the street and waited for the president to arrive in about 45 minutes. The police showed up as the evening edition of the Globe describes.
When the women first appeared with their banners and heckling signs, they were advised by the police that they were liable to be arrested.
They made no reply and simply smiled.
Police Commissioner Curtis appeared in an automobile and talk to some of them, advising them to leave.
Superintendent of Police. Crowley came up in an automobile and how to talk with him.
He told them they would not be allowed to remain, and politely suggested a scene might be avoided if they would leave quietly.
The women paid no heed, so Captain Richard Fitzgerald of Station three decided to proceed as he would in any other case of violation of the city ordinances.

[9:41] Captain Fitzgerald had has been take the names of the women with their addresses. Each was told that they were arrested for a violation of city ordinance is in remaining more than the legal length of time, which was seven minutes after the names have been taken.
Captain Fitzgerald made sure that he had 22 names and then called the police patrol wagons.
At 10 42 wagons appeared one an auto and the other a horse drawn vehicle.
The whole business was accomplished with little noise. There was a policeman for every woman, and he took the banner from her hand and escorted into the wagon.
In less than a minute. Both wagons were loaded. The police could not have been more polite if they are escorting the women to an opera.

[10:23] Every account I read mentioned the warning issued by the police, saying that the protesters would have to move along after seven minutes.
It seemed like a very specific number, so I went digging and I found the Boston City Ordinance on loitering, which has since been found to be unconstitutionally vague.
It says. No person shall in a street unreasonably obstruct the free passage of foot travelers or willfully and unreasonably saunter or loiter for more than seven minutes after being directed by a police officer to move on.
But nothing in this section shall be construed to curtail a bridge or limit the writer opportunity of any person to exercise the right of peaceful persuasion.

[11:05] On the subject of public speaking, which I guess tended to cover protest or peaceful persuasion.
A Boston Police Department general order, dated 1911 gave this guidance.
Public. Speaking in a street under proper conditions is not in itself unlawful, but as the streets are for the use of all the people, it is doubtless the duty of the police officer to take measures to stop public speaking in the street.
Whenever such speaking creates disorder or in some cases but it only tends to create disorder or whenever it unduly obstructs the public way by causing crowds to gather,
this duty, the police will perform with courtesy and discretion whenever the public interest so requires Should conditions here and described make it necessary that speaking should be stopped.
The speaker will be so informed and should he then persist, he may be arrested without a warrant and prosecuted for a disturbance of the peace or for the maintenance of a common nuisance.

[11:59] The police clearly interpreted this protest by the National Woman’s Party as creating disorder because very quickly 22 women were taken into custody.
Press reports say that when the seven minutes were up, Captain Fitzgerald doffed his cap and politely asked the women if they wouldn’t mind moving on now, please.
When they declined, he warned Alice Paul that arrests were coming, and she told him to do his duty with a gesture.
He some of the two prisoner transport wagons and the arrests began that they’re buried 24th Boston Globe continues.
Only one woman made any resistance to arrest. She protested vigorously against getting into the patrol wagon and refused to give up her banner.
She was the last one to be taken into custody. Four policemen lifted her to her seat.
She caught hold of the brass handrails in the back of the wagon door, and her hold was released.
But when the wagon disappeared around Joy Street Corner, she was still holding the banner.

[12:57] The woman, who refused to give up her banner has identified elsewhere as Betty Gram of Portland.
She was a veteran protester, spent time in jail before, and she was carried off. This time, the streets were again clear for the motorcade.
The president wouldn’t pass by for another hour, having seen no suffragists protest it.

[13:17] A second protest was planned later the same afternoon and planned to be held at the same time President Wilson was giving his speech at Mechanics Hall.
The protesters were sure that Wilson would use the rhetoric of America entering the world war to make the world safe for democracy.
And they plan to point out that America couldn’t make the world safe for democracy as long as half the population at home was barred from participating in the Democratic process.
A small group of suffragists from the N. W. P gathered at the Parkman Bandstand late in the afternoon of the 24th.
As the president spoke at Mechanics Hall in Huntington, they waited for a carrier to bring them a rush transcript of the speech.
Certainly there will be a phrase in it somewhere about America’s new role as a world leader that they could point to us an example of our hypocrisy on voting rights, in which they would then symbolically burn.
And indeed, in his speech, Wilson said, If America were at this juncture to fail the world, what would come of it?
I do not mean any disrespect to any other great people. When I say that America is the hope of the world, and if she does not justify that hope. The results are unthinkable.
Men will be thrown back upon the bitterness of disappointment, not only but the bitterness of despair.

[14:31] As Wilson spoke, the suffragists waited. They waited and they waited.
Finally, is the waiting crowd got bored and began to drift away. They had to give up on getting a copy of the speech and get on with the show.
Instead of burning a copy of Wilson’s speech, they resorted to burning a blank sheet of paper as the next day’s Globe reported.
This ceremony was performed by Mr Louise Sykes of Cambridge, who thrust a blank sheet into the tip of an imitation creation torch around which were entwined the militant Suffrage is colors and set it afire.
Not more than 100 persons were assembled around the bandstand at this point, and the speakers were having difficulty and holding the attention of even this small crowd.

[15:15] However, as we saw last week when the armed sailors, who were sent to clear rioters out of Park Square in 1917 actually attracted more rioters, people love a spectacle.
As soon as a police officer showed up to tell the women to clear the bandstand, the crowd of Spectators doubled when a group of 20 officers joined him a few minutes later to begin making arrests.
The crowd grew to about 1000 at the moment the police arrived.
Pasha Warren of Manchester, New Hampshire, was speaking as she was arrested.
Elsie Hill stepped up and took her place, continuing to speak until she, too, was arrested, the Globe reported.
Her cryptic comment says the police physically removed her from the bandstand, shouting at the top of her voice to the crowd is The two policemen released her grip on the rail and seized her arms. She exclaimed.
You remember what Lieutenant Colonel widows, Lee said to the Germans. He told them to go to hell.
Theglobe batted. Whether Ms Hill intended to apply this epithet to anyone in particular was not quite playing.

[16:20] After three arrests at the bandstand, there were a total of 25 women in custody.
The Globe ran a headline on February 25th announcing Demonstration a Fizzle and saying the one outstanding fact about the meeting on the common was that. But for the police interference, it would have been the worst kind of a fizzle.
Some of the leaders frankly admitted this.
However, the days of breathless coverage that followed indicates that if their goal was attracting attention to the cause, the suffragists succeeded handily.
The spectacle of women being arrested in public was far from a common event at the time, and it made headlines around the country.
Many newspapers carried an Associated Press story that had a straightforward head by, for example, the New York Evening World went with 22 suffragists arrested for picketing in Boston.
Other newspapers went with less respectful headlines like the one in Iowa’s Cedar Rapids evening gazette that just couldn’t resist the double Aunt Sandra.
22 women pinched in front of State House.

[17:22] As we’ll see, the Boston newspapers ran front page stories for days afterwards about the women’s experiences in jail.
Taking advantage of the publicity, Massachusetts in W. P Chair Agnes Morey gave this statement to the Boston Globe.
It is a most extraordinary thing to arrest women who are making use of the right to petition for the adjustment of their grievances.
Under the first article of the Constitution, President Wilson, who’s just returned from abroad where he has been the champion of the rights of all people,
is entirely inconsistent owing to his failure to secure the passage of the amendment giving women equal rights with men by this failure.
20 million women of his own country are not free.
When the president realizes the demand of the country, I sincerely hope that he will secure one more vote for the passage of the amendment before the German of Congress.

[18:13] The protests have been in the works since President Wilson first announced that he’d return to the US briefly in order to drum up support for the peace treaty and the related proposal for a new League of Nations.
The president was first scheduled to land in New York City, so the N W P began planning a large protest there.
When their plans became public, however, the president’s advisers suggested moving the venue for his triumphant return.
On February 16th he announced that he would now be landing in Boston.
As James Connolly wrote in The Historical Journal of Massachusetts. There, he would be assured of an enthusiastic welcome by Mayor Andrew J. Peters, who had served him as an assistant secretary of the Treasury from 1914 to 1918.
Many believe that a warm reception, especially in the home of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, the most prominent critic of the League of Nations, would strengthen Wilson’s hand in both Paris and Washington.

[19:10] With the change of venues planning for the suffragist protest went into overdrive.
Led by Alice Paul, Paul had been active in the suffrage movement in both the UK and the US since at least 1909 and she became the president of the National Women’s Party when it broke away from more moderate suffrage groups in 1960.

[19:30] She brought the direct action tactics that she learned from British suffrage activists home to the states, and the action in Boston was just the latest in a long line of public protests that she’d organized.
When the move to Boston was announced, Paul contacted State in W. P Chair Agnes Morrie and ask her to begin planning the protest, sending Organizer’s Elsie Hill and Betty Graham to help.
Soon the planned protests went public. With the February 22nd Globe running a brief Peace Under the headline Suffers to make Hub Howl.
On Wilson Day, it said in part, the Alice Pullets will journey to Boston to greet him with a demonstration, which shall make the hub howl.

[20:12] In the meantime, details of the official program came together as well.
Governor Calvin Coolidge urged Boston business is too close for half a day and for flags to be flowing throughout the city, Mayor Andrew Peters, no doubt worried about the logistics of a massive presidential procession.
Ask the city to observe the day is a holiday, with all government and commercial activity shut down.
Security was tightened after an assassination attempt on the French prime minister by anarchists.
Now a cordon of armed sailors and soldiers would line the entire parade route to protect the president.
Carloads of Secret Service agents would closely follow the president’s car, and a mounted unit of the state militia would escort his party.
The Boston Globe asked of the military would also be keeping Alice Paul in her activists obey Colonel Albert S. Williams.
General Edwards, chief of staff, is the official who’s being dependent upon to handle the militant suffragists in the event of a demonstration.
And his statement, I guess the United States Army can take care of the suffragists is take intimate that any outbreak will be harshly dealt with.

[21:20] The next day’s Globe carried the suffragist response. Mrs.
Agnes H. Mori, state chairman, said last night that she does not believe that soldiers who went to Europe to fight for democracy would fight women.
Given how easily the suffragists preached the defensive wall of armed soldiers, I’d say Mrs Maury was correct.

[21:40] The article by Conneely includes a description of the plan. As Alice Paul laid it out publicly after arriving in Boston, participants would march the short distance from party headquarters on Park Street to the governor’s reviewing stand in front of the State House.
There they would form a lie.
She stated that they would carry a United States flag, the National Women’s Party flag and suffrage banners.
After the presidential procession passed, N W P members would cross the street to the Parkman Bandstand in Boston Common.
There, they would meet other suffragists and burn sections of Wilson’s speech.
There was, she claimed, the possibility of arrests since they had not received permission to gather.
But I vowed that if ordered to move, we will not go.
Despite this assertive stance in W, P, supporters were advised to be non confrontational before leaving headquarters. The following morning, Morry offered the protesters some recommendations.
Ladies, she advised. I think it would look more dignified to be a sober as possible. It is better not to smile.
Don’t be provoked into discussion if you’re arrested, offer no resistance and prefer no arguments if an inquisition should take place as to the aims of our party.
Refused to talk on any subject. Save the enfranchisement of women.

[22:59] Though the protesters were instructed to be non confrontational and the worst defense plan was assembling without a permit, moderate suffrage groups were critical of the n W peace plan.

[23:10] The fact that they would criticize the president in the first place, much less contemplate making spectacles of themselves by getting arrested was seen is harmful to the suffrage cause.
For example, the Massachusetts Equal Suffrage Association publicly condemned the decision of protests by the National Women’s Party several times in the February 21st Global spokesperson said.
We see by the papers that the National Women’s Party, which is not connected with either the state or the National Women’s Suffrage Association, is planning to publicly heckle the president opponents arrival in Boston.
Our association greatly deprecate such action on the part of the National Women’s Party.
And we would like in some way the privilege of showing President Wilson our appreciation of his efforts in behalf of the suffrage cause and our unfailing loyalty to him as the president of our nation because of statements like that.
Describing their planned protest as heckling, a rumor spread that the National Women’s Party planned to block the parade route interrupt the president’s speech, are otherwise disrupt the day’s festivities.
State in W. P Chair Agnes Mori took to the newspapers to refute that claim, telling The Boston Globe the day before the protest.
At no time have we had any intention or plan to interfere with the program lead up of the city officials.
We simply believe that it is ignoble of America to dictate qualifications for membership in the League of Nations, which America is herself unable now to meet.

[24:35] One week remains to secure the one vote needed to pass the suffrage amendment in this congress as leader of his party.
The responsibility of securing this vote rests upon the president by voicing the demand of women for enfranchisement.
We’re making the way easy for him to accomplish this on the evening. Of the 24th for the women who’ve been arrested posted bail well. Two more were released without ever being charged.
The remaining 19 chose not to post bail, instead opting to be remanded to the Charles Street Jail overnight.
Their compatriots on the outside were allowed to bring them dinner, and the Globe noted most of them were asleep on fairly comfortable beds before 11 after good natured Lee discussing their experiences during the day.

[25:21] In the morning. It was time for their arraignments. At the courthouse in Pemberton Square, the women chose to stand mutant court, not even giving their names.
They were all find $5 for sauntering and loitering more than seven minutes after being requested to move on by a police officer.
Three of the women paid their fines, one because she needed to get home to New York, one because she had to care for aging mother and one for unspecified reasons in lieu of paying the fine.
The other 16 returned to Charles Street Jail to begin an eight day sentence on February 25th.

[25:59] As the women reported the jail Alice Paul Senate’s telegram to President Wilson in Washington, reiterating the N W peace demands.
It said 22 women were arrested on the day of your arrival because they exercise their guaranteed right of petition.
When the suffrage amendment is past, this agitation will cease.
We call upon you as leader of your party to secure the one vote needed to pass the amendment before this Congress adjourns.

[26:26] The next morning, the press reported that the prisoners had begun a hunger strike.
Hunger strikes have been widely adopted by suffragists imprisoned in both the US and the UK.
Some of the activists jailed in Boston had previously gone on hunger strike well in President Washington, D. C.
A few of them had even been subjected to forced feeding.

[26:47] However, later reports revealed the early stories to be based on a misunderstanding.
While some are all the women had declined to serving of bread and Coco. After arriving at the jail, they later said it was because they weren’t hungry.
Indeed, the next morning they all partook of the standard jail breakfast rice and syrup, bread and black coffee.
At lunch, they got American chop suey, meaning pasta with ground beef and tomato sauce. They got more bread and more coffee.
Other meals would consist of oatmeal hot dogs in liberty cabbage, a K sauerkraut, this chowder corn, beef hash and baked beans.
Since the prisoners had refused to give their names, jail authorities said that they couldn’t confirm any prisoners identity. Therefore, none of the women could receive visitors, phone calls or care packages.
The sheriff had banned outside food anyway, which is probably what the prisoners wanted boast.
As a side note, I’ll mention that although the suffragist prisoners were officially nameless to the authorities, they did have names. And the article, written by James Connolly, has a concise profile of each of them.
Each of them, that is, except Mrs George Hill of Brookline, who doesn’t show up elsewhere in the record.

[28:03] Starting on February 27th the women began trickling out of jail, often against their will.
That morning, three of the women were released from jail after a strange man paid their fines without their knowledge or consent.
They argued that since they had not paid their own finds, the court should continue to imprison them. But the authorities were all too happy to see them go at the same time for other prisoners were released, all of whom it either paid their own fines or had them paid by family members.
Of the seven prisoners released that day, only two went willingly.
The other five all intended to stay the full eight days in solidarity with the group, but were forced to leave when their fines were paid against their will.

[28:46] Rosa Rower was among the nine prisoners still remaining, and her attorney husband, George, announced that he would sue anyone attempting to bail them out without their permission.
You might recall George Rower from last week, when he was acting a spokesman for the Massachusetts Socialist Party in 1917.

[29:03] By March 1st, 1919 Rosa was the only prisoner left as the same mysterious benefactor had paid the fines for everyone else.
The next day, the mystery man who turned out to be a wealthy Harvard student paid Rosie rowers fine, and she finally went home as well.
A rally was held at the Wilbur Theatre on Sunday March Knife, which was timed to coincide with the arrival of the prison special, the National Women’s Party had chartered a special train to tour the country, carrying 26 veteran activists who’d been imprisoned for the cause.
They were replicas of their prison garb for public appearances, giving speeches on the importance of the suffrage movement and describing their radical tactics.
The president’s special would visit Boston on March 9th and 10th. The suffragists had been locked up. A Charles Street jail attended the rally as guests of honor, where they’re presented with special brooches designed to look like cell doors.

[30:00] Though their demand that President Wilson pushed the Senate to pass the suffrage amendment before the end of the current session on March 4th was not met.
The suffragist would soon see success.
In June of 1990 President Wilson called a special session of Congress in order to deal with a number of pressing issues that have been raised by the peace process in Europe.
During the special session, he also asked Congress to pass a number of bills of critical domestic importance.
Among them was a suffrage amendment, which finally passed and was sent to the states.
In the end, the 19th Amendment was ratified in time for women to vote in the election of 1920 toe.
Learn more about the last women to be imprisoned For the cause of suffrage, check out this week’s show notes at hub history dot com slash 173 We’ll have pictures of President Woodrow Wilson’s arrival in Boston and the parade through the streets.
We’ll also have a picture of the giant banner that N. W P activists carried at the State House on February 24.

[31:02] We’ll link to each of the Boston Globe and Associated Press stories recorded from Toe a timeline of the National Women’s Party to a profile of the leaders of the Statehouse protests and the excellent piece about the protest by James Connolly and The Historical Journal of Massachusetts.
Just for fun, I’ll throw in a small item from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum collection.
Gardner was known to her friends as Mrs Jack and after a woman named Serous Jack was arrested as part of the N.
W. P. Protest headline said Mrs Jack Find $1 suffragist appeals from sentence imposed in connection with Rally of Militants on Boston Common,
William Sturgis Bigelow, fellow art collector and a friend of gardeners, click the headline and mailed it to her, along with a note to the effect that he had never suspected. What a versatile woman she waas.
You can see both the headline and the note and the museum’s online collection.
And of course, we’ll have links to information about our upcoming event. And Mr President, how long must we wait? This week’s Boston Book Club pick?

[32:06] If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can email us at podcast of hub history dot com.
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[32:34] That’s all for now. We’ll be back next time to talk about the 250th anniversary of the Boston Massacre with Natshe idly that president and CEO of Revolutionary Spaces.

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