What Women Did So YOU Can Vote!
October 2nd, 2008I received this email from a dear friend and had to share. I am not advocating one candidate over another in this post. I am simply in tearful awe of these women who went before. It’s a strong message, so if you are easily offended by becoming fully aware of the sacrifices women before us made on our behalf so we can vote, then click away now.
This is the story of our Mothers and Grandmothers who lived only 90 years ago.
Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.
The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for
picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.
And by the end of the night, they were barely alive.
Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden’s blessing went on a rampage
Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden’s blessing went on a rampage
against the 33 women wrongly convicted of ‘obstructing sidewalk traffic.’
(Lucy Burns)
They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above
her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping
for air.
(Dora Lewis)
They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her
head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate,
Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack.
Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging,
beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.
They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her
head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate,
Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack.
Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging,
beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.
Thus unfolded the ‘Night of Terror’ on Nov. 15, 1917,
when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his
guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because
they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson’s White House for the right
to vote.
For weeks, the women’s only water came from an open pail. Their
food–all of it colorless slop–was infested with worms.
when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his
guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because
they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson’s White House for the right
to vote.
For weeks, the women’s only water came from an open pail. Their
food–all of it colorless slop–was infested with worms.
(Alice Paul)
When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike,
When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike,
they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured
liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks
until word was smuggled out to the press.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/prisoners.pdf
So, refresh my memory. Some women won’t vote this year because-
-why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work?
Our vote doesn’t matter? It’s raining?
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/prisoners.pdf
So, refresh my memory. Some women won’t vote this year because-
-why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work?
Our vote doesn’t matter? It’s raining?
(Mrs. Pauline Adams in the prison garb she wore while serving a sixty-day sentence.)
Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO’s new
movie ‘Iron Jawed Angels.’ It is a graphic depiction of the battle
these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling
booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.
movie ‘Iron Jawed Angels.’ It is a graphic depiction of the battle
these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling
booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.
(Miss Edith Ainge, of Jamestown, New York)
All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the
actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote.
Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege.
Sometimes it was inconvenient.
(Berthe Arnold, CSU graduate)
My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women’s history,
saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk
about it, she looked angry. She was–with herself. ‘One thought
kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,’ she said.
‘What would those women think of the way I use, or don’t use,
my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just
younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.’ The
right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her ‘all over again.’
HBO released the movie on video and DVD . I wish all history,
social studies and government teachers would include the movie in
their curriculum I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere
else women gather. I realize this isn’t our usual idea of socializing,
but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think
a little shock therapy is in order.
social studies and government teachers would include the movie in
their curriculum I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere
else women gather. I realize this isn’t our usual idea of socializing,
but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think
a little shock therapy is in order.
(Conferring over ratification [of the 19th Amendment to the?U.S.?Constitution] at [National Woman's Party] headquarters,
Jackson Pl[ace] [Washington,?D.C.]. L-R Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Mrs. Abby Scott Baker, Anita Pollitzer, Alice Paul,
Florence Boeckel, Mabel Vernon (standing, right))
It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist
to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized.
And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave.
That didn’t make her crazy.
The doctor admonished the men: ‘Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.’
Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know.
We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by
these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party – remember to vote.
(Helena Hill Weed, Norwalk, Conn. Serving 3 day sentence in D.C. prison for carrying banner,
‘Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.’
Both Canada and the United States have very important elections this year.
Get out and vote !!
Thanks to the suffragettes, America has women voters and women candidates, and we are a better country for it!
Women have voices and choices! Just like men.
But few people know ALL of the suffering that our suffragettes had to go through to get the vote for women, and what life was REALLY like for women before they did.
Now you can subscribe FREE to an exciting e-mail series that goes behind the scenes in the lives of eight of the world’s most famous women to reveal the shocking and sometimes heartbreaking truth of HOW women won the vote.
Thrilling, dramatic, sequential short story e-mail episodes have readers from all over the world raving about the original historical series, “The Privilege of Voting.”
Discover how two beautiful and powerful suffragettes, two presidential mistresses, First Lady Edith Wilson, First Daughter Alice Roosevelt, author Edith Wharton and dancer Isadora Duncan set the stage for women to FINALLY win the vote.
Read this FREE e-mail series on your coffeebreaks and fall in love with these amazing women!
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thank you for posting this. i am now suddenly enraged at the cruel treatment of these women at the hands of misogynists, and I’m not even American!
now here’s a suggestion: someone should research the names of the warden and guards who were responsible for this torture of innocent women. these soulless individuals were NOT doing their duty, they were being stupid oafs and bullies with weapons. And no, I do not accept that this was the norm for their time.
Their actions belong to some medieval past, not late 19th century. their names must be made known and inscribed in the history along with the triumphs of Lucy Burns et al.
who is up to the task?