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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. We have

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Speaker 1: got a few episodes in our podcast archive that connect

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Speaker 1: in some way to the movement for women's suffrage in

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Speaker 1: both the United States and the UK. One thing that's

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Speaker 1: come up a few times in those shows is violence

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Speaker 1: committed against the women who were protesting for the right

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Speaker 1: to vote, often at the hands of law enforcement. For example,

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Speaker 1: in our two partn on Sofia do Leap Sing, we

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Speaker 1: talked about a protest in London that came to be

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Speaker 1: known as Black Friday, and that's when about two hundred

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Speaker 1: protesters from the Women's Social and Political Union were assaulted

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Speaker 1: by police outside of Parliament. In the United States, we

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Speaker 1: have alluded to, but never directly discussed, a similarly infamous event,

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Speaker 1: and that was the Night of Terror, which was a

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Speaker 1: November nineteen seventeen incident in which the guards at Occoquan

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Speaker 1: workhouse assaulted and terrorized thirty three women from the National

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Speaker 1: Woman's Party. They were part of a group known as

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Speaker 1: the Silent Sentinels. They were serving sentences of up to

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Speaker 1: six months for charges like obstructing sidewalk traffic after peacefully

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Speaker 1: protesting in front of the White House. So we're gonna

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Speaker 1: start by tacking through a really quick recap of women's

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Speaker 1: suffrage organizations in the United States, because this whole story

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Speaker 1: grows out of a series of ideological splits that happened

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Speaker 1: within the movement. There were, of course, other suffrage organizations

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Speaker 1: besides the ones that were about to talk about, all

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Speaker 1: with their own goals and strategies, but these are the

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Speaker 1: ones that are directly connected to today's story. The Seneca

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Speaker 1: Falls Convention in eighty eight, which we've talked about before,

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Speaker 1: was the first dedicated convention for women's rights in the

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Speaker 1: United States, and at the time the idea of women

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Speaker 1: getting the right to vote was really pretty radical. The

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Speaker 1: resolution to add the right to vote to the conventions

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Speaker 1: Declaration of Sentiments passed by only a very narrow margin.

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Speaker 1: After the Seneca Falls Convention, women's rights leaders and organizers

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Speaker 1: continued to meet at national and local conventions for more

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Speaker 1: than a decade before the movement was put on hold

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Speaker 1: during the Civil War, and once the war was over,

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Speaker 1: women's rights leaders found common ground with people who were

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Speaker 1: trying to protect the rights of newly freed slaves and

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Speaker 1: other black citizens, and the result was the American Equal

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Speaker 1: Rights Association, formed in eighteen sixty six, which was dedicated

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Speaker 1: to pursuing equal rights for all citizens. This organization didn't

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Speaker 1: last though. Three years later, attendees at its annual meeting

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Speaker 1: disagreed over whether to support the fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution,

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Speaker 1: which had been passed by Congress and was awaiting ratification

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Speaker 1: by the States. The Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed voting rights without

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Speaker 1: regard to race or prior condition of servitude, but it

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Speaker 1: didn't have any mention of sex. The result of this

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Speaker 1: disagreement was a schism within the organization. Susan B. Anthony

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Speaker 1: and Elizabeth Katie Stanton launched the National Woman's Suffrage Association,

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Speaker 1: dedicated to fighting for voting rights only for women. Lucy Stone,

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Speaker 1: Julia Ward Howe and others who supported the Fifteenth Amendment

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Speaker 1: formed the American Woman's Suffrage Association. We talk about some

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Speaker 1: more of the details in our past podcast on all

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Speaker 1: of this and how that separation took place in our

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Speaker 1: episode about Frederick Douglas. Yeah, it's part of this long arc,

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Speaker 1: but we don't want to repeat all those details again here.

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Speaker 1: In eighteen ninety, after twenty one years of operating separately

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Speaker 1: from one another, the American Woman Suffrage Association and the

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Speaker 1: National Woman's Suffrage Association once again merged, forming the National

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Speaker 1: American Woman Suffrage Association or n a w s A.

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Speaker 1: There's some disagreement over whether to spell out the letters

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Speaker 1: or to say now is A. It's leaders included Lucy

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Speaker 1: Stone and Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Katie Stanton, so

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Speaker 1: basically the leaders of the previous organizations that had combined,

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Speaker 1: and its purpose was once again to secure the right

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Speaker 1: to vote for women. This time, the strategy was to

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Speaker 1: start small and to get individual municipalities and states to

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Speaker 1: grant women the right to vote. According to this strategy,

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Speaker 1: getting enough state to state success would put pressure on

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Speaker 1: the federal government to pass nationwide legislation for women's suffrage.

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Speaker 1: And this brings us at last to the women directly

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Speaker 1: involved in today's episode. Even though it focused on winning

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Speaker 1: the vote state by state and not through Congress, the

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Speaker 1: n a w s A never disbanded its Congressional committee

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Speaker 1: and in ve Alice Paul and Lucy Burns were appointed

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Speaker 1: to be the committee's joint chairs. Both women had spent

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Speaker 1: some time in England and they've been involved with Emmiline

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Speaker 1: Pankhurst and the Women's Social and Political Union that was

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Speaker 1: the more radical arm of the suffrage movement in Britain

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Speaker 1: who's members were the ones proudly reclaiming the derisive nickname

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Speaker 1: of suffragettes. Paul and Burns were directly familiar with WSPU

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Speaker 1: tactics like vandalism and hunger strikes, which were intended to

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Speaker 1: aggressively draw attention to the issue of women's rights and

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Speaker 1: to put pressure on the government for a solution. Paul

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Speaker 1: and Burns had actually met for the first time at

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Speaker 1: a police station in London after being arrested at a protest.

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Speaker 1: Paul Burns both wanted the n a w s A

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Speaker 1: to adopt at least some of the wsp USE tactics,

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Speaker 1: and they weren't at all content to allow the Congressional

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Speaker 1: Committee to languish as the organization focused on local and

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Speaker 1: state rather than national efforts. So they convinced the n

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Speaker 1: A w s A to organize an enormous protest parade,

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Speaker 1: the Woman's Suffrage Progression, to be held on March third,

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirteen, and to be accompanied by open air meetings

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Speaker 1: and speeches. This day was chosen for a specific reason.

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Speaker 1: It was the day before the inauguration of present in A.

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Speaker 1: Woodrow Wilson. The n a w s A was no

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Speaker 1: stranger to parades. Parades were a long standing part of

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Speaker 1: the organization's strategy, along with organizing conventions and meetings and

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Speaker 1: publishing literally hundreds of books and pamphlets. But the parade

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Speaker 1: was much bigger than anything that n a w s

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Speaker 1: A had arranged before, and it was also intended to

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Speaker 1: be a national event rather than a local or a

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Speaker 1: regional one. Between five thousand and eight thousand marchers were

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Speaker 1: involved in this parade, along with twenty floats, nine marching bands,

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Speaker 1: and four mounted brigades. It was to end with an

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Speaker 1: allegorical tableau outside the U. S. Treasury Building, in which

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Speaker 1: women who were dressed as liberty, justice, charity, peace and

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Speaker 1: hope would symbolically surround a central figure representing Columbia. Leading

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Speaker 1: the parade was activist and labor lawyer and as Milholland.

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Speaker 1: If that name rings a bell from from past podcasts,

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Speaker 1: She later married Eugen Boassavan, who remay and the St

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Speaker 1: Vincent Malay. After Maholland's death, I to b Wells. Barnett

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Speaker 1: also marched in the parade with the Illinois Contingent, refusing

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Speaker 1: to comply with the racial segregation that organizers were encouraging

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Speaker 1: for the participating groups. Other well known participants included Helen Keller,

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Speaker 1: Nellie Blygh, and Katherine Dexter McCormick. The parade started off well,

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Speaker 1: aside from a delay and getting started, but as it

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Speaker 1: moved down Pennsylvania Avenue, the street became completely blocked by

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Speaker 1: a huge crowd of spectators, most of the men who

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Speaker 1: had come to Washington for the inauguration. As the crowd

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Speaker 1: closed in on the marchers, they were trapped. In addition

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Speaker 1: to heckling, taunting, tripping, and even assaulting the marchers, the men,

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Speaker 1: who vastly outnumbered the women, blocked the parade route completely,

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Speaker 1: including trapping ambulances. In this log jam, more than a

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Speaker 1: hundred women were injured and had to be hospitalized. This

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Speaker 1: also completely took the crowd away from the train station

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Speaker 1: that was intended to meet the incoming president. So when

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Speaker 1: Woodrow Wilson got off his train and was like where

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Speaker 1: is everybody? People said they are all at the suffrage parade.

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Speaker 1: Police overwhelmingly did not intervene in this chaos. They didn't

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Speaker 1: really do anything to maintain crowd control, as the spectators

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Speaker 1: completely blocked the street. A cavalry union had to eventually

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Speaker 1: be dispatched from Fort Meyer to restore order. Police Chief

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Speaker 1: Richard Sylvester weathered heavy criticism over the handling of the march,

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Speaker 1: especially since there were no similar incidents on Inauguration Day

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Speaker 1: the next day. This led to a congressional investigation that

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Speaker 1: ultimately exonerated Sylvester of malicious intent towards the suffragists, while

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Speaker 1: also criticizing his lack of action on the day. Even

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Speaker 1: though he was ultimately dismissed as police chief, a lot

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Speaker 1: of people in the suffrage movement felt like the whole

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Speaker 1: incident had been whitewashed. Following the parade, the naw SA

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Speaker 1: was worried that Paul and Burns were simply too radical,

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Speaker 1: that their methods were too aggressive, and that they might

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Speaker 1: turn to the sorts of vandalism and property damage that

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Speaker 1: was becoming a hallmark of the movement's most radical wing

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Speaker 1: in the United Kingdom. So in nineteen thirteen, Paul and

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Speaker 1: Burns struck out on their own to form the Congressional

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Speaker 1: Union for Woman's Suffrage or see You. They remained involved

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Speaker 1: with the naws AS Congressional Committee for a time, but

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Speaker 1: their ideological differences ultimately led the two organizations to sever

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Speaker 1: all ties with one another. You hear over and over

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Speaker 1: again when reading about this that Paul and Burns were

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Speaker 1: just too radical, and I was expecting and doing the

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Speaker 1: research that I was going to find that they were

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Speaker 1: doing things like setting people's houses on fire, which was

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Speaker 1: happening in the in the UK. No, that was not

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Speaker 1: what was happening at all, which we're going to talk

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Speaker 1: about more in a minute. They were really not actions

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Speaker 1: that we would consider radical today. In nineteen sixteen, the

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Speaker 1: two women established the Woman's Party of Western Voters. Several

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Speaker 1: states in the West had already granted women the right

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Speaker 1: to vote, and this party encouraged the women who were

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Speaker 1: living in those states to vote for candidates who supported

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Speaker 1: women's rights in a national push for women's suffrage. This

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Speaker 1: included campaigning against Woodrow Wilson, since no progress had been

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Speaker 1: made towards getting women the right to vote during his

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Speaker 1: first term in office. Meanwhile, the CEU continued working towards

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Speaker 1: voting rights in the states where women still couldn't vote. Then,

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventeen, the two groups merged to form the

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Speaker 1: National Woman's Party, or n w P. The Silent Sentinels

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Speaker 1: who were arrested in nineteen seventeen were part of the

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Speaker 1: n w P, And we're going to talk more about

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Speaker 1: that after we first paused for a little sponsor break.

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Speaker 1: After Woodrow Wilson was elected to his second term as

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Speaker 1: president in nineteen sixteen, the National Women's Party decided to

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Speaker 1: put more direct pressure on the White House and Congress

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Speaker 1: to make some kind of progress forward national voting rights

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Speaker 1: for women. They became even more determined to do this

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Speaker 1: after having a meeting with the President on January nine,

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Speaker 1: nineteen and which he told NWP members to concert public

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Speaker 1: opinion on behalf of woman's suffrage. The next day, they

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Speaker 1: started a protest directly outside the White House that would

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Speaker 1: continue for months. In the n w p S Weekly Journal,

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Speaker 1: which was the suffragist Elizabeth Katie Stanton's daughter, Harriet Stanton Blanche,

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Speaker 1: described it this way, quote, we must go to him

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Speaker 1: every day. We must have a continuous delegation to the

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Speaker 1: President of the United States, if he is to realize

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Speaker 1: the never ceasing insistent demand of women that he take

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Speaker 1: action where he is responsible. We may not be admitted

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Speaker 1: within the doors, but we can at least stand at

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Speaker 1: the gates. We may not be allowed to raise our

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Speaker 1: voices and speak to the President, but we can address

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Speaker 1: him just the same because our message will be inscribed

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Speaker 1: upon the banners which we carry in our hands. Let

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Speaker 1: us post our silent sentinels at the gates of the

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Speaker 1: White House. And this was the protest that was viewed

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Speaker 1: extremely radical at the time, standing outside the White House

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Speaker 1: with banners silently Yea. Lucy Burns played a huge part

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Speaker 1: in this protest. She was often the one leading the

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Speaker 1: pickets who silently demonstrated outside the White House every day,

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Speaker 1: no matter what the weather, sometimes enduring illness and frost

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Speaker 1: bite in the process. For the sake of both publicity

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Speaker 1: and trying to draw more women into the movement, the

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Speaker 1: protests sometimes had them days, such as a particular College

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Speaker 1: Day or Working Women Day. That one was actually held

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Speaker 1: on Sunday so the women protesting could do it without

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Speaker 1: losing a day's pay. At first, the President tolerated their

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Speaker 1: presence there in front of the White House. On the

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Speaker 1: way in or out of the White House, he would

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Speaker 1: smile and tip his hat, and on particularly cold days,

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Speaker 1: he would invite them in for tea. Although they consistently

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Speaker 1: turned down that invitation, and although passers by often heckled

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Speaker 1: the Silent Sentinels, the protest got a mixed but overall

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Speaker 1: not violent reaction from the general public in its early months.

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Speaker 1: All of this changed when the United States entered World

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Speaker 1: War One on April six, after which point the Silent

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Speaker 1: Sentinels and started encountering more and more resistance to their

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Speaker 1: picket outside the White House. Many people already felt like

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Speaker 1: their place was at home, not picketing on the sidewalk.

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Speaker 1: They're also calls for national unity in the face of

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Speaker 1: the United States involvement in the war, and a growing

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Speaker 1: sense that it was just not the time for women

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Speaker 1: to be focused on their own voting rights rather than

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Speaker 1: other national concerns. Passers by started more aggressively harassing the

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Speaker 1: women that were protesting, and the President eventually lost his

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Speaker 1: patients as well. He had previously told the DC police

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Speaker 1: to leave the women alone as long as they weren't

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Speaker 1: blocking the sidewalk, but he finally rescinded that instruction, and

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Speaker 1: the first wave of arrests took place on June twenty two,

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventeen. That day, Wilson wrote a letter to his

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Speaker 1: daughter in which he said that the suffragists were quote

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Speaker 1: bent on making their cause as obnoxious as possible once

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Speaker 1: again by standing outside the White House with signs silently

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Speaker 1: it silently between. Then in November of nine hundreds of women,

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Speaker 1: including women from at least twenty six different states, were

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Speaker 1: arrested and charged with obstructing sidewalk traffic, unlawful assembly, or

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Speaker 1: the nebulous violating an ordinance. Also, there are lots of

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Speaker 1: pictures of this protest, and they really consistently show the

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Speaker 1: women who were protesting either walking in a single file

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Speaker 1: line or standing single file, either right up against or

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Speaker 1: right in front of the White House. Spence, they were

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Speaker 1: definitely not obstructing the sidewalk. Although the Espionage Act had

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Speaker 1: been passed in part to try to cut down on

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Speaker 1: anti war protests, and it could have been applied to

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Speaker 1: the suffrage demonstrations as well. The women often carried large

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Speaker 1: banners emblazoned with quotes from the president's speeches about freedom

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Speaker 1: and democracy. The administration was smart enough to know that

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Speaker 1: it would not look good to use the Espionage Act

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Speaker 1: to prosecute women who were carrying banners that were bearing

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Speaker 1: the president's own words. So by July, after the the

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Speaker 1: arrests had been going on for a couple of weeks,

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Speaker 1: the President had started to consider the whole protests to

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Speaker 1: be an embarrassment, especially since several prominent women were now

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Speaker 1: in jail for it. So he pardoned all of the

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Speaker 1: suffragists who had been incarcerated. At first they refused to

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Speaker 1: accept his pardon, but then they did, and then they

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Speaker 1: went right back to picketing at the White House. As

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Speaker 1: the protest went on, the banners the women were carrying

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Speaker 1: became more and more provocative. One red kaiser Wilson, have

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Speaker 1: you forgotten your sympathy for the Germans because they were

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Speaker 1: not self governed? Twenty million American women are not self governed.

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Speaker 1: Take the beam out of your own eye. Another read

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Speaker 1: to the envoys of Russia. President Wilson and Envoy Root

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Speaker 1: are deceiving Russia. They say, we are in democracy. Help

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Speaker 1: us win a world war so that democracies may survive.

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Speaker 1: We the women of America, tell you America is not

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Speaker 1: a democracy twin see, million American women are denied the

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Speaker 1: right to vote. President Wilson is the chief opponent of

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Speaker 1: their national enfranchisement. Help us make this nation really free.

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Speaker 1: Tell our government that it must liberate its people before

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Speaker 1: it can claim free Russia as an ally. As an asside,

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Speaker 1: that is a lot of words to put on banners.

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Speaker 1: They were very large banners. Yes, I have seen them,

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Speaker 1: and I'm always sort of amazed that they managed to

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Speaker 1: get all of that on there. But just in case

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Speaker 1: people were wondering, yes, all of those words were on banners. Uh.

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Speaker 1: These banners particularly outraged members of the military, some of

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Speaker 1: whom began harassing and even even assaulting the suffragists as

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Speaker 1: well as destroying their banners. Police did little to intervene

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Speaker 1: other than arresting the picketers themselves. In October, DC police

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Speaker 1: and is that anyone arrested for protesting outside the White

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Speaker 1: House would be sentenced to six months in prison for

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Speaker 1: obstructing the sidewalk, when normally if anyone was obstructing the sidewalk,

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Speaker 1: it was the people protesting that are people heckling them,

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Speaker 1: not the protesters themselves. But they brought those hecklers to

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Speaker 1: the sidewalk is the logic that probably got used at

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Speaker 1: the time. Nevertheless, they persisted, with Alice Paul leading the

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Speaker 1: picket line from the NWP headquarters to the White House itself.

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Speaker 1: The very next day after that announcement was made, carrying

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Speaker 1: a banner that said, the time has come to conquer

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Speaker 1: or submit, For there is but one choice. We have

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Speaker 1: made it as promised, they were once again arrested, convicted,

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Speaker 1: and imprisoned. As this cycle of arrests and incarcerations wore on,

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Speaker 1: law enforcement tried a new approach, making the whole process

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Speaker 1: so unpleasant and humiliating that perhaps the women would just

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Speaker 1: give up. Conditions were poor at every prison and workhouse

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Speaker 1: in the area, but at Acoquan Workhouse they were particularly bad.

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Speaker 1: Silent sentinels started being transferred to the workhouse from the

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Speaker 1: more commonly used district jail. At the workhouse, their personal possessions,

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Speaker 1: including toiletries, toothbrushes, and columbs, were confiscated, and they weren't

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00:18:20,280 --> 00:18:23,760
Speaker 1: given any kind of replacements apart from one single bar

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Speaker 1: of soap that was shared by everyone in the dormitory.

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Speaker 1: Most of the suffragists were actually afraid to use this

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Speaker 1: communal bar of soap due to the risk of spreading disease.

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Speaker 1: The women who were typically incarcerated at the workhouse had

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Speaker 1: very little medical care, and some of them had active

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Speaker 1: infections of diseases like tuberculosis and syphilis. The food was

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Speaker 1: largely inedible and infested with worms, dead flies, and mouse droppings.

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Speaker 1: Usually the only water available was in an open bucket

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Speaker 1: that was shared by everyone. Betting was so filthy that

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Speaker 1: the matrons who had to handle it during inspections and

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Speaker 1: searches did so wearing gloves, although these women were still

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Speaker 1: expected to sleep on it. The suffragists were also denied exercise,

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Speaker 1: reading and writing materials legal counsel and visitors. Prison authorities

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Speaker 1: also tried to make the silent sentinels uncomfortable by using

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Speaker 1: racism as a wedge. They integrated the dormitory where the

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Speaker 1: suffragists slept. This was obviously during the gym crow era. Still,

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Speaker 1: they arranged the beds so that they alternated with a

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Speaker 1: white suffragist in one bed and then a black woman,

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Speaker 1: who was often serving a sentence for prostitution, in the

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Speaker 1: next bed. They also assigned some of the suffragist the

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Speaker 1: job of repainting the quote colored restrooms. Meanwhile, many of

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Speaker 1: the suffragists tried to make the argument that they should

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Speaker 1: be treated as political prisoners and not common criminals. They

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Speaker 1: tried to advocate for better conditions, sometimes for themselves and

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Speaker 1: sometimes for the workhouse population as a whole. Suffragists who

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Speaker 1: made a fuss were punished for it. At least one

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Speaker 1: matron was fired allegedly for treating the incarcerated suffragists kindly.

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Speaker 1: As all of this stretched on, several of the suffragists

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Speaker 1: turned to a tactic that had already been in use

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Speaker 1: in the British movement for women's suffrage, which was hunger strikes.

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Speaker 1: And as it happened in the UK, prison officials are

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Speaker 1: turning to force beating them, which was a painful, embarrassing

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Speaker 1: and dangerous process. Although some people were for sped in

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Speaker 1: the workhouse, Alice Paul was actually transferred to the psychotic

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Speaker 1: ward of the district jail and then for sped there

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Speaker 1: three times a day. On the night of November fourteenth,

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventeen, conditions at Occoquan Workhouse got much worse. A

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Speaker 1: group of women had been sent there after being arrested

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Speaker 1: on the tenth many of them for at least the

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Speaker 1: second time, Accoquan Superintendent William H. Whittaker told the facilities

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Speaker 1: guards to teach the women a lesson. They were physically

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Speaker 1: dragged from the dormitory and other common areas to quote

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Speaker 1: punishment cells and beaten. Many of them left manacled or

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Speaker 1: handcuffed overnight and threatened with being gagged and straight jacketed

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Speaker 1: and unice. Dana Brandon's account quote, I firmly believe that,

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Speaker 1: no matter how we behave, Whittaker was determined to attack

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Speaker 1: us as part of the government's plans to suppress the picketing.

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Speaker 1: There were six to ten guards in the room, others

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Speaker 1: collected on the porch forty to fifty, and all these

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Speaker 1: in with Whittaker when he first entered. Instantly the horror,

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Speaker 1: the furniture was a returned, and the room was a

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Speaker 1: scene of havoc. Whittaker, in the center of the room

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Speaker 1: directed the whole attack, inciting the guards to every brutality.

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Speaker 1: In the account of Mary Nolan, aged seventy three, quote,

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Speaker 1: I saw Dorothy Day brought in. The two men handling

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Speaker 1: her were twisting her arms above her head. Then suddenly

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Speaker 1: they lifted her up and banged her down over the

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Speaker 1: arm of an iron bench twice. Nolan's account continues, at

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Speaker 1: the end of the corridor, they pushed me through a door,

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Speaker 1: then I lost my balance and fell against the iron bed.

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Speaker 1: Mrs Cosu struck the wall. Then they threw two mats

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Speaker 1: in and two dirty blankets. She continues a little bit

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Speaker 1: later in her account, quote, we had lain there a

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Speaker 1: few minutes, trying to get our breath when Mrs Lewis

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00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:19,520
Speaker 1: doubled over and handled like a sack of something was

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Speaker 1: thrown in her head, struck the iron bed. We thought

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Speaker 1: she was dead. She didn't move. We were crying over

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Speaker 1: her when we lifted her to the pad on my bed.

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00:22:30,359 --> 00:22:32,800
Speaker 1: Mrs Coasu had a heart attack that night, which her

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Speaker 1: cellmates believed was brought on by the horror of thinking

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Speaker 1: that Mrs Lewis was dead, and the guards refused to

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Speaker 1: send a doctor. By this point, the Silent Sentinels had

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Speaker 1: legal counsel working outside the prison to secure their release.

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Speaker 1: This included Dudley Field Malone, who had run Wilson's reelection

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Speaker 1: campaign in California and had been Collector of the Port

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Speaker 1: of New York before resigning in protest over the suffrage issue,

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Speaker 1: and as they heard of the events of the night

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Speaker 1: of the fourteenth, Malone and other lawyers obtained a writ

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Speaker 1: of habeas corpus ordering that the incarcerated women be brought

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Speaker 1: to court. At first, Superintendent Whittaker tried to hide out

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Speaker 1: in his home to avoid being served with the writ.

387
00:23:14,440 --> 00:23:17,840
Speaker 1: When the suffrages finally appeared in court on November twenty three,

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Speaker 1: a lot of them had to be carried in on stretchers.

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Speaker 1: After their court appearance, a few of the women who

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Speaker 1: were in the worst condition were paroled, and the rest

391
00:23:25,880 --> 00:23:28,240
Speaker 1: were sent to the district jail, where the entire group

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Speaker 1: decided to go on a hunger strike together. The District

393
00:23:31,560 --> 00:23:34,680
Speaker 1: of Columbia couldn't afford to for speed so many of them,

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00:23:34,960 --> 00:23:37,480
Speaker 1: and that, combined with the ongoing legal action, led to

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Speaker 1: their release over November. And we're gonna talk about what

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00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:44,960
Speaker 1: happened after they were released, but first we are gonna

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Speaker 1: all take a little break in here from one of

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Speaker 1: our sponsors. This ongoing cycle of demonstrations and arrests and

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Speaker 1: imprisonments had roused some public sympathy for the Silent Sentinels,

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00:24:01,600 --> 00:24:04,479
Speaker 1: especially since several of the women involved were the wives

401
00:24:04,640 --> 00:24:08,040
Speaker 1: or daughters of prominent men. This was even more true

402
00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:10,560
Speaker 1: as the words started to spread of conditions at both

403
00:24:10,600 --> 00:24:15,080
Speaker 1: the workhouse and the district jail. Photographs of recently released

404
00:24:15,160 --> 00:24:18,520
Speaker 1: women wrapped in blankets and clearly traumatized on their way

405
00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:21,440
Speaker 1: out of the facilities played a role in garnering sympathy

406
00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:25,919
Speaker 1: as well. Eventually, a district court ruled that their arrests

407
00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:28,960
Speaker 1: had not been justified in the first place and ordered

408
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:31,600
Speaker 1: the District of Columbia to pay all the court costs.

409
00:24:32,359 --> 00:24:36,240
Speaker 1: Superintendent Whittaker and Louis zincom Warden of the District Jail

410
00:24:36,359 --> 00:24:40,520
Speaker 1: were both suspended and later fired. All of the high

411
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Speaker 1: profile arrests and the incidents that had happened while the

412
00:24:43,280 --> 00:24:46,480
Speaker 1: women were incarcerated really started to make suffrage a moral

413
00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:50,840
Speaker 1: issue for President Woodrow Wilson, and running into tandem with

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Speaker 1: the women from the n WP being arrested and incarcerated

415
00:24:54,760 --> 00:24:59,880
Speaker 1: and having a whole high profile horror behind bars. Then

416
00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:04,240
Speaker 1: National American Women Women's Suffrage Association had also framed itself

417
00:25:04,280 --> 00:25:08,040
Speaker 1: as a patriotic organization supporting the war effort, while also

418
00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:11,080
Speaker 1: diplomatically making a case that the United States making the

419
00:25:11,119 --> 00:25:15,000
Speaker 1: world safe for democracy included enfranchising all of its own

420
00:25:15,080 --> 00:25:18,879
Speaker 1: citizens at home, not just the male ones. So with

421
00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:23,040
Speaker 1: pressure coming from multiple directions, in January of nineteen eighteen,

422
00:25:23,240 --> 00:25:27,720
Speaker 1: after years of being coy and evasive at best, Woodrow

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00:25:27,760 --> 00:25:31,560
Speaker 1: Wilson publicly announced his support for the constitutional Amendment for

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Speaker 1: women's suffrage that had been introduced all the way back

425
00:25:35,040 --> 00:25:38,320
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy eight and failed every time it had

426
00:25:38,400 --> 00:25:42,680
Speaker 1: come up for vote. Even with the president's support, though,

427
00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:45,920
Speaker 1: it still didn't have enough congressional support to pass in

428
00:25:46,119 --> 00:25:49,200
Speaker 1: both houses of Congress in nineteen eighteen, So the n

429
00:25:49,359 --> 00:25:53,000
Speaker 1: w P kept on with its protests, still getting arrested

430
00:25:53,040 --> 00:25:56,040
Speaker 1: in cycles. Throughout all of this, they started lighting what

431
00:25:56,200 --> 00:25:59,640
Speaker 1: they called watch fires of Freedom outside of public buildings.

432
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:02,359
Speaker 1: These were urns in which they set fire to the

433
00:26:02,440 --> 00:26:05,719
Speaker 1: texts of Wilson's speeches that related to freedom and democracy.

434
00:26:06,320 --> 00:26:09,480
Speaker 1: They also embarked on a cross country speaking tour in

435
00:26:09,680 --> 00:26:14,240
Speaker 1: prison garb called the Prison Special. As I mentioned earlier,

436
00:26:14,320 --> 00:26:17,399
Speaker 1: they kept being arrested, and they kept being incarcerated, but

437
00:26:17,800 --> 00:26:22,400
Speaker 1: there wasn't another incident as traumatic as the Night of Terror. Finally,

438
00:26:22,560 --> 00:26:25,280
Speaker 1: after a nineteen eighteen election cycle in which the n

439
00:26:25,359 --> 00:26:28,040
Speaker 1: A w s A, the n w P, and other

440
00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:32,840
Speaker 1: organizations had aggressively campaigned for candidates who would support the amendment.

441
00:26:33,440 --> 00:26:36,440
Speaker 1: The House of Representatives passed it in May of nineteen

442
00:26:36,520 --> 00:26:40,920
Speaker 1: nineteen in the Senate followed in June. From there, the

443
00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:43,480
Speaker 1: Nineteenth of Men meant needed to be ratified by thirty

444
00:26:43,560 --> 00:26:46,720
Speaker 1: six of the then forty eight states. The NWP and

445
00:26:46,800 --> 00:26:50,200
Speaker 1: other women's rights organizations kept up with their advocacy all

446
00:26:50,320 --> 00:26:53,159
Speaker 1: through the rest of nineteen nineteen and into nineteen twenty.

447
00:26:53,680 --> 00:26:56,920
Speaker 1: A ratification flag hung at the n WP headquarters, with

448
00:26:57,040 --> 00:26:59,840
Speaker 1: a new star sewn on each time a state ratified

449
00:26:59,880 --> 00:27:03,479
Speaker 1: the amendment. The Nineteenth Amendment finally got enough support from

450
00:27:03,480 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 1: the states when Tennessee ratified it on August eighteenth nine.

451
00:27:07,680 --> 00:27:11,399
Speaker 1: It was signed into law on August, and with that,

452
00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:14,240
Speaker 1: the n w P turned their focus to an equal

453
00:27:14,359 --> 00:27:17,640
Speaker 1: rights amendment. The n A W s A eventually evolved

454
00:27:17,800 --> 00:27:21,440
Speaker 1: into the League of Women Voters. The Equal Rights Amendment

455
00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:26,720
Speaker 1: could be a whole other podcast. So when we talk

456
00:27:26,720 --> 00:27:28,679
Speaker 1: about the nineteenth Amendment, a lot of times we hear

457
00:27:28,720 --> 00:27:30,679
Speaker 1: it as and then women had the right to vote.

458
00:27:31,280 --> 00:27:33,440
Speaker 1: But the n a W s A and the nwp's

459
00:27:33,520 --> 00:27:36,879
Speaker 1: work throughout this whole period was overwhelmingly by and about

460
00:27:36,920 --> 00:27:41,119
Speaker 1: white women. Both organizations were really fearful of losing the

461
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:44,879
Speaker 1: support of Southern white women and of Southern legislators in general,

462
00:27:45,040 --> 00:27:47,800
Speaker 1: so whenever the subject of race came up, they mostly

463
00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:51,359
Speaker 1: worked to appease Jim Crow attitudes rather than actually working

464
00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:53,920
Speaker 1: for the right to vote for all women. And the

465
00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:59,119
Speaker 1: MWPS more radical tactics, which really were standing outside the

466
00:27:59,160 --> 00:28:01,639
Speaker 1: White House until you got rested. At this point, they

467
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:06,480
Speaker 1: really effectively excluded black women. A strategy that included picketing

468
00:28:06,520 --> 00:28:09,480
Speaker 1: outside the White House and being arrested and incarcerated over

469
00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:13,359
Speaker 1: and over was inherently far riskier for black women than

470
00:28:13,440 --> 00:28:17,560
Speaker 1: for white women. Similarly, the ultimate effects of the Nineteenth

471
00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 1: Amendment were focused on white women. When the Nineteenth Amendment

472
00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:23,840
Speaker 1: was signed into law, it combined with the fifteenth Amendment

473
00:28:23,960 --> 00:28:27,720
Speaker 1: to give all citizens the right to vote, regardless of sex, race, color,

474
00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:33,080
Speaker 1: or previous condition of servitude. Both amendments were extremely straightforward

475
00:28:33,119 --> 00:28:36,359
Speaker 1: on this point, with almost identical language beginning quote the

476
00:28:36,520 --> 00:28:39,480
Speaker 1: right of citizens of the United States to vote shall

477
00:28:39,560 --> 00:28:42,280
Speaker 1: not be denied or bridged by the United States or

478
00:28:42,360 --> 00:28:45,720
Speaker 1: by any State on account of and then the Nineteenth

479
00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:49,280
Speaker 1: Amendment ends that sentence with sex. The Fifteenth Amendment ends

480
00:28:49,320 --> 00:28:53,800
Speaker 1: it with race, color, or previous conditioners of servitude, but

481
00:28:53,960 --> 00:28:57,160
Speaker 1: in practice, in the decades following the ratification of the

482
00:28:57,240 --> 00:29:00,640
Speaker 1: Fifteenth Amendment after the end of the Civil War, many

483
00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:04,280
Speaker 1: states had passed laws that made no reference directly to race,

484
00:29:04,400 --> 00:29:06,800
Speaker 1: but they selectively made it a lot harder for people

485
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:11,840
Speaker 1: of color, particularly black people, to vote. Poll taxes disproportionately

486
00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:15,120
Speaker 1: affected the black population, who were often among the nation's

487
00:29:15,200 --> 00:29:19,800
Speaker 1: poorest citizens, especially since centuries of enslavement meant that many

488
00:29:19,880 --> 00:29:24,160
Speaker 1: black families had been prevented from earning any money. Impossible

489
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:28,560
Speaker 1: to pass literacy tests were subjectively graded by white government officials,

490
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:31,440
Speaker 1: and in many states were only required of those whose

491
00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:36,000
Speaker 1: grandfathers had not been registered to vote. Since most black

492
00:29:36,080 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 1: citizens grandfathers had not been allowed to vote, this meant

493
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:42,280
Speaker 1: that only black citizens had to take this impossible test,

494
00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:46,760
Speaker 1: and outside the realm of law, white supremacist organizations like

495
00:29:46,840 --> 00:29:51,480
Speaker 1: the Ku Klux Klan actively intimidated, threatened, harassed, and even

496
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:56,080
Speaker 1: murdered people to keep black citizens from voting. So, even

497
00:29:56,120 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 1: though the letter of the nineteenth Amendment gave all women

498
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:01,280
Speaker 1: the right to vote, and it's often celebrated as all

499
00:30:01,360 --> 00:30:04,360
Speaker 1: women getting the right to vote, and practice, Black women

500
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:09,040
Speaker 1: were overwhelmingly excluded from actually exercising that right. Even after

501
00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:11,360
Speaker 1: the Civil Rights Movement and the passage of the Civil

502
00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:14,880
Speaker 1: Rights Act of nineteen sixty four, discriminatory laws that don't

503
00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:19,720
Speaker 1: specifically mentioned race, but disproportionately affect minorities, particularly black people,

504
00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:24,800
Speaker 1: continue to be an issue in the United States, such

505
00:30:24,840 --> 00:30:26,760
Speaker 1: the Night of Terror and it's aftermath. This is actually

506
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:31,000
Speaker 1: why sometimes on the Internet there is this picture of

507
00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:35,000
Speaker 1: a bunch of women in bathing suits. They're actually eating pie,

508
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:39,239
Speaker 1: But this the caption that circulates with this picture all

509
00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:41,760
Speaker 1: the time is that it's women in their bathing suits

510
00:30:41,800 --> 00:30:45,479
Speaker 1: eating pizza during the suffrage movement to annoy men, right,

511
00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:49,320
Speaker 1: And it outrages me every time I see it, because

512
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:52,760
Speaker 1: the suffrage movement was not a pizza party, and it

513
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:55,560
Speaker 1: was not done to annoy men. It was done at

514
00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:57,880
Speaker 1: a lot of personal cost to the women involved with

515
00:30:57,960 --> 00:31:01,560
Speaker 1: it to get women the right of vote. It's actually

516
00:31:01,600 --> 00:31:05,880
Speaker 1: a picture of a pie eating contest that happened like

517
00:31:06,120 --> 00:31:08,760
Speaker 1: way late. It was not any kind of early suffrage thing.

518
00:31:08,920 --> 00:31:11,080
Speaker 1: It was like way late in the whole movement had

519
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:14,120
Speaker 1: nothing to do with its painting contests. So every time

520
00:31:14,160 --> 00:31:16,520
Speaker 1: I see it, that's one of those things that's always

521
00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:20,160
Speaker 1: been so weird to me in that like someone there's

522
00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:22,600
Speaker 1: some genesis point where they looked at that picture and said,

523
00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:25,800
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm gonna completely lie about what this is,

524
00:31:26,440 --> 00:31:29,800
Speaker 1: Like what was their goal? I don't know, but you

525
00:31:29,840 --> 00:31:33,480
Speaker 1: know I have I have an overall rule about correcting

526
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:36,400
Speaker 1: people on the Internet, and and it's only to correct

527
00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:40,240
Speaker 1: people if you're preventing embarrassment and or preventing harm. And

528
00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:44,280
Speaker 1: I will correct people on that picture because I think

529
00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:47,400
Speaker 1: it's harmful to spread the idea that the suffrage movement

530
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:52,480
Speaker 1: was like a whimsical fun party time right embarked upon

531
00:31:52,560 --> 00:31:56,120
Speaker 1: to annoy men like like it was a fun little

532
00:31:56,160 --> 00:32:03,200
Speaker 1: activity for some ladies. It was not remotely. Do you

533
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:08,600
Speaker 1: have um pie eating contest? Listener mail, It's not contest,

534
00:32:08,640 --> 00:32:14,640
Speaker 1: but it is a less violence, uh topic than then.

535
00:32:14,720 --> 00:32:18,680
Speaker 1: This story has been today. Um. This is from Sarah

536
00:32:18,840 --> 00:32:21,520
Speaker 1: and it came in recently about our episode about Theodosja

537
00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:25,000
Speaker 1: Burr Alston and it says the title is another Theodoja

538
00:32:25,080 --> 00:32:27,760
Speaker 1: burt story. Uh. And Sarah says she's been a fan

539
00:32:27,920 --> 00:32:30,520
Speaker 1: of the show for many years, and she learned this

540
00:32:30,680 --> 00:32:34,680
Speaker 1: story on vacation in the Outer Banks. We did a

541
00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:38,200
Speaker 1: ghost tour in Manio on Roanoke Island, and Theodoja's was

542
00:32:38,320 --> 00:32:40,800
Speaker 1: one of the stories we heard. This is definitely a

543
00:32:40,960 --> 00:32:44,960
Speaker 1: highly unlikely story, told in colorful, embellish detailed by our guide,

544
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:47,840
Speaker 1: who was quite a character himself, but it's interesting and

545
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:51,320
Speaker 1: I'm paraphrasing his telling here. The patriot was taking by

546
00:32:51,400 --> 00:32:53,560
Speaker 1: pirates off the coast of Nag's Head, and it was

547
00:32:53,760 --> 00:32:57,720
Speaker 1: extremely violent and traumatic for the passengers. Left alive to

548
00:32:57,800 --> 00:33:01,800
Speaker 1: be ransomed, Theodosia became history. Racle direct quote. Pirates are

549
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:04,560
Speaker 1: very superstitious by nature, and the one thing that terrifies

550
00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:06,480
Speaker 1: them as a crazy woman. It's bad luck to have

551
00:33:06,600 --> 00:33:09,640
Speaker 1: one on your ship. So they put her ashore near

552
00:33:09,760 --> 00:33:12,240
Speaker 1: Nag's Head and left her there. She carried her portrait

553
00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:14,640
Speaker 1: with her. She was found on a beach by a banker,

554
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:17,520
Speaker 1: our first time hearing that term too, and he brought

555
00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:20,280
Speaker 1: her home to his wife. She was physically ill and

556
00:33:20,400 --> 00:33:22,880
Speaker 1: so traumatized by the events of the voyage that she

557
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:26,480
Speaker 1: had amnesia, but she couldn't tell them anything about herself

558
00:33:26,560 --> 00:33:28,920
Speaker 1: or even her name. She remained living with the family

559
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:31,440
Speaker 1: and Nag's head, keeping the portrait hanging near her bed,

560
00:33:31,600 --> 00:33:34,880
Speaker 1: never able to recall her earlier life, many years went by,

561
00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:37,880
Speaker 1: until finally, in eighteen sixty nine, Theodosia was very ill

562
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:40,360
Speaker 1: and the family called a doctor for her. The doctor

563
00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:42,720
Speaker 1: cared for her as she passed away in the family,

564
00:33:42,800 --> 00:33:45,080
Speaker 1: who didn't have any money, asked him if he'd be

565
00:33:45,120 --> 00:33:47,720
Speaker 1: willing to accept something of value from their home in

566
00:33:47,800 --> 00:33:50,440
Speaker 1: lieu of payment. He took the portrait. Ever since then,

567
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:54,080
Speaker 1: Theodosia is said to wander the beach looking for her

568
00:33:54,200 --> 00:33:57,800
Speaker 1: lost portrait. Of course, the timeline here is pretty far fetched.

569
00:33:57,840 --> 00:34:00,200
Speaker 1: Theodosia would have lived to be eighty six years old

570
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:03,960
Speaker 1: in the scenario, extremely unlikely given her health problems. My

571
00:34:04,080 --> 00:34:05,840
Speaker 1: sister and I did a bunch of reading up on

572
00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:08,200
Speaker 1: the story and came across the various versions you mentioned

573
00:34:08,280 --> 00:34:10,080
Speaker 1: in the show. I just wanted to share one more

574
00:34:10,239 --> 00:34:12,080
Speaker 1: with you. Thank you so much for the show. We

575
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:15,200
Speaker 1: love it, Sarah. Thank you for this story. Sarah. That

576
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:18,560
Speaker 1: is deed pretty far fetched, and it does sound so

577
00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:21,000
Speaker 1: much like a story that you would hear on like

578
00:34:21,239 --> 00:34:28,239
Speaker 1: a a coastal historical tour. I went on one of

579
00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:31,080
Speaker 1: Charleston one time, and I had a tour guide who

580
00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:34,040
Speaker 1: was He was such a character, and he was so

581
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:37,680
Speaker 1: funny and so knowledgeable, and also he would say things

582
00:34:37,760 --> 00:34:39,319
Speaker 1: and I would kind of go, I'm not sure if

583
00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:46,919
Speaker 1: that's legit. So anyway, if you would like to write

584
00:34:46,920 --> 00:34:49,080
Speaker 1: to us about this or any other podcast, where at

585
00:34:49,160 --> 00:34:52,600
Speaker 1: History podcast at how stepworks dot com. We're also at

586
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:56,480
Speaker 1: missed in History all across our social media and if

587
00:34:56,520 --> 00:34:58,600
Speaker 1: you come to our website, which is missed in History

588
00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:00,319
Speaker 1: dot com, you will find show No. It's for all

589
00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:02,480
Speaker 1: the episodes Holly and I have ever worked on together,

590
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:06,000
Speaker 1: and a searchable archive of every episode ever. So come

591
00:35:06,080 --> 00:35:08,480
Speaker 1: and see us at missed in History dot com