AKA Woman Suffrage Procession – March 3, 1913
Today is the 102nd anniversary of The Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913. The parade was held the day before the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson to help advance the women’s suffrage movement. From Wikipedia:
The Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913, officially the Woman Suffrage Procession, was the first suffragist parade in Washington, D.C.. Organized by the suffragist Alice Paul for the National American Woman Suffrage Association, thousands of suffragists marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. on March 3, 1913. The march was scheduled on the day before President Woodrow Wilson‘s inauguration to “march in a spirit of protest against the present political organization of society, from which women are excluded”, as the official program stated.
As for the parade itself, it….
Inez Milholland at the March 3, 1913, Suffrage Parade
…. was led by labor lawyer Inez Milholland, dressed dramatically in white and mounted on a white horse,[8] and included ten bands, five mounted brigades, 26 floats, and around 8000 marchers,[9] including many notables such as Helen Keller, who was scheduled to speak at Constitution Hall after the march. After a good beginning, the marchers encountered crowds, mostly male, on the street that should have been cleared for the parade. They were jeered and harassed while attempting to squeeze by the scoffing crowds, and the police were sometimes of little help, or even participated in the harassment. The Massachusetts and Pennsylvania national guards stepped in. Eventually, boys from the Maryland Agricultural College created a human barrier protecting the women from the angry crowd.[10] Over 200 people were treated for injuries at local hospitals.[11] Despite all this, most of the marchers finished the parade and viewed an allegorical tableau presented near the Treasury Building Read More
When I was in college I took a course in Women’s History which was a very interesting class, one of the books we used was Herstory! In the class we discussed many of the main players in the Woman’s Suffrage movement but I don’t remember the name Inez Milholland, So I had to make a trip back to Wikipedia where I read…..
Inez Milholland Boissevain (August 6, 1886 – November 25, 1916) was a suffragist, labor lawyer, World War I correspondent, and public speaker who greatly influenced the women’s movement in America. She was active in the National Woman’s Party and a key participant in the Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913.
More about Inez Milholland…
After graduation in from Vassar 1909, she tried for admission at both Yale University, Harvard University, and Cambridge University with the purpose of studying law, but was denied due to gender. Milholland was finally matriculated at the New York University Law School, from which she took her LL.B. degree in 1912
Milholland’s causes were far reaching. She was not only interested in prison reform, she sought world peace and worked for equality for African Americans. Milholland was a member of the NAACP, the Women’s Trade Union League, the Equality League of Self Supporting Women in New York (Women’s Political Union), the National Child Labor Committee, and England’s Fabian Society.[5] She was also involved in the National American Woman Suffrage Association, which later branched into the grassroots radical National Woman’s Party
Milholland traveled overseas to Italy at the beginning of World War I shortly after the Lusitania had been torpedoed by a German U-boat. After landing, the captain informed Milholland that a German submarine followed them across the ocean. With this information, she began writing for the Tribune and became a war correspondent. Milholland worked to be seen at the front lines in the war as she continued to write anti-war articles that led to her censure by the Italian government which ousted her from the country.[9]
Upon returning from Italy, Milholland suffered from spouts of depression. She felt that she was kicked off the front line because she was a woman and not because she was a pacifist. She felt like she had returned a failureIn 1916 she went on a tour in the West speaking for women’s rights as a member of the National Woman’s Party. She undertook the tour despite suffering from pernicious anemia and despite the admonitions of her family who were concerned about her deteriorating health. On October 22, 1916, she collapsed in the middle of a speech in Los Angeles, and was rushed to Good Samaritan Hospital. Despite repeated blood transfusions, she died on November 25, 1916.[16]
Milholland’s last public words were, “Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty? Full Biography
It would be almost another three years until the 19th Amendment to the Constitution granting American women the right to vote was ratified!
