Celebrating the 19th Amendment: After the March

 Celebrating the 19th Amendment: 

After the March

By 1917, Alice Paul and Lucy Burns had organized a new, more militant suffrage organization: The National Women's Party. In January 1917, the NWP set up a silent picket outside the White House gates. Suffragists were frustrated by the lack of results after years of meetings. They decided to use the White House building as a stage to influence the man inside. The "Silent Sentinels" wanted to make it impossible for the President to enter or leave the White House without encountering a sentinel bearing some device pleading the suffrage cause."

"To ask for freedom for women is not a crime. Suffrage prisoners should not be treated as criminals." Arrested over and over, Alice Paul, Lucy Burns and others went on hunger strike and were force fed  by tubes shoved down their throats.

Kaiser Wilson: Have you forgotten your sympathy for the poor Germans because they were not self-governed? 20,000,000 American women are not self-governed." The banners compared the president to the German emperor. The suffragists wanted to point out the hypocrisy on the part of President Wilson to support the cause of freedom in WWI but not support the freedom of women at home. Shortly after this photo is taken, on August 13, 1917, a crowd begins to taunt and intimidate the suffragists. Some people are pelting the women with eggs and tomatoes! They tear the banners from women's hands and rip them up. The women make more, only to have those taken as well. Nevertheless, they persisted! 

August 26, 2020: Women's Equality Day. "We did it! hooray!" Susanna celebrates the 100th anniversary of the 19th-amendment. 

While Susanna is happy, she's heard there's still work to do. "Addy told me many women like her can't vote. Anita can't vote either because she's an immigrant and poor! My guardian tells me all women didn't get the right to vote until Melody's time. I don't know this girl Melody. I guess I have to go there next and find out what happened!" 

Alice Paul paused to drink a glass of grape juice, sew the final stars on her suffrage flag and then got to work on an equal rights amendment. It still has not been passed as a Constitutional amendment. There is still work to do and Susanna is proud to grow up in a time when people are (still) fighting for their rights. She knows the future will be different, if only she can get there.

 Yoohoo Luciana! We need your spaceship!

Celebrating the 19th Amendment: Time Travel to the Women's Suffrage Parade in 1913

 

Celebrating the 19th Amendment: 

Time Travel to the Women's Suffrage Parade in 1913

Liberty makes her "lyrical" entrance to the "Triumphal March" of Verdi's Aida. Liberty, clad in crimson silk, moves across the stage "a flying figure, unfettered and free."

Liberty dancing with twisting and turning movements interprets the music concerning a female slave and her struggle for liberty. Liberty dances "triumphant and free."

Peace, in a gown of silver and white, releases a dove from the top of the steps. (the tune is the overture from Wagner's Lohengrin). She descends with her attendants who hold olive branches and cornucopias

The final allegorical figure is Hope. Like a "bright spirit" she dances between the Treasury's columns to "Elsa's Dream" from Lohengrin. This music portrays a woman's sentiment of hope amid life and death circumstances. 

When she finishes, Hope will be joined by rainbow-hued attendants to the tune of Dvorak's "Humoreske." Then a troop of 50 children will come out holding balloons. Together they will all dance "merrily" to Mendelssohn's "Spring Song" and greet Columbia at center stage.

The rainbow symbolizes a better tomorrow for women. "After a storm comes sunshine and the indication of a beautiful day." Hearing the approach of the Procession, summons to her side, Justice, Charity, Liberty, Peace and Hope, to review with her this "new crusade" of women. The cast assembles, the band plays "America" to form the final tableau.

Time will tell if we are successful at getting the vote. Thank you to the professional actresses and dancers who participated in the tableau. We'll see you at the next march!

(See more in the original archival photos)

Woman Suffrage Postcard 1913 Smithsonian Institution

National Women's Party Photograph Collection (Columbia)

National Women's Party Photograph Collection (Justice)

National Women's Party Photograph Collection (Charity)

National Women's Party Photograph Collection (Charity)

National Women's Party Photograph Collection (Liberty and Attendants)

and original newspapers

Woman's Journal and Suffrage News

Read the specific details that inspired this tableau and the previous sections

Document Deep Dive: A Historic Moment in the Fight for Women's Voting Rights

Why Did the Suffragists Wear Medieval costumes? 

Annelise K. Madsen, Columbia and Her Foot Soldiers: Civic Art and the Demand for Change at the 1913 Suffrage Pageant-Procession, Winterthur Portfolio, Vol. 48, No. 4 (Winter 2014), pp. 283-310 (scholarly article)

Original source photographs:

Suffragette Parade Pennsylvania Avenue Stereoscope card at the Library of Congress

Head of Suffrage Parade in Washington, DC March 3, 1913 at the Library of Congress

The 1913 Women's Suffrage Parade  The Atlantic 

The Woman Suffrage Procession in Photos
See colorized photos of women's suffrage

Read more:

Women's Suffrage Centennial Commission 

Women's Suffrage 100 Massachusetts film Looking Back, Marching Forward

California 2020 Women's Suffrage Project

Our Documents- 19th Amendment to the Constitution 

1913 Woman Suffrage Procession National Park Service

Rightfully Hers: American Women and the Vote  National Archives

Crusade for the Vote National Women's History Museum

Women's Suffrage Memorabilia

Ann Lewis Collection of Women's Suffrage Memorabilia

Smithsonian Learning Lab Collections

Smithsonian Institution Spotlight: Votes for Women

Woman's Journal and Suffrage News 

Symbols of the Women's Suffrage Movement National Park Service

Suffragist Memorial: African-American Women Leaders in the Suffrage Movement

African-American Women and the 19th Amendment National Park Service 

Marching for the Vote: Remembering the Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913 Library of Congress

Parading for Progress National Women's History Museum

Harriet Stanton Blatch New York State Museum

She Resisted: Strategies of Suffrage PBS American Experience

The Movement as a Mosaic: Alice Paul and Woman Suffrage National Archives

The Vote and the Adirondack's Own Inez Milholland PBS American Experience

Creating Icons: How We Remember the Woman Suffrage  Smithsonian National Museum of American History

The Long Battle for Women's Suffrage   Smithsonian Magazine

Votes for Women: A Visual History Brandywine River Museum of Art

On Her Own Wings: Oregon Women and the Struggle for Suffrage

The Many Official Colors of the Women's Suffrage Movement

Original newspaper article on the parade from the San Francisco Chronicle

Celebrating the 19th Amendment: Time Travel to the Women's Suffrage Parade in 1913

 

Celebrating the 19th Amendment: 

Time Travel to the Women's Suffrage Parade in 1913

On the steps of the Treasury allegorical tableau is taking place. The procession is intended to show "what woman is striving to achieve, as well as what she has so far attained." The allegory portrays "those ideals toward which both men and women have been struggling through the ages and toward which, in co-operation and equality, they will continue to strive." The band plays "The Star Spangled Banner"

Columbia, robed in a blue velvet mantle lined with the stars and stripes, wearing a white silk dress, breast plate and helmet and carrying an eagle-topped scepter in her right hand, emerges from behind the Treasury columns and descends the Treasury steps to the edge of the plaza. She will meet the personified nation and her ideals.

After saluting the audience, Columbia then summons Justice who enters to the melodies of Wagner's "Pilgrim's Chorus." Dressed in robes of purple, sword in hand, Justice moves across the stage with her 12 attendants. 

Justice's attendants manipulate large parchment-like scrolls as they move towards Columbia.

Next comes Charity in robes of blue led by a girl and boy, followed by older girls. They arrive to the tune of Handel's "Largo." After greeting Columbia, Charity takes her place at the front of the plaza at stage left, with Justice and her crew assembled at stage right.

Celebrating the 19th Amendment: Time Travel to the Women's Suffrage Parade in 1913

 

Celebrating the 19th Amendment: 

Time Travel to the Women's Suffrage Parade in 1913

Harriot Stanton Blatch, daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, organizes working women in the Women's Political Union. New Jersey WPU women march wearing green, white and violet. 

Women of color are allowed to participate but asked to march in the back of the parade as so not to alienate the southern delegations. Prominent civil rights activist and suffragist, Ida B. Wells-Barnett doesn't agree with the decision. "I shall not march at all unless it is under the Illinois banner…Either I go with you or not at all. I am taking not this stand because I personally wish for recognition, I am doing it for the future benefit of my whole race.” 

She is an anti-lynching activist and founder of the National Association of Colored Women’s Club to address issues dealing with civil rights and women’s suffrage. Earlier this year, in January, she also co-founded the Alpha Suffrage Club, which was the first suffrage organization for Black women in Illinois. Her flag and sash represent the nine states that have granted women's suffrage. 

At 2 p.m. the Illinois delegation assembled on New Jersey Avenue and Wells was nowhere to be found. The other two ladies who agreed to march with Ida in the separate section, Geraldine Brooks and Belle Squire (co-founders of the Alpha Suffrage Club) went to look for her, but returned to the march without Ida. Ida jumps in and marches with the Illinois delegation mid-way through. You may see more "colored" women in various delegations such as professional groups, women's clubs, sororities and women's clubs. You may also see some on the floats, in the marching bands and other places. [Editor's note: I ran out of energy to change Addy multiple times in one day but look for a women's history month project highlighting specific women in the future.]

Uh-oh, the crowd is getting rowdy. Men surge into the street making it almost impossible for the marchers to pass. Occasionally only a single file can move forward. Women are jeered, tripped, grabbed, shoved, and many hear “indecent epithets” and “barnyard conversation.”  The police do nothing to protect us and even join in the heckling.

[Non-costumed women march here.] 

Mrs. Champ Clark, (Genevieve Davis Bennett Clark)  D.C. resident and an active figure in the suffrage movement. Her husband, Champ Clark, is a Democrat and the Speaker of the House  representing Missouri. 

Farm women are represented too in their faded gingham gowns and sunbonnets. 

Celebrating the 19th Amendment: Time Travel to the Women's Suffrage Parade in 1913

 

Celebrating the 19th Amendment: 

Time Travel to the Women's Suffrage Parade in 1913 

"General" Rosalie Jones led a group of 225 marchers from New York to Washington, DC. This morning, a cavalry brigade of women met General Jones and escorted the group into DC. 

The sections of the parade represent the progress of women's rights. The fourth section represents "The Appeal of Business and the Professions," It includes business women and teachers, women in government service, social workers, librarians, writers, artists, actresses and musicians. 

Musicians march in red. 

The sun is shining brightly and it is just cold enough to make walking enjoyable. The procession advances up Pennsylvania Avenue with groups of marchers cascading into formation from side streets. 

Homemakers march in white.  White dresses symbolize the femininity and purity of the suffrage cause.

The steady stream of people walk and ride horseback to the U.S. Treasury Building at 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.

The future leaders of the movement are Lucy Burns and Alice Paul, currently members of the National Woman Suffrage Association, founded in 1869 by Susan B. Anthony. We march because "this is the most conspicuous and important demonstration that has ever been attempted by suffragists in this country."

Alice Paul has introduced the new color scheme of gold, purple and white. "Purple is the color of loyalty, constancy to purpose, unswerving steadfastness to a cause. White, the emblem of purity, symbolizes the quality of our purpose; and gold, the color of light and life, is as the torch that guides our purpose, pure and unswerving.”

Because this parade will be taken to indicate the importance of the suffrage movement by the press of the country and the thousands of spectators from all over the United States gathered in Washington for the Inauguration.

Celebrating the 19th Amendment: Time Travel to the Women's Suffrage Parade in 1913

 Celebrating the 19th Amendment: 

Time Travel to the Women's Suffrage Parade in 1913 

The section section chronicles "The Seventy-Five Years' Struggle for Freedom or Justice Conquering Prejudice" by highlighting different points in the suffrage movement. This float represents "As It Was in 1840"—The first leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of Woman is standing alone, scorned by her own sex  (3 figures in black representing obstruction to our progress).

As it is today:  4 women in darker purple representing how the suffrage movement has grown over time from the 1840s to the 1860s to today (19teens).

We honor the pioneers of women's suffrage, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. They organized the first women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. Elizabeth Cady Stanton (left) drafted the Declaration of Sentiments. (The woman chosen to represent her is holding a copy).

Our next pioneer needs no introduction. Sojourner Truth was a formerly enslaved woman who took her freedom and advocated for abolition and women's rights.

The next generation of women's rights leaders also included Lucy Stone, abolitionist and suffragist. She was the first Massachusetts woman to earn a college degree and wrote marriage vows to reflect her egalitarian beliefs. When Lucy Stone married Henry Blackwell, she refused to take her husband’s last name.  In 1850 Lucy Stone organized the first national Women’s Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts. 

In 1858 she reminded Americans of the “no taxation without representation” principle refusing to pay property taxes. She was punished by the impoundment and sale of the the family's household goods. 

Lucy Stone went to Kansas to work on the referendum for suffrage there following the Civil War. She also served as president of the New Jersey Women Suffrage Association and helped organize the New England association.

The second wave of suffragists also included Susan B. Anthony, who needs no introduction. She died only 7 years ago. She carries a Kansas sunflower, a symbol of the women's suffrage movement. In 1867, Kansas suffragists adopted the sunflower, the state flower, as a symbol of their campaign. From then on, yellow (gold) became associated with the national women’s suffrage movement. "The color of light and life, is as the torch that guides our purpose, pure and unswerving."

Celebrating the 19th Amendment: Time Travel to the Women's Suffrage Parade in 1913

 Women's Suffrage Parade
Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC
March 3, 1913

Brought to you by Susanna and the magical time travel window.

March 3, 1913, the day before Woodrow Wilson's inauguration, the National American Woman Suffrage Association is parading for women's suffrage down Pennsylvania Avenue. Lawyer and activist Inez Milholland leads over five thousand suffragettes up Pennsylvania Avenue, along with over 20 parade floats, nine bands, and four mounted brigades.

Dressed in white to represent the "New Woman" of the 20th-century, she rides astride a white horse, "Grey Dawn." 

Inez Milholland astride Grey Dawn

Inez's sign features a poem which will soon become a rallying cry for women's suffrage : 

“Forward out of error, 

Leave behind the night. 

Forward through the darkness,

Forward into light!”

The words are meant to evoke the suffrage movement’s goal of a brighter future through women’s votes, and the hope of leaving behind the “error” and “darkness” of oppression.

The first section contains floats that represent countries where women already have full suffrage  (Norway, Finland, New Zealand and Australia), Women from the National Association for Women's Suffrage Norway. Norway has just granted women the right to vote in 1913. In 1906, Finland, was the second country in the world to implement both the right to vote and the right to run for office. Finland was also the first country in Europe to give women the right to vote.

 

This section also features floats bearing women from countries where women have partial suffrage (Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Great Britain and Belgium) and countries where women were working for suffrage. Here is a woman from The National Association for Women's Suffrage (Sweden),  a part of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance.

See the inspiration behind the photos: