It’s the
Centennial Anniversary month of one of the most important Constitutional
Amendments. All of the amendments are relevant
with importance, but I’m rather biased about this one. On August 18, 1920, the
19th Amendment which gives women the right to vote in this country was
ratified. Two weeks later on August 26,
1920, US Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby formally announced this amendment
as being an official part of the Constitution of the United States of America. While the campaign for women’s suffrage began
in the 1820s, the “official” fight was launched in 1848 with the first Women’s
Convention in Seneca Falls, NY. Susan B.
Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucretia Mott were influential suffragists
of that time (Anthony and Stanton formed the National Woman Suffrage Movement
in 1869). It took 72 years from that
convention to win the fight; many of us feel it continues in other ways today.
One hundred years isn’t
so long ago. If we put it into
perspective, a large portion of people who read this blog were born, married,
and had children in the 20th century.
Many of us had parents or grandparents (or others who factored
significantly in our lives) who were born before this right was won. In the 20th Century, prior to
1920, some important inventions and events of note: the vacuum cleaner, air
conditioning, the electrocardiogram, radar, radio broadcasting, electric
washing machines, sonar, the Kodak Brownie camera, the Model T automobile,
silent movies and “talkies”, the first operation of the New York Subway system
occurred as did the Wright Brothers powering that infamous flight at Kitty
Hawk, and then there was the Titanic.
Before women could vote. Think
about it. While men of color faced
obstacles in voting at polling places in the south, the right to vote was
guaranteed to them in 1870 with the ratification of the 15th
Amendment. It took another fifty years for women; prior to that females were
viewed as property of the central male figure in their life (father, husband,
brother, etc). Married women couldn’t
own property, and had no legal claim to money they might earn or have
inherited. Again, think about it. Property, servant, poor relation, wife,
mother. Imagine giving birth to a son knowing he would be entitled to rights
you’d never have yourself; worse might be having a daughter and worrying about
her fate which would be completely out of your control.
We stand on the
shoulders of all the women who came before us, but especially the women who
fought and demanded women have the vote.
They suffered tremendously for it.
The first march on Washington, D.C. occurred in 1913 and was by the women’s
suffrage movement demanding the right to vote. They stole President Woodrow
Wilson’s inauguration thunder by marching in front of the White House the day
before his big event in an attempt to bring attention to this issue. Many were arrested and tortured. They were known as “suffragists” in the US
because the suffragettes (their UK counterparts) used vandalism, destruction,
and physical acts of violence to get their point across. The suffragists thought they stood a better
chance of succeeding by using peaceful tactics, and the name association might
undermine their efforts. For seven years
after that march on Washington, these “Silent Sentinels” as they were known
because they only picketed and held signs, were tortured, beaten, arrested,
humiliated, incarcerated, force-fed with tubes up their nostrils, (and suffered
many other inhumane indignities) simply because they demanded the right to
vote. In 1920, they succeeded, beating
their UK counterparts by eight years.
It’s significant
to note that some women could vote in certain parts of the US prior to it
becoming a right for all women in every state (having equal voting rights as
men); it was the same in the UK where certain “conditions” granted it. The Wyoming Territory was the first to grant
its female citizens the right to vote in 1869. Eventually, Colorado, Utah,
Idaho, the Alaska Territory, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Illinois, Indiana,
Kansas, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma,
Oregon, South Dakota, and Washington followed suit by 1918.
The first Suffrage
Proposal, which would eventually become the 19th Amendment, was
introduced to Congress in 1878, and was rejected; in 1890, the National American
Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was established. Some important names to remember who were
instrumental in seeing what was initially referred to as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment
passed and ratified were Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, and Carrie Chapman Catt.
 |
| Alice Paul |
Alice Paul and
Lucy Burns founded the National Woman’s Party, and were leaders who organized the
two-and-a-half-year-vigil of picketing in front of the White House during Woodrow
Wilson’s administration. They silently
protested six days per week, holding signs and marching. During this time, many of the over 2,000 women
who participated were harassed, arrested and unjustly treated by local and
national authorities, including the torture and abuse inflicted on them before
and during the infamous November 14, 1917 “Night of Terror” at Occoquan
Workhouse in Virginia. Carrie Chapman Catt opposed the protests, believing it
hurt the cause.
 |
| Lucy Burns |
Of all of the
women, Lucy Burns was arrested the most.
She eventually retired from the cause after 1920, saying it was time
other women step forward and take on the fight. She died in 1966. Alice Paul would eventually pen the Equal
Rights Amendment, introducing it in 1923, and seeing it passed in 1972 while pushing
the fight until her death in 1977. However, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)
was never ratified. Of note, the 19th
Amendment is the only amendment to the constitution that mentions the word ‘woman’;
the only right guaranteed to women is the federal right to vote.
There is so much
history and an endless roll call of names instrumental in getting all women the
same voting rights as men. I’m surprised
at just how many women in this country do not know their history; equally
surprising is the number of women who choose not to exercise their precious
right to vote. History is important.
Finally, I’d like
to share the beginning of a play that I’ve been working on that is based on a
fictional meeting between Alice Paul and Nellie Bly. Lucy Burns plays a role in it, as does a
fictional character by the name of Adelia Jones. It opens with an explanation of its title, Silent
Sentinels, and with a soliloquy by Lucy Burns. Please keep in mind it
is a rough, first draft. I can only hope
that one day it will see the stage.
As always, please
remember that copyright applies, and equally as always…thank you for continuing
to read my work.
SILENT SENTINELS
By Veronica Randolph
Batterson
©Veronica Randolph
Batterson 2019
On November 14, 1917,
33 women (after multiple arrests for nearly two years) had once again been
arrested and were being held in Virginia’s notorious Occoquan Workhouse. Their
“crime” involved silently marching in front of the White House in an appeal to
President Woodrow Wilson to give women the right to vote. They marched and they
held signs. On that fateful night, they suffered brutal physical abuse at the
hands of those who held them incarcerated, under the directive of a judge who
had grown tired of sentencing them.
Later known as The Night of Terror, the
suffragists were tortured, with one having a heart attack after being physically
thrown by a guard. Lucy Burns spent the
entire night handcuffed with her hands above her head. Because she refused to eat, eventually it
would take five guards to hold her down while they force fed her by shoving a
tube up her nostril, causing severe nose bleeds. Of all the well-known
suffragists, Burns spent the most time in jail.
Eventually, public
outrage at how these women were treated would force Wilson to call a special
session in May of 1919. The Susan B.
Anthony Amendment was passed in June of 1919, and was ratified in August of
1920. The 19th Amendment to
the Constitution finally guaranteed women the right to vote due to the bravery
of over 2,000 women who, throughout a 2 ½ year vigil, picketed silently and
were harassed, arrested and unjustly treated by authorities. These suffragists were known as the Silent
Sentinels.
While it is probable
that Nellie Bly and Alice Paul might have known each other, there is no record
they ever met, nor any record Bly ever reached out to either Paul or Lucy Burns. The Bly/Paul encounter is fictional, as is
the character of Adelia.
Act One
Scene One
Open.
Setting: a park in
Brooklyn, NY. November, 1921
There is a bench, covered with
snow. LUCY BURNS appears clutching
an open letter. She is distraught and paces before wiping the snow from the
bench and sitting down on it. She is alone.
LUCY BURNS
This horrible woman!
(she shakes the letter and reads it aloud) ‘I
am certain you realize that public
interest is great. Why not inform the readers what has happened to the
suffragists of yesterday?’ (she stops reading) Yesterday? The gall. Does
she not realize that we are still fighting? Fighting the demons of yesterday
that no one would understand, including herself, that’s what. Fighting for our
sanity and peace. Hoping someone else will take up the fight for tomorrow?
Fighting for simply being left alone. (she weeps, then continues looking up)
Why is it that I feel such dislike for this woman? Did I not march and endure
the unspeakable so that all women, including those such as herself, would have
opportunity and see their rights equal to men realized? Try as I might, I
cannot shake the feeling of resentment toward her, and those like her. Those who
chose to sit at home, knitting or saying ‘yes, dear’ to their husbands who no
more thought they deserved the vote than the ones who cuffed me to a jail cell
while I bled from my nose. (she stares, and in barely a whisper continues) Even
now, after all that, they will more than likely never vote, thinking they do
not deserve to, and believing those same men who tell them they cannot. What
was the fight for then? (she stands) If they had just taken part, perhaps they
would know the sacrifice it took to give them the right they do not exercise.
(she stares in a trance as lights dim over her)
Audience hears what LUCY BURNS is
remembering: the roll call of each woman incarcerated in Occoquan. As each
woman says her name, a spotlight appears behind her, disappearing as the next
is called.
Offstage
LUCY BURNS’
VOICE: Roll Call!
©Veronica Randolph Batterson 2019
