SURPRISING WOMEN'S HISTORY
A TRUE STORY EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW!
This is the story of our Mothers and Grandmothers who lived only 90 years ago.
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Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.
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The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed
nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the
vote.
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And by the end of the night, they were barely alive.
Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a
rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk
traffic.'
(Lucy Burns)
They beat Lucy Burns, chained her
hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the
night, bleeding and gasping for air.
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(Dora Lewis)
They
hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed
and knocked her out cold. Her cell mate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was
dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the
guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching,
twisting and kicking the women.
Thus unfolded the 'Night of
Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in
Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists
imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White
House for the right to vote. For weeks, the women's only water came from
an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with
worms.
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(Alice Paul)
When one of the leaders, Alice Paul,
embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube
down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was
tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.
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Mrs. Pauline Adams in the prison garb she wore while serving a 60 day sentence.
Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's movie 'Iron
Jawed Angels.' It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women
waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my
say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.
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Miss Edith Ainge, of Jamestown , New York
All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the
actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote.
Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege.
Sometimes it was inconvenient.
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(Berthe Arnold, CSU graduate)
My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO
movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked
angry. She was--with herself. 'One thought kept coming back to me as I
watched that movie,' she said. 'What would those women think of the way I
use, or don't use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now,
not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.' The
right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all over again.'
HBO released the movie on video and DVD . I wish all history, social
studies and government teachers would include the movie in their
curriculum I want it shown on Bunco/Bingo night, too, and anywhere else
women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we
are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little
shock therapy is in order.
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Conferring over ratification of
the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution at National Woman's Party
headquarters, Jackson Place , Washington , D.C.
Left to right: Mrs.
Lawrence Lewis, Mrs. Abby Scott Baker, Anita Pollitzer, Alice Paul,
Florence Boeckel, Mabel Vernon (standing, right))
It is jarring
to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist
to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently
institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice
Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy.
The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.'
Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know.
We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard
for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic,
republican or independent party - remember to vote.
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Helena Hill Weed, Norwalk , Conn. Serving 3 day sentence in D.C. prison
for carrying banner, 'Governments derive their just powers from the
consent of the governed.'
So, refresh MY memory. Some women won't vote this year because - Why, exactly?
We have carpool duties?
We have to get to work?
Our vote doesn't matter?
It's raining?
I'm so busy...I've got so much on my plate!
Read again what these women went through for you!
We can't let all their suffering be for nothing.
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