Suffragettes in the USA? Yes indeed.

Emmeline Pankhurst

August 11, 2020—An article last month in The New York Times leads off with a statement by Susan Ware that American suffragists never used the word "suffragette" in reference to themselves. It was used by "only their detractors." (Postscript, August 16, 2020: This statement was repeated on p. 8 of "How American Women Won the Right to Vote," a special section today of The New York Times.)

Susan Ware said (p. 9 of today's special section) she wrote to fellow Wellesley alumna Hilary Clinton to ask her not to call the women activists "suffragettes". Ware is both right and wrong.

Right, it was a British term. As Elaine Weiss notes in the conversation (p. 8 of today's special section), the word "suffragette" was initially used derisively, by journalist Charles Hands writing for the Daily Mail in 1906, to refer to the activist British women who followed Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst and created the Woman's Social and Political Union (WSPU). It was nonetheless embraced by the WSPU, who pronounced the word suffragette with a hard "g" and said that suffragettes not only wanted the vote but would get it.

Right, it was considered by American suffragists to be incorrect. Most women working for the vote were lined up doing day-to-day advancement of Votes for Women with Carrie Chapman Catt via NAWSA (the merged post-Civil War woman suffrage group, the National American Woman Suffrage Association). They called themselves suffragists. They eschewed civil disobedience and disruption, which were techniques used by the WSPU. After President Wilson capitulated, the suffrage movement sought to moderate its militancy as the ratification process moved from state to state, and suffragist became the accepted term.

But... leaders of the National Woman's Party did call themselves suffragettes. Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, Harriot Stanton Blatch and Inez Milholland Boissevain were all trained by the Pankhursts. Like the WSPU, they were critical of the slow rate of progress of traditional suffrage organizations in pursuing the vote. They were determined to be more activist and therefore embraced the term suffragettes.

When President Woodrow Wilson sarcastically rejected an appeal in January 1917 by a delegation from the National Woman's Party (NWP) to honor the 1916 death of Inez Milholland Boissevain and support the Anthony Amendment, the NWP initiated nonstop picketing of the White House. The picketers were arrested at the President's urging, and when they went on a hunger strike (in approved Pankhurst fashion) at the Occaquan Workhouse in Lorton, Virginia, they were force-fed. When word got out about the force-feeding of the women prisoners, public opinion shifted in favor of the activists. Wilson changed his mind and supported the Anthony Amendment, after which the House and Senate quickly passed the Amendment in May 1919. 

Votes for Women became U.S. law when the last needed state, Tennessee, ratified the 19th Amendment on August 18, 1920. The amendment was certified by the Secretary of State on August 26, 1920. The New York Times awarded a gold pen to NAWSA and a silver inkstand to the NWP. You could say, the suffragists and the suffragettes won the vote together.

INEZ | Her Herald Uniform 1913 (Update Aug. 5, 2016)

1. Alice Paul's idea of Inez Milholland's
1913 costume as the Herald. The trumpet
was a non-starter; hard to handle that and
the horse at the same time.

The Woman Suffrage "Procession" was scheduled on the eve of Woodrow Wilson's first inauguration, on March 2, 1913.

Alice Paul, on behalf of the newly formed Congressional Committee of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), asked Inez to lead the parade.

The Congressional Committee the following month, emboldened by the success of the parade, became the Congressional Union. In 1916 this entity, with significant new funding, became the National Woman's Party.

Alice Paul asked Inez to be a Herald and wear a uniform emblazoned with the three colors of the suffrage movement – gold, white and purple (in heraldic lingo – or, argent and purpure).

These are the colors that Inez is shown wearing on the flyers about the parade.

2. Inez Milholland on "Gray Dawn" (loaned by
Mr. A. D. Addison of Washington) at the
start of the parade. Photo: Library of Congress.

But Inez decided that an all-white–or, in The New York Times account, a pale blue–cloak looked better. Alice Paul was unhappy about it, but what could she do?

The white uniform was a success. The day after the parade, the N Y Times story devoted its early paragraphs to Inez's striking appearance at the head of the parade.

Later in the story, we are told that the event was marred by violence – the D.C. police were unable or unwilling to keep order, and cavalry from Fort Myer, Va. had to be brought in to keep the peace.

The Washington Post called Inez "the most beautiful suffragette" (this source also has a great collection of postcard photos of the parade).

What do you think? Photos of the actual event show Inez like a clothed Lady Godiva – white gown on a white horse.

The iconic poster of Inez, 1923 for the
 "Forward into Light" pageant at
Meadowmount, Lewis, N.Y.

One of those photos served as the image used to create the iconic posthumous portrait of Inez on a horse. For decades until 2011 it hung over the mantelpiece in the Sewall-Belmont House, now renamed the Belmont-Paul National Monument,  in Washington. (The mantelpiece was removed because of chimney leaks.)

The iconic painting was in bad condition and was carefully restored with the assistance of a Committee headed by Al Boissevain and Allegra Milholland.

The poster made from the painting inspired the National Woman's Party picketers and hunger strikers.

When Inez was married in July 1913, the New York Times expressed regret that a Hollander with a French name (Boissevain) had nabbed Milholland, the daughter of a Scotch Irish man (the family name Milholland is an Anglo-Irish transliteration of a Gaelic word meaning Follower of St. Chulann).

The Times described Inez as "the Fairest of the Amazons".

Related Posts: Suffrage Play June 11, 2017 in Vienna, Va.
Inez Milholland's Faceted Star Crown-Helmet, 1911