Browse Items (13 total)

Imagine it’s next year. The Democrats control the House, the Senate, the White House. You’re a Dreamer working to pass immigration reform to make you and your family full citizens. It’s been 35 years with no progress. But the Democrats won’t…

In writing about what it means to “look like a mom,” @VVFriedman reported that the yellow t-shirts Portland moms wear are intended to evoke sunshine, joy, warmth. The protesters even carry sunflowers to reinforce - which connects them directly to…

What was the National Woman’s Party? How did it differ from the Congressional Union? Was that different from the Congressional Committee? The effort led by Alice Paul & Lucy Burns to amend the U.S. Constitution operated under three different…

Presidential conventions. Eh. 2020 conventions planned for Charlotte, Jacksonville & Milwaukee may end up being nowhere at all. But in 1916, the Democrats met in St. Louis. The Republicans met in Chicago - along with a new party: the National…

By the 1916 election, it was clear the Nat'l Woman’s Party strategy was working: a federal constitutional amendment had become a live political issue. NAWSA couldn’t beat NWP, so they were going to have to join them. But neither group was willing…

President Wilson surely thought the National Woman’s Party women were nasty. They campaigned ferociously against his reelection in western states in 1916. That October they stood boldly on the streets of Chicago and New York, so his motorcade would…

The day before suffragists started picketing the White House, they were there as invited guests. Access thread. One of the striking things about the decade before ratification is how much access suffragists had to Pres. Wilson - not only the mannerly…

Suffragists picketed the White House from 10 am-6pm every day but Sundays. They continued - attacked by mobs, arrested daily - for more than two years. But in their first months, the pickets were greeted warmly. Thread. Until January 1917, no one had…

Woodrow Wilson was staunchly opposed to two things: entering the war in Europe, and supporting women’s suffrage. He gave in on the war first. Wilson cut diplomatic relations with Germany just before his second inauguration. He had sought desperately…

The first time the National Woman’s Party “Silent Sentinels” were arrested, they had been picketing the White House every day for six months. Why were they suddenly being charged? Simple. They embarrassed Pres. Wilson in front of the Russian…