The Martyr
Title
The Martyr
Description
Inez Milholland graduated from @Vassar in 1909. She applied to law school, but @Harvard_Law @ColumbiaLaw @UniofOxford @Cambridge_Uni refused her. She was accepted @nyulaw, which began admitting women in 1890. (By the time the others admitted women, Inez was dead.) 🧵
She practiced law and fought for labor rights, as one of the wealthy women who committed themselves to the NY Women’s Trade Union League. She supported strikes by shirtwaist makers and laundry workers, walking picket lines in 1910 & 1916. She was an early member of NAACP.
She played a role in the exoneration of Charles Stielow, sentenced to the electric chair for a murder he did not commit. Inez Milholland isn’t named in the National Registry of Exonerations, but the summary refers to pro bono attorneys taking up his case.
Suffrage was Inez's top priority. Alice Paul cast her as the cover girl of the 1913 Inauguration march, literally. The image of Inez on a white horse, in heraldic garb, graced the commemorative program the organizers sold to raise funds for the march.
Inez, who took two semesters of medieval history at Vassar, designed her own costume to evoke a crusader, as @MDockrayMiller explains in her great piece @JSTOR_daily 👉ðŸ¾
Alice Paul wanted a beautiful woman to rebut the stereotype of sexless, spinster suffragists. Inez’s romantic life was indeed busy: she had an intense fling with Max Eastman, radical editor & brother of Crystal; and was briefly engaged to G. Marconi, inventor of the radio!
In 1913 Inez married a Dutchman named Eugen Boissevain - she proposed to him. He was proud of her leadership and wasn't intimidated by strong women; after Inez died he married Edna St. Vincent Millay. The image at the top of this thread comes from NYC, May 3, 1913.
Inez would live only a few years more, dying at 30 of a bacterial infection while on a Western states suffrage tour. Her last public words, before collapsing onstage, were: “How long must women wait for liberty?†#Suffrage100 #CenturyofStruggle
She practiced law and fought for labor rights, as one of the wealthy women who committed themselves to the NY Women’s Trade Union League. She supported strikes by shirtwaist makers and laundry workers, walking picket lines in 1910 & 1916. She was an early member of NAACP.
She played a role in the exoneration of Charles Stielow, sentenced to the electric chair for a murder he did not commit. Inez Milholland isn’t named in the National Registry of Exonerations, but the summary refers to pro bono attorneys taking up his case.
Suffrage was Inez's top priority. Alice Paul cast her as the cover girl of the 1913 Inauguration march, literally. The image of Inez on a white horse, in heraldic garb, graced the commemorative program the organizers sold to raise funds for the march.
Inez, who took two semesters of medieval history at Vassar, designed her own costume to evoke a crusader, as @MDockrayMiller explains in her great piece @JSTOR_daily 👉ðŸ¾
Alice Paul wanted a beautiful woman to rebut the stereotype of sexless, spinster suffragists. Inez’s romantic life was indeed busy: she had an intense fling with Max Eastman, radical editor & brother of Crystal; and was briefly engaged to G. Marconi, inventor of the radio!
In 1913 Inez married a Dutchman named Eugen Boissevain - she proposed to him. He was proud of her leadership and wasn't intimidated by strong women; after Inez died he married Edna St. Vincent Millay. The image at the top of this thread comes from NYC, May 3, 1913.
Inez would live only a few years more, dying at 30 of a bacterial infection while on a Western states suffrage tour. Her last public words, before collapsing onstage, were: “How long must women wait for liberty?†#Suffrage100 #CenturyofStruggle
Creator
Daily Suffragist
Source
Date
21/06/2020
Files
Collection
Citation
Daily Suffragist, “The Martyr,” Daily Suffragist, accessed April 26, 2024, https://dailysuffragist.omeka.net/items/show/421.