The Silent Sentinels, 1917: Picketing the White House for the Vote

This is the history behind Episode 4, "Locked Up," of The Magic Sash, a podcast for young listeners produced by the Women's Suffrage Centennial Commission, the National Park Service, PRX and Gen-Z Media. The National Park Service's lesson for the episode asks when we should be able to speak for ourselves, and when others should decide for us.

A changing country

Between 1872, when Susan B. Anthony and others were arrested for voting, and 1888, the year of the International Council of Women convention in Washington, D.C., at which Frederick Douglass spoke, the country changed fast: Reconstruction of the South ended, the petroleum and steel industries rose rapidly, railroads spread, people moved to the western states and territories, and new immigrants arrived from southern and eastern Europe.

The United States in 1888. Image from the National Park Service's page.

Cartoons for and against

After Anthony's arrest, many newspapers printed political cartoons attacking her and her supporters, suggesting that suffragists were abandoning women's traditional roles and neglecting their homes and families. Cartoonists who supported suffrage answered with cartoons calling for the release of women jailed for protesting and picketing.

Cartoonists use familiar pictures, words and symbols to make their point. In the 1909 "Election Day" cartoon below, the man's apron may stand for women's traditional role in the family, and the woman's necktie for men's.

"Election Day," cartoon by E. W. Gustin, 1909. Credit: Library of Congress.

Political cartoon by Nina Allender, 1917. Credit: National Woman's Party Collection.

The Silent Sentinels

Anthony's was not the last time women were jailed over the vote. Beginning in January 1917, a group called the Silent Sentinels stood outside the White House gates six days a week — the first organised group ever to picket the White House. Their signs demanded that the president support a constitutional amendment giving women the vote.

Alison Turnbull Hopkins outside the White House, 1917. Credit: National Woman's Party Collection.

Suffragists picketing outside the White House, 1917. Credit: National Woman's Party Collection.

• Losing support. Newspapers backed the pickets at first, but that support was lost later in the year when the United States entered the world war. Many people thought it unpatriotic to criticise the president and government in wartime.
• Arrest. The pickets kept on for months. That summer police arrested them for blocking traffic. They refused to pay fines to be released, arguing that the First Amendment protected their freedom of speech, and chose to stay in jail.
• The Occoquan Workhouse. Some were sent to the workhouse at Occoquan, Virginia, where conditions were harsh and they were not given enough healthy food to stay well. Some refused to eat or to do the prisoners' work, and many were beaten or force-fed by guards. When friends and relatives told the newspapers about the cruelty, a judge ordered the suffragists released two weeks later.

Helena Hill Weed in the D.C. jail, 1917. Credit: National Woman's Party Collection.

Public opinion turns

After weeks in jail, the Silent Sentinels went back to the White House gates, and travelled the country speaking about what they had been through. Audiences were shocked by how the women had been treated, and the suffragists won back public support. By January 1918, a year after the picketing began, President Woodrow Wilson announced his support for a women's suffrage amendment.

Places to visit

• Occoquan Workhouse / Lorton Reformatory, Lorton, Virginia — part of it is now the Workhouse Arts Center, a community space.
• Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument, Washington, D.C. — home of the National Woman's Party for nearly 90 years, at the centre of the struggle for women's rights.

Sources

• National Park Service, "The Magic Sash, Episode 4: 'Locked Up' Lesson Plan." https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/magic-sash-episode-4-lesson-plan.htm
• The podcast's script (by its production partners), the lesson's questions and activities, the podcast's banner and present-day photographs of the places are not reproduced.
• Corrected: the source credits the National "Women's" Party Collection; the organisation was the National Woman's Party.
• Rewritten in hubnx's own words.