Silent Sentinels

From "A Mighty Girl" January 18, 2017 

For two and a half years, the "Silent Sentinels" picketed in front of the White House for women's suffrage. This group of determined suffragists was organized by the National Woman's Party, led by suffrage leaders Alice Paul and Lucy Burns. Their vigil began on January 10, 1917 and continued every day and night, except Sunday, until June 1919 when the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution passed both the House and the Senate.

Many of the more than one thousand different women who participated in the vigil were arrested at various times, including 16 suffragists who were arrested on July 14, 1917 and sentenced to 60 days in jail at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia for “obstructing traffic." Although President Woodrow Wilson pardoned this group after three days, Alice Paul and others were famously arrested in October of that year. Paul was sentenced to seven months in prison. To protest the poor conditions of the women held at the Workhouse, Paul led a hunger strike which resulted in her being force-fed.

Press coverage of these abuses, along with on-going protests, strongly influenced the Wilson Administration who declared, in January 1918, that women's suffrage was urgently needed as a "war measure" and asked Congress to act. Together with Burns and others in the National Women’s Party, Paul’s dramatic efforts brought the attention of the world to the struggle for women’s rights in America, and led to the ratification of the 19th amendment in 1920. Its passage marked the victorious end of a 72-year long struggle to achieve equal voting rights for women which had begun at the first women's right conference organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848.

The story of these courageous women is told in the award-winning book, "With Courage and Cloth: Winning the Fight for a Woman's Right to Vote," for readers 10 and up at http://www.amightygirl.com/with-courage-and-cloth

For an excellent youth-friendly introduction to the fight for women's suffrage in the US, we highly recommend "Rightfully Ours: How Women Won The Vote" for ages 9 and up at http://www.amightygirl.com/rightfully-ours

To learn more about Alice Paul and Lucy Burns' fascinating story and their important legacy in securing women's right to vote, the film "Iron Jawed Angels" is highly recommended for viewers 13 and up at http://www.amightygirl.com/iron-jawed-angels

To introduce children and teens to more amazing women of the Suffrage Movement, check out the reading recommendations in our post, “How Women Won the Vote: Teaching Kids About the U.S. Suffrage Movement, ” at http://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=11827

And, for more true stories of inspiring girls and women who worked to change the world for the better, visit our “Activist” section in Biographies at http://amgrl.co/1R6cGAu