"Mr. President, What Will You Do for Woman Suffrage?"

Placard carried by suffragists picketing the White House, February 1917.

The First Picket Line
[detail],
February, 1917.
"Votes for Women" Suffrage Pictures, 1850-1920

Ten suffragists were arrested on August 28, 1917 as they picketed the White House. The protesters were there in an effort to pressure President Woodrow Wilson to support the proposed "Anthony amendment" to the Constitution which would guarantee women the right to vote. The protest began January 10, 1917. Between June and November of that year, 218 protestors from twenty-six states were arrested and charged with "obstructing sidewalk traffic" outside the White House gates. Of those arrested, ninety-seven spent time in either the Occoquan work house in Virginia or the District of Columbia jail. Initially, protestors stood silently, holding placards inscribed with relatively tame messages such as "Mr. President, what will you do for Woman Suffrage?" and "How Long Must Women Wait for Liberty?" President Wilson maintained decorum, greeting the protestors with a tip of the hat as he rode, his wife at his side, through the White House gates.

By late spring, the picketers brandished more provocative placards. They took advantage of the United States' April 6 entry into the war in Europe to press their case. Bystanders erupted in violence on June 22, when picketers met Russian envoys with signs which proclaimed the United States a democracy in name only.

The White House protest reflected a rift between the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), led by Carrie Chapman Catt, and the more confrontational National Woman's Party, led by former NAWSA member Alice Paul.

Having spent time in a British jail for her participation in suffrage protests in England, Paul was no stranger to confrontation or its potential value to a political movement. In "Alice Paul Talks," she describes her experience during a hunger strike, a tactic she would later employ at the Occoquan workhouse in Virginia:

Alice Paul
[detail]
"Votes for Women"
Suffrage Pictures, 1850-1920

I resorted to the hunger strike method twice…When the forcible feeding was ordered I was taken from my bed, carried to another room and forced into a chair, bound with sheets and sat upon bodily by a fat murderer, whose duty it was to keep me still. Then the prison doctor, assisted by two woman attendants, placed a rubber tube up my nostrils and pumped liquid food through it into the stomach. Twice a day for a month, from November 1 to December 1, this was done.

"Alice Paul Talks,"
Votes for Women, 1848-1921

Influenced in part by the publicity generated by the White House pickets and subsequent arrests and forced feedings of women protestors, President Wilson lent his support to the suffrage amendment in January 1918. The amendment was approved by Congress shortly thereafter. Women achieved the right to vote with the August 26, 1920 ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment which is commemorated by Women's Equality Day.

Learn more about the women's suffrage movement:

• View One Hundred Years Toward Suffrage: An Overview to learn about key events in the history of the women's suffrage movement. This timeline is a part of the collection "Votes for Women" Suffrage Pictures, 1850-1920 which contains images related to the movement.
• Read documents related to the women's suffrage movement in Votes for Women, 1848-1921. This collection consists of materials from the National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection, donated to the Library of Congress in 1938 by Carrie Chapman Catt.
• Search the Today in History Archive on the term Seneca Falls to learn more about that landmark 1848 convention on women's rights. Other Today in History features on woman's suffrage include: the 1854 Ohio Woman's Rights Convention, the 1869 decision by the Wyoming Territory to grant women the right to vote, the 1884 address by Susan B. Anthony to the House Judiciary Committee, and the 1885 birth of Alice Paul.
• Explore Pioneering Women in American Memory. This Feature Presentation of the Learning Page provides an overview of American Memory resources related to the study of women's history.
• See the Today in History feature on the invention of the ice cream cone.