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Home , Alice Paul, Carrie Chapman Catt

Aloysius Larch-Miller “A martyr to woman ” September 27, 1886 – February 2, 1920

Born in Tennessee in 1886, Aloysius Larch-Miller’s family moved to Shawnee, Oklahoma Territory around 1903. Larch-Miller went to Central State Teachers’ College in Edmond upon graduating high school, then becoming a kindergarten teacher at Shawnee’s Harrison School, where she taught for several years. During , Larch-Miller worked with the American Red Cross, and her performance as state secretary of the nursing department for her division earned her the position of teaching Red Cross nursing in the state’s colleges, eventually working as Pottawatomie County’s chair- person. A lifelong Democrat, Larch-Miller also served as the secretary of the Oklahoma State Suffrage Ratification Committee. Oklahoma’s legislature adjourned without voting on ratification of the 19th Amendment, so the only hope left was to get Governor James Robertson to call a special session. Larch-Miller caught influenza just days before the Pottawatomie County Democratic Convention and her doctor ordered her to stay in bed. Upon learning that Oklahoma’s Attorney General S.P. Freeling would be present at the convention to argue against calling a special session, Larch-Miller violated the doctor’s orders and attended the convention, knowing she was a far better orator than Freeling. She was successful, with the convention voting two to one to call a special session, additionally with the legislators paying their own expenses. After speaking at the convention, Larch-Miller caught pneumonia in addition to her influenza and died two days later on February 2, 1920 at the age of thirty-three. Twenty- six days later, the Oklahoma legislature met and ratified the 19th Amendment. After her death, Judge George Carl Abernathy of Shawnee moved to pass a resolution of sympathy for Larch-Miller, naming her “a martyr to woman suffrage.” Governor Robertson ordered the state flag flown at half-mast and Attorney General Freeling was among the numerous other state dignitaries who attended Larch-Miller’s funeral. Larch-Miller today has a memorial to honor her in Shawnee, remembered as a gifted orator with boundless energy and charm paired with impressive ideas. Larch-Miller posthumously received a certificate from the National American Woman Suffrage Association signed by who said Larch-Miller “was entitled to a place on the Honor Roll of the brave army of men and women” who fought for the vote. In 1982, Larch-Miller was inducted into the first Oklahoma Woman’s Hall of Fame.

Sources https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=LA040 https://documents.alexanderstreet.com/d/1009656437

Alice Paul “Founder of the National Woman’s Party” January 11, 1885 – July 9, 1977

Born into a Quaker family in , became involved in the suffrage movement from a young age, regularly attending suffragist meetings with her mother throughout her child- hood. For a woman of the early twentieth century, Paul attained an unusually advanced level of education. She graduated from in 1905, then proceeding to receive a master’s degree in sociology in 1907, a PhD in economics in 1912 from the University of , and a law degree from Washington College of Law at in 1922. Paul studied for a time in England in the early years of her education, meeting militant British suffragist leader . Already interested in suffrage, Paul learned more disruptive methods from Pankhurst, including smashing windows and engaging in prison hunger strikes. Due to her involvement with Pankhurst and her group, British police arrested and imprisoned Paul several times. When returning to the United States in 1910, Paul devoted herself to the American suffrage movement, which was fading following the deaths of its initial leaders, and Susan B. Anthony in 1902 and 1906, respectively. Paul became chair of the Congressional Committee for the country’s main suffrage organization, the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) in 1912. In this capacity, Paul organized a Woman Suffrage Procession to take place in Washington, DC, on March 3, 1913, the day before the inauguration of President . Despite the careful planning Paul put into the march, the event turned into a riot when spectators began to assault the women and the police refused to assist, leaving the cavalry from nearby Fort Myer to restore order. The event led to growing animosity between Paul and the NAWSA leadership, leading Paul to found the National Woman’s Party in 1916, a party which did not endorse existing ones but rather punished those that did not support their movement. Employing dramatic protests, marches, and demonstrations, the suffrage movement began to gain popular support nationally. Paul and the NWP began picketing outside of the , the first time anyone protested there, and faced harassment, beatings, and arrest by people who felt these protests during World War I were disloyal. Eventually, the women were arrested for “obstructing traffic” and sent to the Occoquan Workhouse prison in terrible conditions. In , Paul and other jailed protestors went on a . Prison guards then restrained and force-fed Paul and the strikers through a tube, and in November, the prison superintendent ordered over forty guards to violently attack the imprisoned women. The women referred to it as the “Night of Terror,” following a night of beatings and chokings, some even losing consciousness. Despite the horrific experiences, Paul and the NWP continued to protest outside of the White House until 1919, when Congress passed the 19th Amendment and sent it to the states for ratification. Even after the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, Paul continued her tireless work for the rights of women, reorganizing the NWP in 1922 to eliminate all discrimination against women. Paul also introduced the on July 20, 1923, founded the World Woman’s Party as the inter- national arm of the NWP in 1954, and played an active role in getting language pertaining to women in- cluded in the Charter in 1945 and in the . Paul died in 1977, leaving behind a clear legacy of fighting for women’s rights in every facet of public life.

Sources https://www.nps.gov/people/alice-paul.htm https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/wilson-alice-paul/ https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/alice-paul

Ida B. Wells “Journalist, educator and early activist for suffrage and civil rights” July 16. 1862 – March 25, 1931

Ida B. Wells was born enslaved in Mississippi on July 16, 1862. Following the Civil War, during the Reconstruction Era, Wells’s parents actively participated in the Republican Party. Her father worked with the Freedman’s Aid Society and helped to found Rust College, which remains a historically black liberal arts college. Wells attended Rust College, but the death of both of her parents and one of her siblings to a yellow fever outbreak forced her to drop out at sixteen. Wells managed to secure a job as a teacher to take care of her siblings, eventually moving with her sisters to Memphis, Tennessee to live with their aunt. For a period of time, Wells resumed her education at Fisk University in Nashville. On one of her journeys from Memphis to Nash- ville in May 1884, Wells was forced to move to the black car of the train despite having paid for a first-class ticket. Wells refused to move, but was then forci- bly removed from the train, during which time she bit one of the crew members. Wells sued the railroad and a circuit case court settlement awarded her $500, only to have the decision overturned by the Ten- nessee Supreme Court. After this incident, Wells became a prolific writer about issues of race and politics in the South, later owning two newspapers: The Memphis Free Speech and Headlight and Free Speech. At the same time as she worked as a publisher and journalist, Wells taught at a segregated public school in Memphis and was an outspoken critic of the segregated system, leading to her firing in 1891. The next year, Wells turned her attention to anti-lynching after a friend and two of his colleagues were murdered by a lynch mob. Wells began to write articles speaking out against this evil and further risked her own life traveling to the south to research lynchings, eventually staying in the north after her life was threatened. She wrote an extensive report on lynching in America for the Age and brought her anti-lynching campaign to the White House in 1898, demanding President McKinley take action. In 1896, Wells founded several civil rights organizations including the National Association of Colored Women. Wells became an active member of the fight for women’s suffrage, especially as it pertained to black women, founding the Alpha Suffrage Club in Chicago on January 30, 1913. The main goal of the Alpha Suffrage Club was to organize woman in Chicago to elect candidates that would be most beneficial for the black community. As president of the Alpha Club, Wells received an invitation to march in the 1913 Suffrage Parade in Washington, DC with several other of her club members. Organizers of the parade feared offending and alienating southern white suffragists and asked women of color to march at the back of the parade. Wells refused, standing on the sidelines of the parade until the white women from Chicago marched past, at which point she joined the parade, while the rest of her club still marched at the back. The work of Wells and her Alpha Suffrage Club played a pivotal yet often unsung role in the consequent victory of the 19th Amendment and securing of women’s suffrage in with the passage of the Illinois Equal Suffrage Act on June 25, 1913. Even after the passage and ratification of the 19th Amendment, Wells continued to travel throughout Illinois to encourage and educate black women to participate in politics and exercise their vote. Wells died of kidney disease on March 25, 1931, leaving a remarkable legacy of change and activism across numerous fields.

Sources https://www.nps.gov/people/idabwells.htm https://suffrage100ma.org/ida-b-wells/ https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/ida-b-wells-barnett