Doris Stevens. : American Women Win the Vote. Troutdale, Ore.: NewSage Press, 1995. 220 pp. $12.95, paper, ISBN 978-0-939165-25-4.

Reviewed by Cynthia Harrison

Published on H-Pol (September, 1997)

On August 6, 1918, one hundred women ments derive their just powers from the consent dressed in white, holding pro-sufrage banners of of the governed." (In that case, the formal charge purple, white, and gold, assembled in the square was "obstructing trafc.") While in the work‐ across from the around the base of house, these well-bred matrons had been stripped the Lafayette monument. As Dora Lewis, a promi‐ naked, beaten, fed rancid food riddled with nent Philadelphian, began to speak, a policeman worms, denied soap and water for washing, and seized her, making her the frst of forty-eight placed in solitary confnement on bread-and-wa‐ women arrested at the demonstration. After a ten- ter diets. The guards occasionally compelled black day delay, while the Government's attorney fg‐ women prisoners, arrested on other charges, to ured out what to charge them with, twenty-six beat the white women. Sufragists who fasted in women were tried and convicted of "holding a protest had been force-fed. Nevertheless, hun‐ meeting in public grounds" and "climbing on a dreds of sufragists continued to engage in public statue," receiving sentences of ten or ffteen days. protest, submitting to arrest and imprisonment The twenty-six convicts were immediately re‐ repeatedly for the sake of political liberty for moved to a prison building that had been closed women. for nine years, having been declared unft for hu‐ Jailed for Freedom, a memoir written in 1920 man habitation. They were the only inhabitants of by Doris Stevens, tells this electric story. Stevens, a the cold, damp, cells, which were outftted with leader of the National Woman's Party (NWP)--the iron cots; the water from the unused pipes made ringleader of the radical sufragist wing--herself the women ill. helped plan these protests. Arrested twice, But sufragists had faced horrendous condi‐ Stevens served three days in the Occoquan work‐ tions in prison before. Some had served sixty-day house, after which she was released by virtue of a terms at the Occoquan workhouse, for the ofense pardon from an embarrassed President Wilson. of holding a banner with the words: "Govern‐ With Stevens' narrating, the mainstream women's H-Net Reviews sufrage movement gets short shrift, although its can Women and The Vote, 1837-1965 (Massachu‐ slow, steady, accumulation of women enfran‐ setts, 1997); Sara Hunter Graham, Woman Suf‐ chised by state action made federal action plausi‐ frage and the New Democracy (Yale, 1997); Susan ble. But the NWP parades, protests and arrests E. Marshall, Splintered Sisterhood: Gender and certainly generated the excitement in the fght to Class in the Campaign Against Woman Sufrage win the vote and this frst-person account conveys (Wisconsin, 1997); Kristi Andersen, After Sufrage: the determination and courage of the women who Women in Partisan and Electoral Politics before took part. the New Deal (, 1996); Lee Ann Banaszak, In this edition of the memoir,* Carol O'Hare Why Movements Succeed or Fail: Opportunity, has edited and substantially abridged the original, Culture, and the Struggle for Woman Sufrage which ran to almost four hundred pages with ap‐ (Princeton, 1996); Suzanne M. Marilley, Woman pendices; with new back matter, this volume Sufrage and the Origins of Liberal Feminism in comes to 220 pages. While the original text bears the United States, 1820-1920 (Harvard, 1996); Mar‐ editing, O'Hare's treatment amounts in places to jorie Spruill Wheeler, ed., Votes for Women! The rewriting and nothing distinguishes Stevens' orig‐ Woman Sufrage Movement in , the inal words from O'Hare's additions. As a result, South, and the Nation (Tennessee, 1995) and One this edition suits a popular audience more than Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering the Woman Suf‐ an academic one. The helpful new introduction by frage Movement (NewSage, 1995); Genevieve G. , Curator of Political History at the McBride, On Wisconsin Women: Working for Smithsonian Institution, and historical and bio‐ Their Rights from Settlement to Sufrage (Wiscon‐ graphical notes added after the text, will assist an sin, 1993); Marjorie Spruill Wheeler, New Women uninitiated reader in understanding the place of of the New South: The Leaders of the Woman Suf‐ the National Woman's Party in the sufrage cam‐ frage Movement in the Southern States (Oxford, paign and later. (The introduction, though, in‐ 1993); Mary Martha Thomas, The New Woman in cludes one inaccurate statement--that the 1964 Alabama: Social Reforms and Sufrage, 1890-1920 Civil Rights Act "assured ... that hard-won protec‐ (Alabama, 1992); and Steven Buechler, Women's tive laws [applying only to women] ... would not Movements in the United States: Woman Sufrage, be abolished but, instead, extended to men and Equal Rights, and Beyond (Rutgers, 1990). Other women on equal terms" [p. 32]. In fact, many la‐ new editions include Eleanor Flexner and Ellen bor laws were eliminated rather than extended.) Fitzpatrick, Century of Struggle: The Woman's Photographs from the collections of the Smithso‐ Rights Movement in the United States, enlarged nian, the National Woman's Party, and other edition (Belknap Press of Harvard, 1996). sources further enhance the appeal of this vol‐ Copyright (c) 1997 by H-Net, all rights re‐ ume. While college teachers will want to ask stu‐ served. This work may be copied for non-proft dents to read portions of the original rather than educational use if proper credit is given to the au‐ this redacted version, this edition will make a tru‐ thor and the list. For other permission, please con‐ ly heroic story accessible to a larger audience be‐ tact [email protected]. yond the college classroom. *This volume joins numerous recent publica‐ tions concerning sufrage, including Ellen Carol DuBois, Harriot Stanton Blatch and the Winning of Woman Sufrage (Yale, 1997); Ann D. Gordon with Bettye Collier-Thomas, eds., African Ameri‐

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Citation: Cynthia Harrison. Review of Stevens, Doris. Jailed for Freedom: American Women Win the Vote. H-Pol, H-Net Reviews. September, 1997.

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