A Message for all women AND men.
WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE
This is the story of our Grandmothers
and Great-grandmothers.
They lived only 90 years ago.
Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were grantedthe right to go to the polls and vote.
The women were innocent and defenseless.They were jailed nonetheless for picketing
the White House and carrying signs
asking for the vote.
By the end of the night, they were barely alive.
Forty prison guards wielding clubswith their warden's blessing went on a rampage
against the 33 women wrongly convicted of
'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'
(Lucy Burns)
They beat Lucy Burns.They chained her hands to the cell bars above
her head and left her hanging for the nightShe was bleeding and gasping for air.
(Dora Lewis)
They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell. They smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold.
Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was deadand suffered a heart attack.
Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on
Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the
Occoquan Workhouse in Virginiaordered his guards to teach a lessonbecause they dared to picketto the suffragists imprisoned there
Woodrow Wilson's White House
for the right to vote.
For weeks, the women's only water came
from an open pail.
Their food--all of it colorless slop--
describe the guards grabbing, dragging,
beating, choking, slamming, pinching,
twisting and kicking the women.
(Alice Paul)
When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarkedon a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair,forced a tube down her throat and
poured liquid into her
until she vomited.She was tortured like this for weeks until wordwas smuggled out to the press.http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/prisoners.pdf
So, refresh my memory.
Some women won't vote this year
because--why, exactly?
We have carpool duties?
We have to get to work?
We have to get our nails done?
Our vote doesn't matter?
It's raining?
What would those women think of the way we use,
or don't use,our right to vote?
All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women.It is shocking to know that Woodrow Wilson
and his cronies tried to persuade a psychiatrist
to declare Alice Paul insane so that she
could be permanently institutionalized.
It is inspiring that the doctor refused.Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave.
That didn't make her crazy.
The doctor admonished the men:
'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.'
We need to get out and vote and use this right
that was fought so hard for by these
very courageous women.
However you vote -vote.
History is being made. Take part in it.
Be Insane~
Vote in the upcoming election.
Vote and excercise the right that these women won in courage.
2 comments:
A Real-Life Soap Opera About the Suffragettes
Senator Clinton and Governor Palin are proof that women can and do diverge on important issues.
Even on the question of whether women should vote!
Most people are totally in the dark about HOW the suffragettes won votes for women, and what life was REALLY like for women before they did.
Suffragettes were opposed by many women who were what was known as 'anti.'
The most influential 'anti' lived in the White House. First Lady Edith Wilson was a Washington widow who married President Wilson in 1915, after the death of his pro-suffrage wife.
The First Lady's role in Wilson's decision to jail and torture Alice Paul and hundreds of other suffragettes will never be fully known, but she was outraged that these women picketed her husband's White House.
I'd like to share a women's history learning opportunity...
"The Privilege of Voting" is a new free e-mail series that follows eight great women from 1912 - 1920 to reveal ALL that happened to set the stage for women to win the vote.
It's a real-life soap opera about the suffragettes! And it's ALL true!
Powerful suffragettes Alice Paul and Emmeline Pankhurst are featured, along with TWO gorgeous presidential mistresses, First Lady Edith Wilson, Edith Wharton, Isadora Duncan and Alice Roosevelt.
There are tons of heartache on the rocky road to the ballot box, but in the end, women WIN!
Thanks to the success of the suffragettes, women have voices and choices!
Exciting, sequential episodes with lots of historical photos are great to read on coffeebreaks, or anytime.
Subscribe free at
www.CoffeebreakReaders.com/subscribe.html
Virginia, thank you so much for your return comments...an education all in one snap :) I will be sending for "The Privilege of Voting" tomorrow morning...thank you again :)
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