S01 E04 Delaware: Rose Petals, Hunger Strikes and The Iron Jawed Angels

In this episode, Dr. Anne Boylan, Professor Emerita of History and Women & Gender Studies at the University of Delaware, discusses the suffrage struggle at sites on the NVWT.

We talk about the events and activists in the DE voting rights campaign:

• Mabel Lloyd Ridgely employed lobbying techniques including buttonholing legislators–made easier given her Dover house was a stone’s throw from the State House.
• Florence Bayard Hilles and Mabel Vernon were members of National Woman’s Party which supported militant tactics.
• Emma Gibson Sykes publicly called out a Delaware house member for racist rhetoric in a letter to the editor to Delaware’s Sunday Morning Star.
• The Thomas Garrett Settlement House in Wilmington housed the Equal Suffrage Study Club for Black women and held collaborative meetings with white and Black suffragists.
• Munitions workers at Bethlehem Steel in Newcastle joined the National Women’s Party and made their argument for suffrage stating that their work contributed to the war effort, just as soldiers' did. 

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Dr. Anne Boylan is Professor Emerita of History and Women & Gender Studies at the University of Delaware and author of  Votes for Delaware Women (2021). She is Delaware coordinator for the online Biographical Dictionary of the Woman Suffrage Movement.

Links to People, Places, Publications:

• Delaware & the 19th Amendment (here)
• Women’s Suffrage in Delaware (here)
• Visit the Delaware Women’s Suffrage memorial (here)
• Mabel Lloyd Ridgely Biographical Sketch (here)
• Visit the Mabel Lloyd Ridgely marker (here)
• Florence Bayard Hilles Biographical Sketch (here)
• Mabel Vernon Biographical Sketch (here)
• Ethel Cuff Black Biographical Sketch (here)
• Emma Gibson Sykes Biographical Sketch (here)
• Visit the 1914 Suffrage parade marker (here)
• Alice Dunbar-Nelson Biographical Sketch (here)
• Visit the Alice Dunbar-Nelson marker (here)
• Blanche Williams Stubbs Biographical Sketch (here)
• Visit the Blanche Stubbs marker (here)
• Visit the African American Suffrage Club marker (here)
• Visit the Women Munitions Workers marker (here)

CM Marihugh is a public history consultant and currently conducting independent research for a book on commemoration of the U.S. women’s suffrage movement. She has an M.A. in Public History from State University of New York, and an M.B.A. from Dartmouth College.

Learn more about:

• National Votes for Women Trail (here)
• National Votes for Women Trail - William G. Pomeroy historical markers (here)
• National Collaborative for Women’s History Sites (here)

Do you have a question, comment, or suggestion? Get in touch! Send an e-mail to NVWTpodcast@ncwhs.org

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Anne Boylan, Earth Mama, CM Marihugh

CM Marihugh  00:00

Welcome to Her March to Democracy where we're telling stories along The National Votes For Women Trail. The trail chronicles the fight for voting rights for women. The Suffragists or Suffs, as they were called, were the revolutionaries of their day and they battled the powers that be. These foot soldiers cut across the lines of geography, race, ethnicity, class, and gender, and numbered in the many 1000s over 70 plus years.

Earth Mama  00:36

We are standing on the shoulders 
Of the ones who came before us, 
They are safe, and they are humans. 
They are angels, they are friends. 

We can see beyond the struggles 
And the troubles and the challenge 
When we know that by our efforts 
Things will be better in the end.

CM Marihugh  01:09

Each episode is a tour on the trail to the places of struggle. The cities, the towns, where wins and defeats happened over and over again. Our theme music is Standing On The Shoulders by Joyce Johnson Rouse and recorded by Earth Mama. Join us on our travels to hear the stories along The National Votes For Women Trail. 

Today we'll be talking about stories along The National Votes For Women Trail in Delaware. And I welcome Anne Boylan, who is the Professor Emerita of History, and Women and Gender Studies at the University of Delaware. She's also the author of "Votes For Delaware Women", which was published in 2021, the first book length study of the struggle for women's voting rights in Delaware. And she serves as the state coordinator for The National Votes For Women Trail. 

Now, I looked at the trail map and database and I see that Delaware has at this point 38 sites linked to suffrage and of course that- that number grows as people research and add more sites. According to the historical marker database, there are at least 14 markers scattered around the state. And we'll be visiting some of those in our show today. So Anne, I wondered if you would start with telling us about Delaware's role in the fight for votes for women?

Anne Boylan  02:45

I'll be happy to and I think I'd like to start first in the state capitol: Dover, which is in the middle of the states in a central County, we only have three counties. And I'll start in Dover with the final struggle to get the Delaware legislature to ratify the 19th amendment. So we're in Dover and we're in 1920. Just a little background, Congress had finally passed the 19th Amendment in 1919. It had only taken 40 years since it was first introduced  into Congress. But once it passed Congress, then it was sent to the states for ratification. 36 of the existing 48 states had to ratify before it could become part of the constitution. 

So the question was, would Delaware be part of this process? And how has Delaware commemorated the event of the 19th amendment's passage. There are several historical markers in Dover. But I think the most important that I'm going to focus on the beginning is a historical marker, recounting this struggle, and that's right near what we now call the Old State House. It's a historic site it's no longer in use. And it's- the marker is right next to the Old State House. There's also a much larger suffrage monument, free standing, right outside the current meeting place of the legislature which is called Legislative Hall. 

So visitors to Dover who were at the Green Historic District, the Green is a central park land area, could easily take a look at both markers just wandering around. So where was Delaware standing in the spring of 1920? Well, the legislature had the opportunity to be the final ratifying vote. There were 35 states that had ratified only 36 were need- that were needed, so Delaware could be the final state. Furthermore, the governor with pressure from the state's suffrage leaders had called a special legislative session to consider this one issue and this one issue only: Would Delaware become the final state? 

Well, for two months that question kind of hung in the air as an epic struggle really played out in the city of Dover, the state's capitol. Suffragists and anti-suffragists, leaders of national organizations, including Carrie Chapman Catt, from the National American Woman Suffrage Association, and Alice Paul, the National Woman's party came to Dover to testify and to lobby legislators alongside of course, Delaware's suffrage leaders. Journalists came from all over the country. Hotels were packed. There were rallies, there were petitions, there were accusations of bribery, there was intrigue, including a claim that the pro-suffrage group had kidnapped a legislator to keep him from voting, because he might not vote the right way. 

Suffragists and anti-suffragists packed the statehouse gallery to watch the proceedings and they tried to buttonhole legislators quite literally, by asking them to wear yellow roses in their lapels, if they were pro-suffrage, and of course, red roses in their lapels if they were opposed. In the end, the Delaware Senate voted to ratify, but the house adjourned on June 2, without reconsidering its earlier negative vote. So it was a wild scene in the state house when that happened. The victorious anti-suffragists picked up their leader carried her to a nearby table for a speech and scattered $60 worth of red rose petals around the chamber. And by the way, $60 in 1920 is equivalent to over $900 today.

CM Marihugh  03:27

Quite the story, it sounds like some of the things that happened in Tennessee during their battles, and someone was kidnapped. But I'm not surprised there were so many battles along the way in this movement. And I think most of us forget what a fierce conflict this was. Women were fighting for democracy for independence, representation. I'm wondering, could you give us some clues on why the legislature ultimately didn't ratify?

Anne Boylan  07:18

Certainly. And I would start by saying it was not for lack of trying by Delaware suffrage leaders, who had a very long tradition of organizing going way back to the 1890s. And they had spent almost a year since June of 1919 preparing for this ratification battle. They were the ones who had convinced the governor to call the special session of the legislature. So to them this was a fundamentally political undertaking, and these women understood politics, they had learned about politics and practices, and they knew how to get things done. But and here's the first clue; there were divisions within the ranks of suffrage leaders. We can see the causes of those divisions. 

If we look at four key suffragists, all of them are depicted on the state suffrage monument in Dover the big monument outside Legislative Hall. Two of them are also featured on individual markers. So let me start with Mabel Lloyd Ridgely, a white suffrage leader from a very prominent Dover family. She lived in the historic Parke-Ridgely House on The Green. The house was and is quite literally a stone's throw from the statehouse where the legislature was meeting. It became this- her house became the site of numerous strategy sessions. 

And if you can visualize this, they could look out the windows of Mabel Ridgely's house, they could watch legislators come and go to the statehouse. And they could walk out the door with their yellow roses, and ask the legislators to please wear the yellow rose to show that they were supporting the suffrage amendment. So Mabel Ridgely was kind of crucial to this whole process. And she had been chosen because of her prominence and because of her family's status as the president of the Delaware Equal Suffrage Association. There's an historical marker in the garden of that house right on The Green. And so if one walks from the Old State House, the short distance to the Ridgely home and looks just over the fence, you'll see this historic marker honoring Mabel Lloyd Ridgely. Her portrait is also on the suffrage monument at legislative Hall, which is the current state Delaware- State of Delaware Capitol building.

A second person who's also on the- whose portrait is also on the suffrage monument was Florence Bayard Hilles. Now she was in Dover that spring. She was also like Mabel Ridgely, an elite white woman with plenty of political connections. Her male relatives had been US senators, her father had been ambassador to England. And theres a historic marker, not just in Dover, but also one in Delaware city on which she is featured. So you might think, given her background, but she'd be at Mabel Ridgely's house to that spring, working on ratification, she was not. In fact, by the time legislature met in March 1920, the two women led competing organizations, each working on ratification. Ridgely represented the Delaware Equal Suffrage Association, but Hilles represented the Delaware branch of the National Woman's party. 

Two groups even set- set up separate campaign headquarters in Dover to lobby for ratification. Now, remember, this is a small state; population even today is under a million people. We only have one representative in the US Congress, as we have had ever since statehood, and since the US Constitution. So you can imagine that having two different suffrage organizations working for ratification was not ideal. But of course, this had happened on the national level as well. There were a- dueling national suffrage organizations, the National American Women's Suffrage Association and the National Woman's Party. And what were they divided over? Well, the big division was over tactics; how to go about getting Woman Suffrage into the Constitution. They disagreed about this and they got labels that have sort of come down to us today, Mabel Ridgely represented what people call the mainstream or the moderate suffrage movement. 

They believed the best way to convince male legislators to support ratification was through educating, lobbying, petitioning, organizing, rallying. Florence Bayard Hilles on the other hand, represented what historians termed "the militants" in the suffrage movement. She had been recruited into militancy by another Delawarian, Mabel Vernon, whose image takes up one entire side of the state suffrage monument. And a quotation from Mabel Vernon is at the bottom of the monument saying "they call us iron jawed angels, what's wrong with that?" Mabel Vernon was militant, theres no doubt about it. She was- she led the first group of suffragists who walked across to the White House in 1917, carrying picket signs. She and Florence Byard Hilles, a year earlier, had smuggled a large banner into the visitors gallery at the Capitol when Woodrow Wilson was speaking. 

So during his speech there in the gallery, he's down giving a speech on- at the podium. They pulled out the banner from under Florence's, what they said, "her very large brown winter coat", and they unfurled it over the railing. It read, Mr. President, what will you do for women's suffrage? So militants made it a practice of disrupting things of picketing. They also set up bonfires on the sidewalk outside the White House to burn to ashes, Woodrow Wilson's words about democracy. If he was going to talk about democracy, they were going to ask about why women could not vote in this democracy. When they were arrested as they were, they refused to post bail and went to jail. In jail, some went on hunger strikes, and a small number were subjected to really gruesome practice of forcible feeding. 

So the idea and this is where militancy sort of was at the center was to be in people's faces, to call attention to the cause, and yes, if necessary to suffer for the cause. Now, Florence Byard Hilles as an example, she was arrested in 1917. She served three days in jail in the Washington DC jail. Before getting, guess what, a pardon from President Wilson. Because President Wilson knew her family, they knew her father they knew her- her brother, so the Hilles name probably served very well here, but there were other- there were 16 other women who also got the pardon, so she didn't just get a pardon on her own. She was so committed to the suffrage cause that she got a purple and gold tattoo on her right arm purple and gold were the militants colors for sufferage advocacy.

But you know, in 1913 or 14 when she got the tattoo women let alone respectable society women did not get tattoos. Now the moderates were critical of the militants tactics. They believed that it hurt the cause when sufferagists carried out what they considered to be stunts to get public attention. Stunts seemed frivolous to them. And they also thought that the stunts violated public ideas about how respectable and serious women should behave, especially when pursuing a goal as serious as their voting rights. So the moderates were worried about alienating possible supporters. And they really wanted to focus on educating the public and lobbying legislatures. 

Now, it's worth reminding that we have these kinds of divisions even today in political discourse. If you're working to promote efforts to end global warming and climate change, well, you have to think about how am I going to be effective? Are you going to try and get laws passed? Are you try- and going to try to lobby legislatures and the UN and so on? Or do you engage in various kinds of stunts, one of which I read about recently is, you know, throwing tomato soup at paintings in museums. This is not an- a question just confined to the suffrage movement. It is a question of tactics and what will be effective. 

In any case, here's one clue then as to what happened to the ratification effort in Dover, that summer. Divisions within the suffrage ranks, specially over tactics. So by the time that the Dover Equal Suffrage Association, and the National Woman's Party had geared up to lobby for ratification, the leaders of the two groups had even set up separate headquarters, and although they worked together on a rally in April, they did not the rest of the time. But times change and so today, both the moderates and the militants are all together on the suffrage monument in Dover. 

Now, a second clue would be represented by another woman, a suffragist who is also on the suffrage monument. Her name is Ethel Cuff. Ethel Cuff was one of a group of Delaware's African American suffragists. She may be on the suffrage monument today, but in her own time, black suffragists encountered racial animosity and exclusion within the suffrage movement. Ethel Cuff had marched in the big national suffrage parade in Washington, DC organized by Alice Paul and organized to take place one day before Woodrow Wilson would be inaugurated for his first term. 

Ethel Cuff and her sorority sisters from Howard University, marched in that parade. They were the founding members of Delta Sigma Theta sorority, they marched in their caps and gowns in the college section of the parade. Even though some sufferage leaders had sought to relegate the group, to the back of the parade to the so called colored section, they refused and they marched with the college section. Ethel Cuff later on came back to Dover to live and to teach at the State College for colored students now Delaware State University. There she was an advocate throughout the 1920s for the teaching of black history to black youth. She later moved to New York to teach. So, this is a reminder that Delaware was a segregated state. 

The 1897 State Constitution required segregation in public schools and in most public facilities and institutions, such as hospitals. Black suffragists, like Ethel Cuff, would hardly have felt welcome to attend the ratification debate debates at the Statehouse. Worse still, they would have had to listen to racist, insulting and demeaning arguments that some state legislators used about black voters and particularly about black women voting. Those vicious comments weren't just spoken in the hall of the legislature, they were published in newspapers. After reading those comments, another black suffragist from Wilmington, and we'll hear about it again shortly, Emma Gibson Sykes, responded to them directly. 

While the debate was going on in Dover, she published a letter to the editor of Delaware's only Sunday newspaper, circulated around the state, the Sunday Morning Star. In it she called out by name, a member of the Delaware House, John E. McNabb. He was the one who was most prominent in using ugly nasty racist slurs to oppose ratification. Emma Sykes' letter was blunt. McNab was she said "a disgrace. His attack on black women was an attack on the mothers and sisters of black soldiers who had served in the Great War." And she signed her name. 

So I should note that although white suffragists were involved in this, they often did not come to black suffragists defense. They intended instead- they tried to deflect attention away from people thinking that, "well, if women can vote, then Black women can vote." And we'll see why they did that shortly.

CM Marihugh  20:15

I'm glad you're talking about the violence, and some of the consequences that the suffragists experienced, because it needs to be discussed more. And it was not just physical violence. But as you describe, about Emma Gibson Sykes, it was violent rhetoric. I'm also glad you talked about prison. These are ugly stories of how suffragettes were treated. They were repeatedly told that they, women did not have the intelligence to be in politics or to vote, they were physically attacked, arrested, and jailed. And both women and men were ridiculed. This was- it just shows what a long, hard fight it was. Where are we going to next, Anne?

Anne Boylan  21:11

Well, now we're going to move to Wilmington, which is the largest state, I'm sorry,  the largest city in the state of Delaware. It was then and it still is today. And this is in the northern part of the state. So we moved from Dover in the central part of the state, up to Wilmington, Delaware. In Wilmington there are six important historical markers on women's voting rights. Two of the markers commemorate the state's first big suffrage parade and rally, which was held in May of 1914. And its purpose was to press for a national constitutional amendment for voting rights. 

Many people were had been working on state amendments so that women could actually vote in 1914. They could vote in California, for example, they could vote in some of the western states like Oregon and Kansas. But the idea of a national constitutional amendment was now taking hold as the one way that this thing could be achieved on a national level. So the first of these markers is outside the train station now known as the Joseph R. Biden Train Station, which is where the parade began. The other is on Market Street at what is now called Rodney Square. And that's where the parade ended, and a rally was held and speeches were presented. 

So it should be clear by now this- Delaware suffragists were well organized, and they were ready for this ratification contest. They had been organized since the 1890s. And these two organizations were already very active by 1914. The parade and the rally marked one of the times when the two groups, Equal Suffrage Association and The Woman's Party worked together and they work together very amicably. Florence Byard Hilles organized the parade and suffragists from all over the state came to march. And this was one of those occasions when the spectators were quite respectful. 

And many of the merchants whose shops lay along the line of march put displays in their windows to support the cause of Women's Right to Vote. So it was quite a contrast to what happened in 1913 in Washington, DC when women were, as you were saying attacked, vilified, some of them physically assaulted and spat upon. Now I mentioned before the Delaware was a segregated state. Still, Wilmington had a significant organization of black suffragists, Equal Suffrage Study Club and The Equal Suffrage Study Club marched in that 1914 parade as a group, yes. 

But they were not relegated to the rear, instead, they marched between two white groups: The Wilmington Fife and Drum Corps and a delegation from Arden Delaware, a socialist colony near the state law border with Pennsylvania. Equal Suffrage Study Club had been founded earlier in the year and had held an organizing meeting at the home of Emma Gibson Sykes, whom we've heard about already. 

Mrs. Sykes helped run the office of her husband who was a dentist and was well connected to a group of middle class women in on the east side of Wilmington. The club members were yes middle class black women. Several were teachers, such as Alice Dunbar Nelson, whom we'll talk about shortly, she became the club president. Emma Sykes was the vice president. 

The club treasurer, Fannie Hamilton was a local business woman and Blanche Williams Stubbs, a social worker, and the executive director of a local community center served as the club's- on the club's executive committee and it was she, Mrs. Stubbs, who led the marchers in the parade as they marched as members of The Equal Suffrage Study Club.

CM Marihugh  25:03

The parades and marches and pageants that suffragists held all across the country, they used these methods as really PR strategies. And they were effective because they drew spectators and press coverage. Could you tell us why it was so novel for the public to see women marching on the street and why it really took courage for them to do those?

Anne Boylan  25:34

Indeed, what was novel, I would argue, was not so much women being seen on the city streets or even participating in parades. After all, the 1913, 1914 women were visible in public as they rode public transportation as they worked downtown as they went to work in department stores and offices and so on. And actually, during the First World War, women marched in patriotic parades to support the troops. What was novel was women marching on city streets to demand their rights, especially voting rights. 

To put it another way, it was the cause it represented, not simply the act of marching that drew press coverage and spectators, the cause was controversial. And women were not marching just to support men as in Patriotic Parade. They were marching to seek their own constitutional and other rights. That's what made spectators angry enough in Washington to assault women marchers. And that's what made reporters show up to cover the events. So it was indeed courageous to march for this cause on city streets. 

And I would argue, especially courageous for black women to march, because when you organized a march, you never knew what kind of reaction you would receive. If you were lucky it was the way it was in Wilmington in May of 1914. If you were unlucky, it was the chaos that the spectators caused in 1913 in March in Washington. Now, the two historical markers in Wilmington honor the work of notable black suffragists. Alice Dunbar Nelson and Blanche Williams studs, Stubbs pardon me. Both of whom were life long activists for voting rights, civil rights and women's rights. 

The marker for Alice Dunbar Nelson is in front of her former home on North French street. Her name may perhaps be the one name that's familiar to listeners of Delaware suffragists, because she was well known poet, journalist and writer, a civil rights activist, a women's rights activist, and active in the International Peace Movement later on in the 1920s. She had been born in Louisiana, her mother and been born enslaved. She got married in the 1890s, a very well known black poet Paul Laurence Dunbar but the marriage became abusive. And so she left Paul Laurence Dunbar and moved from Washington DC, to Wilmington, Delaware to teach at the Howard High School. The only, I stress only four year high school in the entire state for black students. 

She later and during her career as a teacher published poetry. She kept a very notable diary which has been published, and she really shone in her own world as a writer and a journalist though she spent many years promoting Paul Laurence Dunbar's work because he was a poet who was well known in the black community. Blanche William Stubbs had been born in Wisconsin. And grown up- she grew up in Michigan near Marquette, Michigan. She moved to Washington DC to attend Howard University and to train as a teacher, which she did. She then moved to Wilmington, Delaware, also to teach at the Howard school. 

But when she married a physician, Dr. JB Stubbs in 1897, she had to quit her teaching job that was required by the state board of education. She had three children and while raising her three children, she became very active in promoting a community center for black Wilmingtonians. She then helped to found a permanent community settlement house, called the Thomas Garrett Settlement House, and she became an executive director, a job she held for 40 years. So in order to provide some context then for the black suffragists activism in Delaware, and also the virulence of the racist comments on black women and voting, I need to to pause here to mention an unusual feature of Delaware's 1897 state constitution. 

The new constitution did indeed mandate segregation in the state schools, a requirement that did not end until 1954 with the Brown decision, but the same constitution restored the voting rights of black men whose rights had been taken away by the state legislature in the years following reconstruction. Now, black men were voting in Delaware. And by 1903, a black city councilman was sitting in the Wilmington city council, he been elected to that job. 

So, the implications of black men's ability to vote was not lost on black women. They knew that if Delaware women as a group won voting rights, black women would be voting, unlike what was happening in the former Confederate states, to the south of Delaware. So the organizing a suffrage club by black women meant that they were being in the position, as black suffragists, to advocate for voting rights for all women. Those implications were not lost on legislators either they understood that black woman would vote. And they were very concerned about that. 

So black women were putting themselves in a position of being as they were insulted and degraded by legislators, and of having to defend their name and their rights as black women and as potential voters.

CM Marihugh  31:40

Those types of situations were so frequent, particularly among, as you say, the southern states. It's interesting that black men were able to vote unobstructed after the state constitution. But as you say, this made the hard fight harder for African American women because the antis, the anti-suffragists would stoke racist fears that the black vote would be too powerful. But we also see in the movement examples of where black and white suffragists work together. Are there any in Delaware? 

Anne Boylan  32:22

Yes, there are examples, and two of them are commemorated on historical markers. The first is on the former site of the Thomas Garrett Settlement House which Blanche Stubbs led for 40 years. This at the corner of North Walnut Street and Seventh Street is now the home if you're familiar with Wilmington of St. Michael's day nursery. This is an example of the kind of coalition politics that sometimes are necessary to get something done. 

And so, black suffragists saw a national constitutional amendment as really important because it was a kind of a bookend to the 15th amendment that guaranteed black men's voting rights. In other words, this was supporting universal suffrage that puts them in the same camp as members of the National Woman's Party in Delaware. So it meant that an unusual situation in a segregated state, black and white suffragists did occasionally meet together.

 Most often, such meetings took place in black run spaces, such as the Garrett House, where black- Blanche Stubbs- Stubbs had the opportunity to invite white suffragists to come, and they did, they invited Florence Byard Hilles and others to meet with them in that black run space. She then returned the favor a couple of times, and invited Alice Dunbar Nelson to attend woman's party events as a quote-unquote, fraternal delegate from The Garrett Settlement House. 

Another example of this kind of coalition politics and cooperation is commemorated in Delaware city, a small city south of Wilmington along the Delaware River. There's a historical marker there, along the access road to the Mike Castle, hiking and biking trail. For those of you who might want to take up a- a tour around Delaware of all these sites. It commemorates a 1920 meeting of The Equal Sufferage Study Club at a local quote-unquote, "colored school." 

There, Alice Dunbar Nelson and Florence Byard Hilles spoke in favor of ratification and urged the women present to petition their state representative to support ratification of the 19th amendment, and the attendees passed a resolution to that effect.

CM Marihugh  34:51

Where are we traveling to next, Anne?

Anne Boylan  34:54

Well, we're traveling next to to New Castle Delaware, where we're going to look at another example of suffragists working across lines of race or ethnicity or class or gender. In this case, we're looking at working class women who worked at a munitions plant during the First World War in the city of Newcastle, which is just south of Wilmington. And along the Delaware River, there is a marker which is dedicated to the working class women who picketed at the White House and marched for their voting rights during the First World War. 

These women found a federal constitutional amendment particularly appealing and so they joined the National Woman's party in Delaware. They worked at the Bethlehem Steel munitions plant during the First World War. Now think about this for a minute this is they describe their workers hard and dangerous to life and health. Well, how they were putting gunpowder into bullet shells, and other kinds of big munitions. The gunpowder was kind of a yellow color. 

And so at the end of the day, not only had they come in contact with something very dangerous, but their bodies and their their uniforms, their working farms were covered with the yellow powder. They saw their quest for suffrage as a simple matter of justice. They deserved equal citizenship, and full suffrage would confer that. Here's their petition I'll quote to it, quote a part of it from their petition to Woodrow Wilson. Quote; "We wish to be made a part of the democracy, we are helping to fight for." Simple, simple justice. 

At least four of them picketed the White House or started watch fires and were arrested. Catherine Thornton Boyle, who lived in New Castle was a trained nurse and midwife and worked at the plant served five days in jail in 1919. Annie Melvin Arniel, the most militant of the group served, now listen to this, eight jail sentences for a total of 103 days in jail, 60 of them in the notorious Occoquan workhouse in Virginia. Annie Arniel participated in at least two hunger strikes.

CM Marihugh  37:22

Now you are talking about picketing the White House, The Silent Sentinels. And many people do not know that this was the first time any group had protested outside the White House. They were there in all kinds of weather. They were subjected to harassment by passers by they were arrested. Sometimes the charges were simply as ridiculous as blocking a public sidewalk. Do you know if Annie was force fed during her hunger strike?

Anne Boylan  38:01

I'm pretty certain as far as we know that she was not one of the handful who were forcibly fed. But, I'm glad you mentioned some of the reasons people were arrested, you know, unlawful assembly. Annie Arniel out of her eight arrests included unlawful assembly, obstructing the sidewalk, violating Park regulations in Lafayette Park, violating "the peace and order law of DC" and contempt of court. 

Now she was not forcibly fed as far as I know. But she did suffer enduring health problems after her 103 days in jail. Eight stints. And as a tragic postscript to this after suffrage was won and she became very active in getting women registered to vote and getting out to vote and so on. But she had severe health troubles after 1920, including a nervous breakdown that sent her to a hospital for several months in 1924. And she died soon afterwards, at her home.

CM Marihugh  38:04

Many truly did suffer in this long campaign. And as often pointed out that it followed this movement followed the principles of non violence, but there was still violence against them. They experienced it. And it's only as we hear more and more of these stories that we better understand their bravery. So I'm glad you brought up those stories. Where are we going to next?

Anne Boylan  39:37

Okay, now on our little tour, we're traveling south all the way to the southern part of Delaware. Delaware in Dover, which is the central part of the state. We've been in Wilmington, which is in the northern part of the state, only about 40 miles from Philadelphia. Now we're going all the way down to Georgetown, Delaware to talk about Margaret Houston It's pronounced Houston. The way Houston street in New York is pronounced. There's a historical marker honoring her outside the Georgetown Public Library. There's also a marker commemorating the entire women's suffrage movement in Delaware, right in the- at the so called circle in the center of Georgetown. 

The work of Margaret Houston I think provides us with an excellent example of a long, time suffragist organizer, who remained committed to the cause, despite the difficulties of organizing in a heavily rural state, where there was a got- lot of anti suffrage sentiment. Margaret Houston in 1897, testified before the state constitutional delegation. Remember I said that there was a new state constitution in 1897. Well, Houston, and four other women went to the Constitutional Convention to argue for the inclusion of women's voting rights in the new state constitution. 

At that point in her life, she was 33 years old. She had trained as a teacher, but then quit when she married, as required by state educational authorities. She now was the mother of three small children. And she was just as firm in her commitment to the woman's right to vote in 1897, as she was in 1920. Among those testifying with her or Carrie Chapman Catt of the National American Women's Suffrage Association, who once wrote a letter, telling another suffragists that she had spent the worst night of her life and Delaware because she had a horrible, horrible headache when she had to testify before these men. 

There were other white suffragists, including Martha Churchman Cranston, who was the president of the Delaware Equal Suffrage Association at the time. So the men of the Constitutional Convention they listened politely to the women. They asked no questions. They thanked as they said, "the ladies" and they dismissed them. Margret Houston was not dismayed. 

During the two decades that followed, she organized sufferage petitions, did a stint as the head of the Delaware Federation of Women's Clubs and helped to found the Georgetown Century Club, a women's club that helped to found the town's library, which is where her- the new library, which is where her marker is. In 1919 when the 19th amendment was sent to the states for ratification, she became chair of her County's Ratification Committee for the Delaware Equal Suffrage Association. She spent the entire special session in Dover, lobbying, and working hard trying to convince legislators to support ratification. 

And this is a woman who has had decades of suffrage activism, she continued to work as a political operative after 1920 for the Republican Party. So decades of activism, when she died in 1937, there was a nice obituary for her in the local paper, The Sussex Countian, which was owned and edited by her husband and her daughter. The obituary made no mention of her suffrage work. And we wonder why many suffragists' stories had been lost. There's one example.

CM Marihugh  43:16

So that's something that Houston worked for over 20 years in this campaign. And I say that casually. But we know the amount of just pure not only mental effort, but physical effort, that these women and the men who were their allies did. This was decades of knocking on doors, speaking on soap boxes, handing out leaflets, testifying to legislatures, and as you say, they were not always interested or attentive. 

These people were really foot soldiers for building a stronger democracy. And they were continuing the work of the American Revolution, which in a couple of years, we're going to be celebrating the 250th anniversary and their work should be remembered during that time. But back to Delaware, what happened after the 19th amendment was adopted? 

Anne Boylan  44:19

Okay, let me just give a couple of brief examples of what happened after the amendment made within into full voters. And we're gonna go back to Wilmington for a minute, because I want to mention one example that I think is just worth kind of taking a little moment to celebrate. 

Women in Wilmington demonstrated the power their vote against anti suffrage, legislatures, legislators, pardon me, and they engaged in what we would nowadays call payback. They targeted John McNabb of Wilmington, the racist legislator who had worked against them. He was seeking a seat now in this Delaware Senate he wanted to move to the Senate. A coalition of black and white women including Emma Gibson, Sykes and Annie Arniel canvassed his district speaking to new women voters. They called people up on the telephone. And they advocated for McNabb to be defeated. He lost the election. He was furious. 

The day after the election, he was driving by on a Wilmington street and he saw one of the women who had worked against him. He jumped out of his car and yelled at her, and she just sort of, you know, brushed him off. In Sussex County, the lowest of three counties where Georgetown is, suffragists also turned out in a primary election to defeat two other anti suffrage members of the Delaware house. 

I like the story of the Ida B. Fox as well in Milton Delaware, which is in the lower part of the state. Fox owned a theater, which was eventually called the Fox Theater. She wanted to be the first woman in Delaware to register to vote so she camped out at the voter registration office carrying with her a thermos and some sandwiches, and she was indeed the first to register. 

CM Marihugh  46:10

I have to say how gratifying it is to see how many suffragists when they became new voters were able to throw their support to those that supported them. It's poetic justice.

Anne Boylan  46:27

Indeed.

CM Marihugh  46:27

And, yeah, it shows the strength that they had. And the Ida Fox story, also, I feel like indicates how so many women were just chomping at the bit to register to vote to finally be able to vote. That's a great story. And how would you wrap up the story of suffrage in Delaware?

Anne Boylan  46:54

Well, I think I have to go back to the beginning because I left hanging the question of why didn't Delaware ratify? So I need to add just a couple of more points. I think, certainly divisions within the ranks of suffragists were important, made it difficult to to be unified in lobbying. Certainly the use of racist arguments about black women was an important element. But there were two other factors.

One, there was anger at the governor and the legislature for a new school code passed in 1919. Raised taxes and it was unpopular. But the most important factor, the fourth factor that I think we might make sure we understand here was that seats in the Delaware legislature were not equally apportioned. There was, to use a modern phrase that we're all familiar with, there was gerrymandering. In other words, there was no one person one vote in Delaware at that time. 

Instead, rural and heavily anti suffrage areas of the state had over representation in the legislature, with city voters and African American voters having their vote- votes influence substantially watered down. And so I think that issue of gerrymandering of the legislature is probably one of the key issues that led the house to adjourn on June 2 Without ratifying the amendment. In the end, then, of course, Delaware's failure to ratify passed the torch to Tennessee, which picked up the torch and became the final ratifying state in August 1920. 

CM Marihugh  48:31

Thank you so much for being with us today to share these wonderful stories, some of them dispiriting and some of them, all of them inspiring, but the stories along The National Votes For Women Trail in Delaware. Thank you for joining us this week. We hope you'll contact us with comments or questions. 

The National Votes For Women Trail Project is a work in progress. Please click on the support the project link to contribute to our ongoing work. The trail is a project of the National Collaborative for Women's History Sites. A nonprofit organization dedicated to putting women's history on the map. Our theme is Standing On The Shoulders by Joyce Johnson Rouse and recorded by Earth Mama, be sure to join us next time.

Earth Mama  49:26

I'm standing on the shoulders 
Of the ones who came before me. 
I am honored by their passion 
For our liberty. 

I will stand a little taller. 
I will work a little longer. 
And my shoulders will be there to hold
The ones who follow me. 

My shoulders will be there to hold 
The ones who follow me!