Greek maidens playing ball in the Oregon State University May Day Pageant, 1920s
College Section
Washington DC suffrage parade
March 3, 1913
This section was led by Vassar graduate Elsie Hill who along with her mother helped arrange the permit for the parade.
Phoebe Hawn (above) was one of fourteen women who walked 295 miles from New York City to Washington DC in 1913 as part of a suffrage demonstration.
In December 1912, Long Island socialite “General” Rosalie Jones organized a hike from New York City to Albany in favor of women’s suffrage. Over thirteen days, Rosalie and a small group of suffragettes walked 170 miles, giving speeches at small towns along the way. So much publicity was generated by the hike that the women decided to plan a second, more ambitious hike to Washington, DC.
The hike to DC began on February 12, 1913, Lincoln’s birthday. Hundreds of people joined the march at points along the way. The fourteen women who walked the entire route and the two who joined the march in Philadelphia wore long brown capes as shown in the photo above.
Mayors sent delegations to meet them and the hikers made speeches in favor of women’s suffrage down the eastern seaboard. The streets of Philadelphia were so packed when they arrived that the hikers staged a series of street corner speeches on the way to their hotel in order to thin the crowd of eager well wishers. Wilmington, Delaware declared the day they arrived a half-holiday. The hikers gave long, well-attended speeches at Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania. Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore met with them, a great honor considering none of the marchers were Catholic.
The hikers arrived in DC on February 28 and marched down Pennsylvania Avenue. The hikers marched again as part of the large parade on March 3, 1913.
Inez Milholland Boissevain at the National American Woman Suffrage Association parade on March 3, 1913 in Washington, D.C.
Inez was a suffragette, attorney, journalist, and social justice advocate. During the summer between her sophomore and junior years at Vassar College, Inez joined Britain’s militant suffrage movement, participating in several English demonstrations. When she returned to Vassar, she organized the college’s first suffrage meetings in direct disobedience to the anti-suffrage college president.
After graduating from Vassar, Inez attended New York University’s School of Law. As an attorney, she practiced divorce, criminal, and labor law. She was a member of a number of prominent social justice organizations including the National American Woman Suffrage Association, the Women’s Trade Union League, the National Child Labor Committee, and the NAACP.
Inez helped to organize the March 3, 1913 parade in Washington, DC. In the photo above she is preparing to lead the parade dressed in white robes and astride a white horse. She carried a banner that read, “Forward Out of Darkness, Leave Behind the Night, Forward Out of Error, Forward Into Light.”
Four months later, Inez married Dutch importer Eugen Jan Boissevain. She proposed to him and considered this a mark of the new freedom of women.
During World War I, Inez served as a war correspondent and peace advocate. She returned to the US in 1916 and embarked on a pro-suffrage speaking tour of twelve western states. On October 22, 1916, Inez collapsed while giving a speech in Los Angeles. She died of pernicious anemia at the age of thirty on November 25, 1916.
Inez was immediately declared a martyr of the suffrage movement. A memorial service was held for her in the US Capitol’s Statuary Hall on Christmas Day 1916. Three weeks later, 300 women attempted to met with President Wilson and give him the suffrage resolutions drafted during Inez’s memorial service. He refused to meet with them, setting off the Silent Sentinel protests that lasted from 1917 to 1919.
Texan Suffragette (May) Jane Walker Burleson, Grand Marshall of the March 1913 Suffrage Parade in Washington, DC.
Jane studied art under William Merritt Chase and received a teaching certificate before she married Robert Burleson in 1908. The couple moved to the Philippines and Jane became the supervisor of art in Manila’s public schools, overseeing 500 teachers.
Jane’s family was prominent in the Texas Democratic party and her husband’s uncle was the newly appointed Postmaster General. Giving her the position of Grand Marshall was a way for the organizers to thumb their nose at Woodrow Wilson and his lack of support for women’s suffrage. Considered a great beauty, Jane was also “an extremely decorative person on her horse” according to Alice Paul.
Jane and Robert divorced in 1938. Robert quickly remarried, his second wife Isabelle had been named a co-defendant in the divorce. In 1940, Jane shot Isabelle in a South Carolina restaurant, killing her. Jane was sentenced to 12 years in prison, but released after eight. She spent the last nine years of her life with her family in Galveston, Texas. As a convicted felon, she was unable to vote.
“Members of ‘Throttle Queens’ put last touches to their pride and joy, club coupe which will compete against male-driven car at the San Fernando Drag Strip. From left are Wilma Brown, Pat Marian, Pat Field, the driver, and June Minnich. Car hit 97 miles per hour and won trophy in its division.”
Dated October 9, 1956
