Alexandria to Honor Suffragists Tortured at Occoquan Workhouse

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2. Alexandria Celebrates Women: Suffragists struggle against brutality in fight for voting rights

Alexandria Celebrates Women: Suffragists struggle against brutality in fight for voting rights

August 19, 2021



Suffragists in front of the White House, 1917. (Photo/Library of Congress)

By Gayle Converse and Pat Miller

When American suffragists were arrested outside the White House 104 years ago and sentenced for imprisonment in nearby Occoquan, little could they know of the savage treatment that awaited them.

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Even though many American women had stepped up to fill deployed men’s jobs during World War I and most suffragist protests were peaceful, some American citizens began viewing the “Silent Sentinels” as unpatriotic. The suffragists had also become a nuisance to President Woodrow Wilson, who had been reelected the year before and who objected to the 19th Amendment. Wilson had written to his daughter the previous summer to claim the suffragists “seem bent on making their cause as obnoxious as possible.”

Police began arresting suffragists for “obstructing traffic.” When the first wave of arrests began, the women were promptly liberated. This system was short-lived. Judges began to order prison sentences, but jail time didn’t stop these women. Upon release, most suffragists returned to their quiet picket lines. ... The traffic obstruction charge was used in mid-November 1917, when 32 suffragists were arrested in front of the White House. Many were over the age of 60. They were ordered to be imprisoned at the District of Columbia (Occoquan) Workhouse in Lorton, Virginia. ... Along with unwashed bedding, putrid food and fetid water, the women were subjected to undue hardships and torture, resulting in the infamous Nov. 14, 1917 “Night of Terror.”

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Bruised and broken, the suffragist prisoners were brought to Alexandria on Nov. 27, 1917 for a hearing at the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Judge Edmund Waddill, Jr., agreeing the women’s treatment had been unduly harsh, ordered the release of the suffragists from Occoquan.

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