By Marlee Newman
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Sixty-five years after Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the landmark women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, N.Y., the first national demonstration for women’s suffrage took place in Washington, D.C. On March 3, 1913, the day before Woodrow Wilson’s presidential inauguration, 8,000 women gathered to march down Pennsylvania Avenue in support of women’s right to vote. Attorney Inez Milholland Boissevain heralded the grand procession clad in armor astride a white horse, a beautiful and intelligent epitome of the new generation of suffragists. Banners of purple, gold and white fluttered in the breeze on the crisp Washington morning. As the women and several male supporters set forth with 26 floats, a crowd of roughly half a million people watched with mixed emotions.
The murmurs of the crowd grew loud and angry as malicious bystanders crumpled parade programs and flung them at the women. The police that Congress promised would protect the parade stood aside as men poured onto the street, shouting insults and condescending remarks, and began to physically attack the marchers. Police ignored cries for help as the mob ripped banners from the hands of young girls. Many officers joined the fray; one was heard shouting, “If my wife were where you are I’d break her head!” A policeman roughly pulled a woman off her feet and tore her jacket because she slapped a man who spit on her. Reporters from newspapers around the country snapped photographs of men dragging elderly women through the streets. By evening, all that remained of the parade were scattered papers and scraps of purple and gold cloth.
The resulting press coverage and congressional investigation led to the first congressional debate over a federal amendment enfranchising women in 26 years. The parade successfully reintroduced the suffrage movement as a legitimate and formidable political force. Seven years later, the 19th Amendment passed by a margin of one vote.
