The Woman Suffrage Procession on March 3, 1913, was the first suffragist parade in Washington, D.C. It was also the first large scale civil rights demonstration to take place in the nation's capital. The procession was organized by the suffragists Alice Paul and Lucy Burns for the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Planning for the event began in Washington in December 1912. As stated in its official program, the parade's purpose was to "march in a spirit of protest against the present political organization of society, from which women are excluded."
Participation numbers vary between 5,000 and 10,000 marchers. Suffragists and supporters marched down Pennsylvania Avenue on Monday, March 3, 1913, the day before President Woodrow Wilson's inauguration. Paul had selected the venue and date to maximize publicity but met resistance from the D.C. police department. The demonstration consisted of a procession with floats, bands, and various groups representing women at home, in school, and the workplace. At the Treasury Building, a pageant of allegorical tableaux was acted out during the parade. The final act was a rally at the Memorial Continental Hall with prominent speakers, including Anna Howard Shaw and Helen Keller.
Before the event, Black participation in the march threatened to cause a rift with delegations from Southern states. Some Black people did march with state delegations. A group from Howard University participated in the parade. Some sources allege that Black women were segregated at the back of the parade; however, contemporary sources suggest that they marched with their respective state delegations or professional groups.
During the procession, district police failed to keep the enormous crowd off the street, impeding the marchers' progress. Many participants were subjected to heckling from spectators, though many supporters were present. The marchers were finally assisted by citizens' groups and eventually the cavalry. The police were subjected to a congressional inquiry due to security failures. The event premiered Paul's campaign to refocus the suffrage movement on obtaining a national constitutional amendment for woman's suffrage. This was intended to pressure President Wilson to support an amendment, but he resisted their demands for years afterward.
The procession was featured in the film Iron Jawed Angels in 2004. A new U.S. ten-dollar bill with parade imagery is planned for circulation in 2026.
Background
American suffragists Alice Paul and Lucy Burns spearheaded a drive to adopt a national strategy for women's suffrage in the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Paul and Burns had seen first-hand the effectiveness of militant activism while working for Emmeline Pankhurst in the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in Britain. Their education included rallies, marches, and demonstrations, knowledge the two would put to work back in America. They already had first-hand experience with imprisonment as a backlash against suffrage activism. They had gone on hunger strikes and suffered force-feeding. They were not afraid to be provocative, even knowing the potential consequences. The procession would be their first foray into moving into militant mode on a national stage.<red name="Dodd"/>
Paul and Burns found that many suffragists supported the WSPU's militant tactics, including Harriot Stanton Blatch, Alva Belmont, Elizabeth Robins, and Rhetta Child Dorr. Burns and Paul recognized that the women from the six states that had full suffrage at the time comprised a powerful voting bloc. They submitted a proposal to Anna Howard Shaw and the NAWSA leadership at their annual convention in 1912. The leadership was not interested in changing the state-by-state strategy and rejected the idea of holding a campaign that would hold the Democratic Party responsible. Paul and Burns appealed to prominent reformer Jane Addams, who interceded on their behalf, resulting in Paul being appointed chair of the Congressional Committee.
Until this time, the women's suffrage movement had relied on oratory and written arguments to keep the issue before the public. Paul believed it was time to add a strong visual element to the campaign, even grander than she had planned for the NAWSA 1912 conference. While her tactics were nonviolent, Paul exploited elements of danger in her events. Her plan for using visual rhetoric was intended to have lasting impact. She felt it was time for women to stop begging for suffrage and demand it with political coercion instead. Though the suffragists had staged marches in many cities, this would be a first for Washington, D.C. It would also be the first large political demonstration in the nation's capital. The only previous similar demonstration was made by a group of five hundred men known as Coxey's Army, who had protested about unemployment in 1894.
At the time Paul and Burns were assigned to lead the Congressional Committee of the NAWSA, it was merely a shadow committee headed by Elizabeth Kent, wife of a California congressman, with an annual budget of ten dollars that mostly went unspent. With Paul and Burns in charge, the committee revived the push for a national suffrage amendment. At the end of 1913, Paul reported to the NAWSA that the committee had raised and expended over $25,000 on the suffrage cause for the year.
Paul and Burns persuaded NAWSA to endorse an immense suffrage parade in Washington, D.C., to coincide with newly elected President Woodrow Wilson's inauguration the following March. The NAWSA leadership turned over the entire operation to the committee. They organized volunteers, planned, and raised funds in preparation for the parade with little help from the NAWSA.
Planning
Committees and recruiting
Once the board approved the parade in December 1912, it appointed Dora Lewis, Mary Ritter Beard, and Crystal Eastman to the committee, though they all worked outside of Washington. All money Paul collected had to be directed through the NAWSA, though she did not always comply.
Paul arrived in Washington, D.C., in December 1912 to begin organizing the event. By the time the Congressional Committee had its first meeting in its new Washington headquarters on January 2, 1913, more than 130 women had shown up to start work. Using the list of former committee members, Paul found few still alive or in the city, but she did find assistance.
Among local suffragists, she was aided by attorney Florence Etheridge and teacher Elsie Hill, daughter of a congressman. Kent, the former committee chair, was instrumental in opening doors in Washington to Paul and Burns. From the NAWSA, Paul recruited Emma Gillett and Helen Hamilton Gardener to be treasurer and publicity chair, respectively. Belva Lockwood, who had run for president in 1884, also attended the initial meeting. Paul recruited Hazel MacKaye to design professional floats and allegorical tableaux to be presented simultaneously with the procession. The parade was officially named the Woman Suffrage Procession. Per the event program, the stated purpose was to "march in a spirit of protest against the present political organization of society, from which women are excluded." Doris Stevens, who worked closely with Paul, stated that "...the procession was to dramatize in numbers and beauty the fact that women wanted to vote - that women were asking the Administration in power in the national government to speed the day."
The timing of the date for the procession, March 3, was important because incoming president Woodrow Wilson, whose inauguration was to take place the following day, would be put on notice that this would be a key issue during his term. Paul wanted to put pressure on him to support a national amendment. It also ensured that the procession would enjoy a large audience and publicity. Many factors deterred Paul regarding her selected date: District suffragists worried about the weather; the superintendent of police objected to the timing; even Paul herself was concerned about the need to attract a large number of marchers in a short time frame and get them organized. Fortunately, Washington had congressional delegations from all the states, and some of their wives could be counted on to represent those states. Likewise, the embassies could provide marchers from distant countries.
To maximize the use of funds for publicity and building a national network, the Congressional Committee made it clear that participating organizations and delegations would need to fund their own travel, lodging, and other expenses.
Parade route and security
Just as the parade's timing was tied to the inauguration, so was the route Paul preferred to have the maximum impact on public perception. She requested a permit to march down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Peace Monument to the Treasury Building, then on to the White House before ending at Continental Hall. District superintendent of police, Major Richard H. Sylvester, offered a permit for Sixteenth Street, which would have taken the procession through a residential area, past several embassies. He later claimed he had thought the suffragists wished to hold the parade at night, and the police could not have provided sufficient security if they marched from the Capitol. Sylvester pointed out the rough character of lower Pennsylvania Avenue and the type of people likely to attend the inauguration. Paul was not satisfied with his alternative route. She took her request to the District commissioners and the press. Eventually, they relented and granted her request. Elsie Hill and her mother had also pressured Sylvester by appealing to Elsie's father in Congress. Congress had the ultimate responsibility and funding control over the District police department.
The presidential inauguration brought a huge influx of visitors from around the country. Media estimated crowds of a quarter to a half million people. Anticipating that most of these people would come to observe the suffrage parade, Paul was concerned about the ability of the local police force to handle the crowd; her disquiet proved to be justified by events. Sylvester had only volunteered a force of 100 officers, which Paul considered inadequate. She attempted to get intervention from President William Howard Taft, who referred her to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson. The week before the parade, Congress passed a resolution directing district police to halt all traffic from the Peace Monument to 17th Street from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. on the day of the parade and prevent any interference with the procession. Paul recruited a woman with political connections to intervene. Elizabeth Selden Rogers contacted her brother-in-law, Secretary Stimson, to request cavalry to provide additional security. He first claimed that using the soldiers for that purpose was prohibited, but later agreed to place troops on standby in case of emergency.
Countering anti-suffrage sentiments
Paul strategically emphasized beauty, femininity, and traditional female roles in the procession. Her chosen theme for the procession was "Ideals and Virtues of American Womanhood". These characteristics were perceived by anti-suffragists as being most threatened by giving women the vote. She wanted to show that women could be all those things and still be intelligent and competent to vote and fill any other role in society. Attractiveness and professional talent were not mutually exclusive. These ideals were embodied in the selection of the parade's herald, Inez Milholland, a labor lawyer from New York City who had been dubbed "the most beautiful suffragette". Milholland had served in the same role in a suffrage march in the city the previous year.
The procession
The lineup of marchers
Media reported that the suffrage parade outshone even the inauguration. Special suffrage trains were hired to bring spectators from other cities, adding to the crowds in Washington. The novelty of the procession attracted enormous interest throughout the eastern U.S. As the parade participants gathered near the Peace Monument around noon, the police began roping off part of the parade route. Even before the parade began, the ropes were badly stretched and coming loose in places. The procession drew such a crowd that President-elect Wilson was mystified about why there were no people to be seen when he arrived in town that day.
Jane Walker Burleson on horseback, accompanying a model of the Liberty Bell brought from Philadelphia, led the procession as Grand Marshal, immediately followed by the herald, Milholland, on a white horse. A pale-blue cape flowed over her white suit, held on by a Maltese cross. Her banner proclaimed "Forward into Light", a phrase originated by Pankhurst and later used by Blatch. Immediately behind the herald was a wagon that boldly stated "We Demand An Amendment To The Constitution Of The United States Enfranchising The Women Of This Country". Next was the national board of the NAWSA, headed by Shaw.
To add to the visual impact, Paul dictated a color scheme for each group of marchers. The rainbow of colors represented women coming into the light of the future out of the darkness of the past. To add drama between groups of marching women, "Paul recruited 26 floats, 6 golden chariots, 10 bands, 45 captains, 200 marshals, 120 pages, 6 mounted heralds, and 6 mounted brigades", according to Adams and Keene. Estimates about the number of participants in the procession varied from 5,000 to 10,000.
The first section had marchers and floats from countries where women already had the vote: Norway, Finland, Australia, and New Zealand. The second section had floats depicting historic scenes from the suffrage movement in 1840, 1870, and 1890. Then came a float representing the state of the campaign in 1913 in a positive tableau of women inspiring a group of girls. A series of floats depicted men and women working side by side at home and in various professions. They were followed by one with a man holding a representation of government on his shoulders while a woman with hands tied stood helpless at his side.