Josephine Day Bennett (May 4, 1880 - June 12, 1961) was an American activist and suffragist from Connecticut. She was a member of the National Women's Party (NWP) and campaigned for women's suffrage outside of the White House, leading to her arrest. Bennett was also involved in other social issues and was supportive of striking workers.
Bennett was born on May 4, 1880, to George Herbert and Katherine Beach Day. [1] She married M. Toscan Bennett, who was a corporate lawyer, suffragist, and a supporter of organized labor. [1] Along with her mother and Katherine Houghton Hepburn, Bennett organized women in Hartford to oppose prostitution. [2] On April 5, 1911, she gave her first suffrage speech at the Connecticut State Capitol. [3] During 1913, she travelled the state and organized a suffrage group in West Hartford. [3] That year, she and her husband moved to Forest Street in Hartford where they also build a two-car garage. [4] Bennett became the first Hartford woman to drive a car. [4] In 1914, she organized a 1,000-strong suffrage parade in Hartford. [3] [5] Later that year, she spoke to a Congressional committee in Washington, D.C., supporting the Susan B. Anthony bill. [3] The press called her a "brilliant orator." [1]
In 1917, Bennett joined the National Women's Party (NWP). [3] She chose to join the more militant group of suffragists because she favored more aggressive tactics for advocating for women's suffrage. [6] As the United States entered World War I, Bennett felt that women should be given the right to vote as a "war measure." [7] Bennett was also angry that President Woodrow Wilson had backed down on his promise to support a federal women's suffrage amendment and in early 1919, burned a copy of his speech. [8] She was arrested for her act of civil disobedience and spent five days in jail, during which she participated in a hunger strike. [3] [9]
In 1920, she was nominated to run for the U.S. Senate by the Farmer-Labor party. [10] Around this time, Bennett and her husband founded the Brookwood Labor College in Katonah, New York, where students could learn about sociology, history, and other subjects. [11] [3] She vocally supported workers' rights to organize. [12] [13] As they worked on the college, the Bennetts downsized their estate and moved to Katonah. [14] During the 1922 election, Bennett unsuccessfully ran for Connecticut Attorney General. [15] Among her other interests were birth control and civil rights for African Americans. [4] She worked with Hepburn, leading the Connecticut Birth Control League, which later became Planned Parenthood. [3] Bennett was one of the founders of the NAACP chapter in Hartford. [16]
In 1924, she moved to Paris. [11] Around two years later, she and her husband were divorced. [17] In December of 1930, Bennett married an artist, Ricard Brooks. [18] She was a 1931 honoree for Connecticut and listed at the NWP headquarters. [19] Bennett died in Hartford on June 12, 1961. [2] Bennett was inducted into the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame in 2020. [1] She was featured on "I Voted" stickers, designed by Pamela Hovland for a 2020 Election Day campaign. [20]
The National Woman's Party (NWP) was an American women's political organization formed in 1916 to fight for women's suffrage. After achieving this goal with the 1920 adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the NWP advocated for other issues including the Equal Rights Amendment. The most prominent leader of the National Woman's Party was Alice Paul, and its most notable event was the 1917–1919 Silent Sentinels vigil outside the gates of the White House.
Josephine Sophia White Griffing was an American reformer who campaigned against slavery and for women's rights. In Litchfield, Ohio their home was a stop on the Underground Railroad and she worked as a lecturer for the Western Anti-Slavery Society and Ohio Women's Rights Association. At the end of the American Civil War she moved to Washington, D.C., to help work with the unemployed freedmen. Much of her work was done through the Freedmen's Bureau, where she worked as an assistant to the assistant commissioner and as an agent. Griffing was also active in several women's rights organizations, including the National Woman Suffrage Association.
Isabella Beecher Hooker was a leader, lecturer and social activist in the American suffragist movement.
Katharine Martha Houghton Hepburn was an American feminist social reformer and a leader of the suffrage movement in the United States. Hepburn served as president of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association before joining the National Woman's Party. Alongside Margaret Sanger, Hepburn co-founded the organization that would become Planned Parenthood. She was the mother and namesake of actress Katharine Hepburn and the grandmother and namesake of actress Katharine Houghton.
Women's suffrage was established in the United States on a full or partial basis by various towns, counties, states and territories during the latter decades of the 19th century and early part of the 20th century. As women received the right to vote in some places, they began running for public office and gaining positions as school board members, county clerks, state legislators, judges, and, in the case of Jeannette Rankin, as a member of Congress.
Josephine Jewell Dodge was an American educator, an early leader of the day nursery movement, and an anti-suffrage activist.
The Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association (CWSA) was founded on October 28, 1869, by Isabella Beecher Hooker and Frances Ellen Burr at Connecticut's first suffrage convention. Its main goal was to persuade the Connecticut General Assembly to ratify the 19th amendment, giving women in Connecticut the right to vote. Throughout its 52 years of existence, the CWSA helped to pass local legislation and participated in the national fight for women's suffrage. It cooperated with the National Women's Suffrage Association through national protests and demonstrations. As well as advocating for women's suffrage, this association was active in promoting labor regulations, debating social issues, and fighting political corruption.
The Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women (MAOFESW) was one of the earliest organizations formed to oppose women's suffrage in the United States. The organization was founded in May of 1895. However, MAOFESW had its roots in earlier Massachusetts anti-suffrage groups and had a publication called The Remonstrance, started in 1890.
Lillian Ascough was an American suffragist. Originally from Detroit, Michigan, she served as the Connecticut chair of the National Woman's Party (NWP) and as the vice president of the Michigan branch of the NWP. At the August 1918 demonstration at Lafayette Square, Ascough was sentenced to fifteen days in jail. Then, in February 1919 she participated in the watchfire demonstrations and was again arrested and sentenced to five days in jail. She was a speaker in the Prison Special tour of the U.S. during February and March 1919.
The "Prison Special" was a train tour organized by suffragists who, as members of the Silent Sentinels and other demonstrations, had been jailed for picketing the White House in support of passage of the federal women's suffrage amendment. In February 1919, 26 members of the National Woman's Party boarded a chartered train they dubbed the "Democracy Limited" in Washington, D.C. They visited cities across the country where they spoke to large crowds about their experiences as political prisoners at Occoquan Workhouse, and were typically dressed in their prison uniforms. The tour, which concluded in March 1919, helped create support for the ratification effort that ended with the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment on August 26, 1920.
Josepha Newcomb Whitney was an American clubwoman, pacifist, suffragist, and politician.
Amelia "Mimi" Himes Walker was an American suffragist and women's rights activist. Walker was one of the Silent Sentinels who picketed outside of the White House for women's right to vote. She was arrested in 1917 and sentenced to 60 days in the workhouse. After women secured the right to vote, Walker continued to honor the efforts of the suffragists. She also promoted the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).
Ella Riegel was an American suffragist and women's rights activist. Riegel was a graduate of the first class of Bryn Mawr College and would remain associated with the college the rest of her life.
Katharine Ludington was an American suffragist. She was the last president of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association, and a founding leader of the League of Women Voters.
Women's suffrage in Illinois began in the mid 1850s. The first women's suffrage group was formed in Earlville, Illinois by the cousin of Susan B. Anthony, Susan Hoxie Richardson. After the Civil War, former abolitionist, Mary Livermore, organized the Illinois Woman Suffrage Association (IWSA) which would later be renamed the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association (IESA). Frances Willard and other suffragists in the IESA worked to lobby various government entities for women's suffrage. In the 1870s, women were allowed to serve on school boards and were elected to that office. The first women to vote in Illinois were 15 women in Lombard, Illinois led by Ellen A. Martin who found a loophole in the law in 1891. Women were eventually allowed to vote for school offices in the 1890s. Women in Chicago and throughout Illinois fought for the right to vote based on the idea of no taxation without representation. They also continued to expand their efforts throughout the state. In 1913, women in Illinois were successful in gaining partial suffrage. They became the first women east of the Mississippi River to have the right to vote in Presidential elections. Suffragists then worked to register women to vote. Both African-American and white suffragists registered women in huge numbers. In Chicago alone 200,000 women were registered to vote. After gaining partial suffrage, women in Illinois kept working towards full suffrage. The state became the first to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment, passing the ratification on June 10, 1919. The League of Women Voters (LWV) was announced in Chicago on February 14, 1920.
Catherine Mary Flanagan was an American suffragist affiliated with the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association and later the National Woman's Party. She was among the Silent Sentinels arrested for protesting outside the White House in 1917.
Frances Ellen Burr was an American suffragist and writer from Connecticut.
Emily Pierson was an American suffragist and physician. Early in her career, Pierson worked as a teacher, and then later, as an organizer for the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association (CWSA). After women earned the right to vote, she went back to school to become a physician in her hometown of Cromwell, Connecticut. During much of her life, she was interested in socialism, studying and observing in both Russia and China.
Elizabeth Daken Bacon was an American suffragist and educator. She served as president of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association (CWSA) from 1906 to 1910.
The Suffrage Emergency Corps was a special group of suffragists formed after nearly two-thirds of the states had ratified the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Only one more state was needed to ratify, and suffragists hoped they could convince Governor Marcus H. Holcomb to make his state of Connecticut the thirty-sixth. A team of women, sponsored by the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) chose delegates from the other states to travel to Connecticut in early May 1920 to convince the governor to open a special legislative session to consider ratifying the amendment. The event garnered publicity, but it did not convince the governor to proceed with the session.