The government insisted they were dangerous women. Their real offense was standing silently outside the White House holding signs that embarrassed the President of the United States.
By November 1917, the authorities had grown tired of the spectacle. Lucy Burns and dozens of fellow suffragists were arrested on flimsy charges of “obstructing traffic,” even though the crowds gathering to watch them often caused the congestion. Refusing to pay fines, they demanded recognition as political prisoners instead. That decision sent them to Virginia’s Occoquan Workhouse—and into one of the darkest episodes in the fight for women’s rights. (The Library of Congress)
What happened next was so shocking that many Americans initially refused to believe it.
Rumors spread that the women had been beaten. The truth was even worse.
On the night later remembered as the “Night of Terror,” guards stormed the cellblocks under orders from the superintendent. Women were dragged by their arms, thrown into iron beds, choked, kicked, and locked into filthy cells. One prisoner, Dora Lewis, was slammed so violently against a metal bedframe that she lost consciousness. Another, Alice Cosu, believed her friend had been k**led and suffered a heart attack from the shock. (The Library of Congress)
Lucy Burns became the night’s unforgettable image.
The guards shackled her hands high above her head to the bars of her cell, forcing her to remain standing for hours. They believed exhaustion would break her resolve. Instead, she became a symbol of it. Fellow prisoners raised their own arms in silent solidarity from neighboring cells, mirroring her agony across the corridor. (Arlington Public Library)
The ab*se did not end there. Hunger-striking women were pinned down and force-fed through tubes in a practice so brutal that it horrified the public once their accounts were smuggled out. The government’s attempt to crush a protest became one of the suffrage movement’s greatest victories, turning public sympathy sharply toward the women it had tried to silence. Within three years, the Nineteenth Amendment became law.
By November 1917, the authorities had grown tired of the spectacle. Lucy Burns and dozens of fellow suffragists were arrested on flimsy charges of “obstructing traffic,” even though the crowds gathering to watch them often caused the congestion. Refusing to pay fines, they demanded recognition as political prisoners instead. That decision sent them to Virginia’s Occoquan Workhouse—and into one of the darkest episodes in the fight for women’s rights. (The Library of Congress)
What happened next was so shocking that many Americans initially refused to believe it.
Rumors spread that the women had been beaten. The truth was even worse.
On the night later remembered as the “Night of Terror,” guards stormed the cellblocks under orders from the superintendent. Women were dragged by their arms, thrown into iron beds, choked, kicked, and locked into filthy cells. One prisoner, Dora Lewis, was slammed so violently against a metal bedframe that she lost consciousness. Another, Alice Cosu, believed her friend had been k**led and suffered a heart attack from the shock. (The Library of Congress)
Lucy Burns became the night’s unforgettable image.
The guards shackled her hands high above her head to the bars of her cell, forcing her to remain standing for hours. They believed exhaustion would break her resolve. Instead, she became a symbol of it. Fellow prisoners raised their own arms in silent solidarity from neighboring cells, mirroring her agony across the corridor. (Arlington Public Library)
The ab*se did not end there. Hunger-striking women were pinned down and force-fed through tubes in a practice so brutal that it horrified the public once their accounts were smuggled out. The government’s attempt to crush a protest became one of the suffrage movement’s greatest victories, turning public sympathy sharply toward the women it had tried to silence. Within three years, the Nineteenth Amendment became law.