NPSHistory.com keeps the administrative histories, handbooks and reports for Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument.
📚 Learn More at NPSHistory.com →Belmont-Paul Women's Equality NM preserves the history of the women's suffrage and equal rights movements at the historic headquarters of the National Woman's Party. The site documents the courageous struggle of suffragists who were jailed, beaten, and force-fed for demanding the right to vote. These interpretive materials ensure this critical chapter of American democracy is never forgotten.
The administration has flagged for review content that includes the language: “Silent Sentinels”, and “jailed for freedom.”.
Why this matters: The women's equality history documented at Belmont-Paul Women's Equality NM is not a matter of opinion — it is the factual record of how Americans fought for the rights promised by our founding documents. These events occurred within living memory. The people who marched, sat in, and sacrificed are still alive to tell their stories.
This is one of several waysides around BEPA
Consequential Concrete
The National Woman’s Party’s fight for voting rights started with innovative protest methods. In 1917, the NWP organized “Silent Sentinels” to protest outside of the White House. When the US entered World War I, many Americans were unwilling to tolerate such protest. More than 90 of the Sentinels were jailed, many in Occoquan, Virginia. While imprisoned, the women were beaten and force fed when they went on hunger strikes.
The ensuing publicity changed public and Congressional opinion. The NWP awarded silver pins to the women “jailed for freedom.” In 1998, the steps that once led to the Occoquan
Women’s Workhouse were donated to the NWP and placed on the grounds in front of you. [Image Captions]
The Occoquan Workhouse in 1917. When they arrived at
Occoquan, suffragist prisoners were forced to strip naked, sprayed with water, and given rough, dirty uniforms to wear. Wardens blocked them from contacting their families. They crowded into dirty, freezing cells.
Silent Sentry protest leader Lucy Burns spent more time in prison than any other American woman suffragist.
Silver pins given to incarcerated suffragi...
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