The March in March that Changed the World

Shea Rowell
Class of 2019

(3/2018) On March 4, 1913, Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated president of the United States. On March 3rd of the same year, approximately 8,000 women filled the streets of Washington DC on their march for women’s suffrage. The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), led by suffragette Alice Paul, organized the march on Washington. This would be the first of many public demonstrations in the capital demanding the right to vote for American women.

The march of looked very different than the protest marches we know today. The NAWSA march of 1913 was more similar to our concept of a parade than a protest. For example, the women at the head of the parade rode horses and wore costumes. There were, in fact, four different brigades of suffragists on horseback throughout the parade. In addition, there were approximately 20 different floats, and a skit-like performance on the steps of the US Treasury building.

The march brought 8,000 women from all over the nation in a time when transportation was much harder to come by, but many suffragists were up to the challenge. Many rode in on horseback or in horse-drawn carriages. Some rode in cars, and some travelled on foot. Suffrage hikes started about a month before the parade, similar in nature to the Freedom Rides of the Civil Rights Movement. Most "hiked" from New York City all the Way to Washington DC (many of them in heels!). Many prominent female figures were in attendance, including the aforementioned Alice Paul, Jeanette Rankin, who would soon become first female to be elected to the House of Representatives become a prominent pacifist during World War II, and even Helen Keller, who delivered a speech.

Despite its seemingly tame protest methods by today’s standards, the march was violently opposed. As the women progressed up Pennsylvania Avenue, crowds of men who were in town for the inauguration blocked their passage. As the marchers struggled to push through the suffocating crowd, the men taunted and ridiculed them. Some marchers were even shoved to the ground by the male spectators. Dozens of suffragists required emergency medical treatment as a result.

Nevertheless, the march persisted that day and beyond. The government passed the 19th Amendment in at the end of President Wilson’s second term in 1920, finally realizing the suffragist’s goal of attaining the right to vote. This, as we know, was a part of the first wave of feminism starting with the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, which focused on female political rights such as running for office, owning property, and voting. The second wave, starting in the 1960s, worked toward equality between men and women in the family, and reproductive rights. The third wave, starting in the 1990s, focused on de-stereotyping femininity and increasing female independence, and the fourth wave, which we are in now, combats the long ignored-plagues of sexual harassment and domestic violence.

Feminism then, as now, was not perfect or noncontroversial. During the first two waves, minority women were largely excluded from public demonstrations, just as the National Association for Colored Women was segregated, although not left out entirely, from the 1913 march. It wasn’t until third wave feminism that minority women in America could approach the issue as equals and introduce the idea of feminist intersectionality, which thanks to their efforts is widely accepted in feminism today.

Due to the progresses and regresses of the twentieth century, feminism has evolved immensely since the suffragists marched through the streets of Washington 105 years ago. From a twenty-first century perspective, it is hard to imagine a world in which women could not live freely, build careers, or run for political office. I can’t imagine the struggle it must have been to establish the female voice as one to which the world should listen, and to enact the changes the first wave feminists demanded.

Today, feminist dialogues present a new array of issues. Feminists have not yet finished the race, and still find opposition as they propose changes that would lead to equal pay for equal work, subsidized (private or public) maternity leave, and the overturn of a culture of sexual harassment and rape. Unfortunately, today, "feminism" is widely considered a pejorative term indicating loose morality and radicalism, and thus taboo in political conversations. Even feminists, however, frequently disagree with each other about what true equality should look like.

These disagreements, while important to discuss and understand, must not blind us to the true gift that feminism has given each person – male and female alike – in America today. Because of suffragists marching in Washington right before inauguration day in 1913, I can now cast a vote in American elections. These inspiring women have led me to cherish that democratic right, not only as an American citizen but as a woman; I cast my vote knowing that many before me could not do so. Because of the first-wave feminists, I can earn money by writing at this paper (or any other occupation I choose to pursue), own the computer I use to write and research, and manage my finances and belongings independent from my male relatives. Because of feminism, I can vote for a political candidate based on merit instead of gender. Because of feminism, I can pursue family life, career life, or both, and be considered as an equal to male coworkers and family members alike. Because of feminism, women no longer have to silently bear the pain of sexual violence in their schools, workplaces, and homes.

I am proud to be an American woman, and proud to call myself a feminist. I owe the quality of my life, my freedom, and the open possibilities of my future to the efforts of the ladies who marched through Washington over 100 years ago, and who kept on marching even when the path to the capital was blocked. Today, it is easy to take the rights American women enjoy for granted, but it is important to remember the struggles of the women who made them possible, and to be grateful each day for the progress they facilitated.

To access my source, and to see authentic Library of Congress photos of the March 3rd, 1913 march, see The Atlantic’s March 1, 2013 article entitled "The 1913 Women’s Suffrage Parade" by Alan Taylor.

Read other articles by Shea Rowell