Blog Post Jennifer Errick Apr 11, 2016

New National Park Site Showcases Women's Fight for Right to Vote

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The Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument preserves decades of passionate work in the struggle for suffrage and gender equality. Here's a peek at some of this colorful history.

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Sentinels walk in procession toward the White House as part of a "Women Voters Day" picket line on February 14, 1917. Lead woman, Hazel Hunkins-Hallinan, carries an American flag and wears a sash that reads “Voter.”   camera icon Photo courtesy of the Sewall-Belmont House & Museum.

Today, President Obama declared the Sewall-Belmont House and Museum in Washington, D.C., a national park site. This new unit, now officially the Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument, served as the headquarters for the National Woman’s Party, an organization that fought for decades to improve conditions for women. This group helped to pass hundreds of pieces of legislation, including the 19th Amendment, which gave women in every U.S. state the right to vote (though many African-American women remained unable to vote for several decades).

Magazine Article

An Audacious Fight

Force-feeding and imprisonment could not stop suffragist Alice Paul’s march forward. A new park site would tell her story.

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These ambitious and persistent women endured hunger strikes and violence and scorn at a time when there were no road maps on how to conduct a successful advocacy campaign. It’s hard to imagine now what it would be like to live in a world where women couldn’t cast votes. That’s why we need to preserve this important place—so we can remember and appreciate what these brave women did on behalf of everyone who came after them.

Below are eight glimpses into the important history preserved by our newest national park site.

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A crowd surrounds a Red Cross ambulance during a suffrage procession on the eve of President Woodrow Wilson’s 1913 inauguration. Marchers were insulted, and several suffered light injuries.   camera icon Library of Congress
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National Woman’s Party Organizer Elsie Hill stands in the back seat of an automobile and addresses a crowd in St. Paul, Minnesota, on July 19, 1916, advocating for a federal suffrage amendment.   camera icon Photo Credit: Sewall-Belmont House & Museum
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The National Woman’s Party kept an extensive index of voting cards detailing Congress members’ voting records and personal details related to the suffrage issue.   camera icon Courtesy of the Sewall-Belmont House & Museum
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Three women install a billboard in Kansas for the National Woman’s Party during the congressional campaign of 1916.   camera icon Courtesy of the National Woman’s Party Collection at the Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument.
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On July 14, 1917, Julia Hurlbut, vice chairman of the New Jersey branch of the National Woman’s Party, leads a Bastille Day picket to the White House to fight for women’s right to vote. Hurlbut was arrested and sentenced to 60 days in Occoquan Workhouse.

  camera icon Photo by Harris & Ewing, Washington, D.C., courtesy of the National Woman’s Party Collection at the Sewall-Belmont House.
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Members of the National Woman’s Party picket the White House in January 1919.   camera icon Photo courtesy of the Sewall-Belmont House & Museum
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“Training the Animals,” cartoon by Nina Allender published in the National Woman’s Party’s newspaper, “The Suffragist,” in 1920.   camera icon Nina Allender, courtesy of the Sewall-Belmont House & Museum
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National Woman’s Party founder Alice Paul in 1920 celebrating the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which prevents voter discrimination on the basis of sex.

  camera icon Library of Congress

About the author

  • Jennifer Errick Associate Director of Digital Storytelling

    Jennifer co-produces NPCA's podcast, The Secret Lives of Parks, and writes and edits a wide variety of online content. She has won multiple awards for her audio storytelling.

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