Doris Stevens

Some women’s groups believed that direct action needed to be taken if women were ever going to get the right to vote. One such group was Alice Paul’s National Woman’s Party (NWP), which had split from the more mainstream National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), particularly because Paul felt that NAWSA had become too complacent and conservative in its goals and tactics. Instead she created the NWP to instigate more direct action, such as her campaign to protest in front of the White House.

The picketing began in January 1917. At first President Wilson was generally amused by these protests. His temperament changed after the United States officially entered World War I in April 1917. He asked women to stop their picketing as a show of solidarity and support for the war effort. NAWSA agreed, but NWP did not, suggesting...