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Jailed for Freedom: American Women Win the Vote

Doris Stevens

Edited by Carol O’Hare

Paperback Original ISBN 978-093915-25-4
222 pages, $19.95
Includes historic photos & Notes, Appendices, Index
E-Book ISBN 978-0939165-79-7

The year 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, securing a woman’s right to vote in the United States. This NewSage Press edition of Jailed for Freedom was first published for the 75th anniversary of the ratification of the Nineteen Amendment. The Editor of this edition, Carol O’Hare, has revived Doris Stevens’s original book published in 1920. O’Hare has updated some of the language and storyline for a modern audience that details a dramatic chapter in American history.

For more than seventy years, women fought a long and arduous battle for ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. Today, few Americans are aware of this chapter in American history and its tremendous political and social significance for women and our nation. Few know that suffragists took militant, yet nonviolent action in the final years of the battle, many of them jailed under dire circumstances.

Led by Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party, hundreds of women were illegally arrested over a three-year period for picketing the White House, holding demonstrations, mass marches, hunger strikes, and other dramatic public actions. Jailed for Freedom is suffragist Doris Stevens’s firsthand account of being jailed during those final militant years,; her account filled with intrigue, frustration, commitment, failure, and ultimately, a hard-won victory.

Editor Carol O’Hare adds additional information on woman’s suffrage in the United States, along with bios on key suffragists, historic photos, appendices, an index, and suggested readings. Edith Mayo, a former Curator at the National Museum of American History, provides an informative and fascinating in the book’s Introduction on women’s fight to get the vote.

Praise

American women fought hard, and many paid dearly, to win the right to vote. Stevens saw action in the front lines of the battle and was one of the dozens of women imprisoned for picketing the White House. First published in 1920, this long-out-of-print book offers Stevens's firsthand account of the women who endured the indifference of Congress and President Woodrow Wilson, the abuse by the press and the police, beatings at the hands of mobs and forced feedings in foul workhouses to force passage of the 19th Amendment. Although Jailed for Freedom was conceived as a history of the National Woman's Party (NWP), O'Hare has edited out the "minute detail of legislative politics, author bias, and verbiage," leaving a vivid partisan account that clearly conveys the excitement of both battle and victory.

Originally written as a history of the National Woman's Party, this revision of the 1920 edition makes its timely appearance in the year we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment. O'Hare has edited Stevens's lively, first-person account for flow and continuity, but attempted to retain the integrity of the original in tone and content. A lengthy introduction by Edith Mayo gives a capsule history of the women's suffrage movement and describes the strategies and personalities of the leaders. The narrative opens on the day before Woodrow Wilson's inauguration?March 13, 1913. Through descriptions of struggles and setbacks, Stevens shows her group's remarkable resilience in the face of adversity. Black-and-white photos appear throughout. A readable primary source.?Patricia Q. Noonan, Prince William Public Library, Manassas, VA

Originally published in 1920, this work chronicles the final crucial struggle that gained women the right to vote. Led by Alice Paul and the National Woman's Party, the militants, including the author, endured prison, vicious attacks by men, and hunger strikes to make history.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Doris Stevens

About The Authors

Doris Stevens wrote her firsthand account of being jailed, along with other suffragists, for her activism and protests in the fight for woman’s suffrage in the U.S. Stevens was a prominent participant in the Silent Sentinels vigil at Woodrow Wilson’s White House, urging passage of a constitutional amendment for women’s voting rights. She was arrested several times for her involvement with the National Woman’s Party protests on behalf of woman’s suffrage. After the 19th Amendment was ratified, she wrote Jailed for Freedom in 1920. Stevens dedicated her life to women’s rights.

Carol O’Hare has a degree from the University of Minnesota and Boston University, with a special interest in women’s history. In addition to her edit of the classic Jailed for Freedom, she edited How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle: Reflections of an influential 19th Century Woman by Frances Willard, resurrecting a century-old classic. She has also authored books on San Francisco Bay area history and written articles on a variety of topics.

A native of Minneapolis, Minnesota, O’Hare has degrees from the University of Minnesota and Boston University. She has worked as a publisher, editor, health educator, and counselor. She now resides in Norther California.

Edith Mayo was a curator in the Division of Political History, National Museum of American History, and was an historian at the Smithsonian Institution for more than twenty years. Mayo wrote the Foreword for Carol O’Hare’s edited version of Jailed for Freedom.

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