Prison Special

The "Prison Special" was a train tour organized by suffragists who, as members of the Silent Sentinels and other demonstrations, had been jailed for picketing the White House in support of passage of the federal women's suffrage amendment.

[1] In the summer of 1917, members of the National Woman's Party (NWP) began to stage protests outside the White House in Washington, D.C., demanding the vote for women.

[4] To secure public support and pressure legislators into passing the amendment before the end of the congressional session in March, the NWP launched a campaign they dubbed "From Prison to People," a three-week train tour across the United States.

[2] Perhaps most significantly, they dressed in replicas of their prison uniforms—described in the NWP publication, The Suffragist, as "calico wrappers designed exactly after the pattern of those which they were forced to wear in the work-house, thereby making the accounts of their experiences in the jail more vivid.

[11] The Prison Special left Union Station in Washington, D.C., on February 15, 1919, the anniversary of the birthday of women's rights activist Susan B. Anthony.

The El Paso Herald reports that Lucy Burns, Amelia Himes Walker[14] Elizabeth McShane,[15] and Sue Shelton White "preached the doctrine of suffrage" while other suffragists distributed literature to the gathered crowd.

They carried flags with the suffrage colors of gold, purple, and white and stood on a step so that they could speak through the train platform's grill, which mimicked the bars of a prison.

In an interview with the newspaper, Abby Scott Baker provided some insight into the women's experience as public speakers: "It is not easy to begin speaking on the street", she said.

[28] By 1919, the more radical NWP declared that this tour "would endeavor to acquaint the country with the lawless and brutal lengths to which the [Wilson] Administration has gone to suppress the lawful agitation for suffrage.

"[2] Two years after their incarceration at Occoquan and at a city jail in Washington, D.C., the women on the Prison Special hoped to use these same uniforms as evidence of the hardship of their struggle.

"[32] A political cartoon drawn by Nina Allender, the official cartoonist for the NWP, shows a suffragist holding a copy of the "Senate Record" and carrying luggage labeled "N.W.P.

In an article for Scribner's Magazine, Louisine Havemeyer recalls being asked to take a publicity photo with a police captain because "it will make such a good cut for the newspapers."

[34] The Prison Special was a draw for crowds: Abby Scott Baker reported that the police estimated that 2,000 people attended the stop in Charleston, South Carolina.