The Story of the Woman's PartyGillmore, Inez Haynes
History
The Story of the Woman's Party
Gillmore, Inez Haynes
National Woman's Party; Paul, Alice, 1885-1977; Women -- Suffrage -- United States
Toward the end of the year, the Congressional Union established an
official weekly organ, the _Suffragist_, edited by the well-known
publicist, Rheta Childe Dorr. The first issue appeared on November 15,
and it has been published ever since.
Lucy Burns, whose editorials were marvels of ironic logic, of forceful
condensed expression, succeeded Mrs. Dorr. Then came Vivian Pierce, a
trained newspaper woman; Sue White, well-known to Suffragists for her
splendid work in Tennessee; Florence Boeckel, able, efficient, untiring.
Pauline Clarke, Clara Wold, Elizabeth Kalb contributed supplementing
editorial work.
The _Suffragist_ has reported the activities first of the Congressional
Union, and next of the Woman’s Party. It is an extremely entertaining
periodical, always interesting, often brilliant, essentially readable.
It contains editorials, reports, sketches, verse, cartoons. Many famous
people have contributed articles. The reports of the workers in the
Woman’s Party make much the most interesting reading however. Many
famous artists have given it drawings. The most pertinent, though, are
those contributed by a member of the Congressional Union—Nina Allender.
Mrs. Allender’s fertile and original pencil has traced during the entire
eight years of its history a running commentary on the progress of the
Woman’s Party. She has a keen political sense. She has translated this
aspect of the feminist movement in terms that women alone can best
appreciate. Her work is full of the intimate everyday details of the
woman’s life from her little girlhood to her old age. And she translates
that existence with a woman’s vivacity and a woman’s sense of humor; a
humor which plays keenly and gracefully about masculine insensibility; a
humor as realistic, but as archly un-bitter as that of Jane Austen. It
would be impossible for any man to have done Mrs. Allender’s work. A
woman speaking to women, about women, in the language of women.
There is no better place than here to emphasize the work of the Press
Department. It will be apparent to the reader, as the story of the
Woman’s Party unrolls itself, that the work of this department was very
difficult and very delicate. The problem was twofold—to keep the action
of the party always in the public eye and to bring out the underlying
policy. This was not easy when the demonstrations of the Woman’s Party
were of the kind whose initial effect was to antagonize. Nevertheless,
the Press Department minimized that antagonism and minimized by a
propaganda which was as restrained in expression as it was vivid in
description. Newspaper men generally felt that they could depend on the
Woman’s Party for news. Florence Brewer Boeckel, who has been press
chairman since 1915, is responsible for this magnificent press campaign.
But she has not lacked help. Eleanor Taylor Marsh, Alice Gram, Beulah
Amidon, and Margaret Grahan Jones, have given her steady assistance.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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