http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/d?mnwp:20:./temp/~ammem_Ucu1:


I urge you to read through, and see the essays and photographs on this rich historical resource. The parallels of what the NWP went through are so similar to what we are seeing today with the D.N.C. and even organizations like N.O.W. and N.A.R.A.L. MOST especially, this little twelve page easy to read essay will show you exactly how similar the situation is.

Some of it is heartbreaking in that it seems we have not really come as far as we thought. Some of it is so inspiring. The vision these ordinary women had, the things they planed an carried out...and what they achieved should be taught to every single child in every school in America. It wasn't taught as important when I was in school, and maybe if I had not had a suffragette g. grandmother I'd have never known to go and seek out these documents, these lives, and stories. This site is a real blessing. This one essay is only twelve pages, it's got heroines, suspense and all the drama you need to rival t.v. Take the time, to honor these women by reading their story. By seeing their faces. Some of the photographs make me feel as if I can sense them all whispering in my ear right now.

In the next few posts, I will be adding links to other treasures from this site. important to note for PUMA I think is the section "Techniques and Tactics of the National Women's Party Suffrage Campaign." VERY interesting and useful information.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/tactics.pdf

Photographs of the suffrage prisoners.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/prisoner_gallery.html

The photographs can be blown up into great detail as can any on the entire section of this site. Here in loving memory of my heroine and the one whose name I try to honor by using here is the lovely and courageous Alice Paul http://memory.loc.gov/service/mss/mnwp/155/155017v.jpg

http://www.partizane.com/

http://uppitywoman08.wordpress.com/2008/09/16/obamas-finance-chair-failed-bank-owner-penny-pritzker-and-wall-street-today/

Uppity Woman has posted this incredible blog on the Wall Street failings and Penny Pritzer. This is who Obama would make secretary of the treasury in these economic times?

PLEASE go read the entire article on Uppity Woman's blog and follow all the links. This is another outrage.

Also, listen here to one of Pritzer's victims *there were 1406 victims in all*  who lost everything when the bank failed.

http://www.kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=25452

When you read this article and listen to this interview you will indeed see that Obama is FAKING outrage at the current economic situation.

Keep suffragists' story alive and fighting Connie Schultz

Since the beginning of the year, the same e-mail has been routinely forwarded to me by readers who care deeply about women's right to vote.

The e-mails have a variety of introductions and final paragraphs, but the meat of the message is always the same, and always without attribution.

Nevertheless, I am reminded of the writer every time I read the original first paragraph: "The women were innocent and defenseless. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive."

That was the beginning of my column titled, "And you think it's a pain to vote," which ran in The Plain Dealer on Feb. 19, 2004. I wrote it after watching a preview of HBO's movie, "Iron Jawed Angels."

It's been a gratifying, but also a little weird, to watch the evolution of this column. One newspaper in Illinois sent an apology after publishing it under the byline of a free-lancer who had submitted it as her own.

Hundreds of bloggers have posted it, almost always attributing it to an anonymous writer. On Monday alone, three different people sent it to me, including a longtime friend.

Ah, well. What matters most is that the story of the suffragists community organizers, every last one of them - continues to inspire so many. So, with edits, we're running it again today. By all means, feel free to pass it on:

The women were innocent and defenseless. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive.

Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 helpless women convicted of "obstructing sidewalk traffic."

They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night.

They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack.

Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the "Night of Terror" on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there be cause they dared to picket Woodrow Wil son's White House for the right to vote.

For weeks, the wom en's only water came from an open pail. Their food-all of it colorless slop - was infested with worms. When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

So, refresh my memory.

Some women won't vote this year because, why exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?

HBO's "Iron Jawed Angels" is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could have my say at the polling booth. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.

There was a time when I knew these women well. I met them in college - not in my required American history courses, which barely mentioned them, but in women's history class.

That's where I found the irrepressibly brave Alice Paul. Her large, brooding eyes seemed fixed on my own as she stared out from the page.

Remember, she silently beckoned. Remember.

The HBO movie is now available on DVD. I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum.

I want it shown on Bunko night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and a little shock therapy is in order. It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized.

And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy.

The doctor admonished the men: "Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity."

http://alegrescorner.soapblox.net/showDiary.do?diaryId=16