Mabel Vernon (September 19, 1883 – September 2, 1975) was an American

suffragist Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to vo ...

, pacifist, and a national leader in the United States suffrage movement. She was a

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

and a member of the

National American Woman Suffrage Association The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was an organization formed on February 18, 1890, to advocate in favor of women's suffrage in the United States. It was created by the merger of two existing organizations, the National Woma ...

. Vernon was inspired by the methods used by the

Women's Social and Political Union The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom founded in 1903. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership and p ...

in Britain. Vernon was one of the principal members of the Congressional Union for Women Suffrage (CUWS) alongside Olympia Brown, Inez Milholland, Crystal Eastman,

Lucy Burns Lucy Burns (July 28, 1879 – December 22, 1966) was an American suffragist and women's rights advocate.Bland, 1981 (p. 8) She was a passionate activist in the United States and the United Kingdom, who joined the militant suffragettes. Burns w ...

, and

Alice Paul Alice Stokes Paul (January 11, 1885 – July 9, 1977) was an American Quaker, suffragette, suffragist, feminist, and women's rights activist, and one of the foremost leaders and strategists of the campaign for the Nineteenth Amendment to the Unit ...

, and helped to organize the

Silent Sentinels The Silent Sentinels, also known as the Sentinels of Liberty, were an American group of over 2,000 women in favor of women's suffrage organized by Alice Paul and the National Woman's Party, who nonviolently protested in front of the White House ...

protests that involved daily picketing of

Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was the 28th president of the United States, serving from 1913 to 1921. He was the only History of the Democratic Party (United States), Democrat to serve as president during the Prog ...

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest (Washington, D.C.), NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president ...

Early life and education

Mabel Vernon was born on September 19, 1883, in

Wilmington, Delaware Wilmington is the List of municipalities in Delaware, most populous city in the U.S. state of Delaware. The city was built on the site of Fort Christina, the first Swedish colonization of the Americas, Swedish settlement in North America. It lie ...

, to George Washington Vernon (1820-1901) an editor and publisher of the Wilmington Daily Republican, and Mary Vernon, née Hooton (1843-1933). She graduated from

Wilmington Friends School Wilmington Friends School is a private Preschool- 12 school in unincorporated New Castle County, Delaware, United States, near Wilmington. It is affiliated with the Society of Friends, also known as the Quakers. History The school was founded ...

in 1901. She went on to attend

Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the e ...

where she was a year ahead of Alice Paul. Vernon graduated from Swarthmore in 1906. She then became a teacher at Radnor High School in

Wayne, Pennsylvania Wayne is an unincorporated community centered in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States, on the Main Line, a series of highly affluent Philadelphia suburbs located along the railroad tracks of the Pennsylvania Railroad and one of the ...

, where she taught

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

and

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

Organizing for women's suffrage

Vernon attended the 1912 convention of the

, where she was an usher. She was the first paid organizer that Alice Paul recruited. Vernon joined Lucy Burns and Paul as part of NAWSA's Congressional Committee to organize the Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913 that was to occur the following March where it would coincide with the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson. During the Summer of 1913, Vernon and Edith Marsden campaigned for suffrage in Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Long Island. In 1914, Vernon organized for the Congressional Union, travelling through the

Southwestern United States The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural list of regions of the United States, region of the United States that includes Arizona and New Mexico, along with adjacen ...

and making her way north through California before arriving in Nevada. An accomplished fundraiser, she assisted Anne Martin in Nevada, who was working for NAWSA on a referendum campaign. After Martin got into a debate with Senator Key Pittman, Anna Howard Shaw wrote her an angry letter accusing her of being duped by Vernon and the CU. Late in 1915, Sara Bard Field drove a petition with 500,000 signatures supporting the 19th Amendment across the United States to be presented to President

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

Along the route, Vernon acted as an organizing advance woman, preparing dignitaries, press, and women groups in over 100 communities to welcome the tour and sign the petition. According to the Women's Heritage Museum's Newsletter, "The petition demonstrated the spirit, will, and ability of Western women voters to elect or defeat members of a political party," One of the first stops of the petition tour was

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in the state. The city is the core of the Salt Lake Ci ...

where Vernon, with the help of Elsie Lancaster, another NWP member, laid the groundwork for

to organize a Congressional Union branch in

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

At a June 1916 convention in Chicago, women from states that had granted them the right to vote gathered to form the

National Woman's Party The National Woman's Party (NWP) was an American women's political organization formed in 1916 to fight for women's suffrage. After achieving this goal with the 1920 adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the NWP ...

. The Democratic Party had adopted a suffrage plank that advocated state's rights to choose suffrage, but continued to block national suffrage. Frustrated with the situation, Vernon interrupted President Woodrow Wilson during a speech he was giving at the dedication of the Labor Temple in Washington on July 4, querying, "Mr. President, if you sincerely desire to forward the interests of all the people, why do you oppose the national enfranchisement of women?" Wilson dismissed the question and when Vernon repeated the question again later, police ordered her to leave the meeting. Vernon was a key organizer of the campaign of the

that began on January 10, 1917. She was responsible for ensuring that there were enough volunteers each day to picket the White House. Vernon and Paul organized themed days for the picket where all of the volunteers were from certain states or from certain professions. Their strategy ensured consistent press coverage and the eighteen-month campaign saw thousands of women participate and culminated in the arrests of many picketers and the "

Night of Terror ''Night of Terror'' is a 1933 American pre-Code horror film directed by Benjamin Stoloff, and starring Bela Lugosi, Sally Blane, Wallace Ford, and Tully Marshall. Despite receiving top billing, Bela Lugosi has a relatively small part. The fi ...

". In March 1917, it was decided to merge the Congressional Union and the

. Following the vote, Vernon was selected to be Secretary of the NWP. After President

announced the

American entry into World War I The United States entered into World War I on 6 April 1917, more than two and a half years after the war began in Europe. Apart from an Anglophile element urging early support for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, British and an a ...

, a committee was able to secure an audience with Wilson on the issue of suffrage. Doris Stevens, in her memoir ''Jailed for Freedom'', wrote that the President was moved when Mabel Vernon said "If the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own government is so sacred a cause to foreign people as to constitute the reason for our entering the international war in its defense, will you not, Mr. President, give immediate aid to the measure before Congress demanding self-government for the women of this country?" At a convention in late 1917, Vernon identified the most significant impacts of the picketing. First of all, they generated consistent publicity and kept the fight for women's suffrage on national headlines. Vernon also noted that the picketing of the

forced female suffrage into the consciousness of

, barring him from ignoring them, writing, "Was it not worth even going to prison for, to have national woman suffrage daily in the mind of the President?" Additionally, the picketing kept the female suffrage question in the minds of

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

during war sessions. The

also served as a symbol of the growing sentiment and unity of the women's suffrage movement. Through protest, it created a unique and unified militant identity for women fighting for political voice. Their appearances in the public and political spheres direct addresses to the president, and motivating sacrifice infused the

militant identity and ultimately contributed to the success of the 19th Amendment. Vernon was among the first six women who were arrested while picketing the White House, under charges of "obstructing the traffic." They were tried and found guilty on June 26, 1917, and each was ordered to pay a fine or spend three days in jail. All of the women insisted they were innocent and refused to pay the fine. Following the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, during the 1920s, Vernon supported women candidates for Congress and lobbied on behalf of the

Equal Rights Amendment The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was a proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States, United States Constitution that would explicitly prohibit sex discrimination. It is not currently a part of the Constitution, though its Ratifi ...

. Vernon went to

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

where she earned a master's degree in political science in 1924.

Later life

In 1930, Vernon turned her attention from the women's movement to focus on international relations and peace. She was a proponent of Latin American rights and

disarmament Disarmament is the act of reducing, limiting, or abolishing Weapon, weapons. Disarmament generally refers to a country's military or specific type of weaponry. Disarmament is often taken to mean total elimination of weapons of mass destruction, ...

. Vernon joined the

Women's International League for Peace and Freedom The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) is a non-profit non-governmental organization working "to bring together women of different political views and philosophical and religious backgrounds determined to study and make kno ...

in 1930. She was director of the Peoples Mandate Committee for Inter-American Peace and Cooperation in the 1940s. She was a member of the Inter-American delegation to the foundation of the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

. Beginning in 1951, Vernon lived with her companion Consuelo Reyes-Calderón in

Reyes-Calderon contributed to ''Speaker for Suffrage and Petitioner for Peace,'' a memoir by Vernon. Other contributors were Hazel Hunkins-Hallinan, Fern S. Ingersoll, and Rebecca Hourwich Reyher. Vernon died on September 2, 1975. In the 2004 film '' Iron Jawed Angels'' she was portrayed by Brooke Smith. However, the film does not depict her being arrested and imprisoned: instead, she is shown managing the NWP during Alice Paul's incarceration, including working with lawyers on appeals for the suffragettes.

Notes

References

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External links