Partial Repost….My Feminist Icon: Rose Winslow

In Response to Who is your favorite Feminist Icon

How is it that I didn’t know about this part of women’s history? I read about Susan B Anthony & Elizabeth Cady Stanton, but not this really ugly part. Am I just trippin’ about the historical significance here? I want my daughter to be well versed in women’s history, and she ain’t gonna get that in public school.

I am dying to know how many women actually know about this incident. Pass the word Ladies.

Women’s Letters: America from the Revolutionary War to the Present

p.482-485

1917: December- Rose Winslow to her husband and to members of the National Women’s Party

The “Silent Sentinels” demanded the vote by picketing the White House (w/ signs saying: “Mr. President How Long Must Women Wait for Liberty”) on a daily basis. This caused a major embarrassment for the Wilson Administration, when hosting foreign diplomats. A total of 17 women were arrested on charges of obstructing traffic. One group of women were sentenced to seven months in prison. After they staged a hunger strike, because they were being treated like criminals instead of political prisoners, “they were brutally forcefed”. They compile a series of letters smuggled out of the hospital, written by Rose.

The compilation of letters describes the prision hospital scene……

• (Rose) vomited continually during the feeding process, and developed a painful irritation in her feeding tube.
• (Rose) is weak and faints easily
• Alice Paul (a member of the Silent Sentinels) is deemed “psychopathic”.
• The prisoners were in solitary confinement for five weeks.
• They got no mail and were considered insubordinate when they refused food not fit to eat.
• Bits of letters were smuggled out of the hospital prison
• Roaches crawl everywhere.

Read About Rose online and see her picture-scroll down for Library of Congress description

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