Lucy Burns was an American, who with Alice Paul, was radicalized in the English front lines of suffrage. One evening in 1909 Lucy dressed in an elegant gown, socialized with the dignitaries at a fancy-dress ball, and then approached Winston Churchill. After waving a banner in  his face, she asked: “How can you dine here while women are starving in prison?”

The police removed her from the building, and Churchill got the message.

Keeping the issue of women voting alive and in the minds of politicians was an important tactic of the suffrage movement. It wasn’t one action that did the trick, but the constant reminders, in unexpected places, at unexpected moments.

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Doris Stevens was in the front lines of the movement, and she also took notes. The result is Jailed For Freedom, a book published in 1920 that has the freshness of a first-person observer.  Audio selections from Jailed for Freedom, from LibriVox.

(1.) “Where are the people?” President Woodrow Wilson’s question when he arrived in Washington, DC.

(2.) How persistence plays an important part in any movement. The National Woman’s Party meets with the President.

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