The National Woman’s Party courtesy of the Library of Congress.
This weekend was not the first time that women have marched on Washington. In fact, one women’s march that took place more than a century ago started in Hyattsville.
On July 31, 1913, a group of 500 women traveled from Hyattsville to the Capitol to present 75,000 signatures urging Congress to give women the right to vote.
According to an account in the New York Times, the entire town spruced up for the occasion:
The day’s demonstration began in the baseball park at Hyattsville, Md., six miles from Washington. The whole town was decorated, the suffrage yellow predominating. … The women carrying the petitions had traveled from their various States mostly by automobile, holding rallies along the way, and had been converging upon the rendezvous for days. Every State was represented.
Speakers at the rally included Sens. Moses Clapp of Minnesota, George Earle Chamberlain of Oregon, Robert Latham Owen of Oklahoma and Henry F. Ashurst of Arizona and women’s rights activist Mary Ware Dennett of New York.
The rally was successful at garnering attention to the cause, but women’s right to vote wasn’t nationally recognized until ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920.
