Program

National Votes for Women Trail

Subject

People, Site

Location

500 West Ave. & Maple St., Norwalk, CT 06850, USA

Lat/Long

41.111635, -73.416802

Grant Recipient

National Collaborative for Women's History Sites

Sisters Clara, Helena, and Elsie Hill of Norwalk, Connecticut fought at the state and national level for women’s right to vote. The Hill sisters were the daughters of Ebenezer J. Hill, a Connecticut congressman, who served in the United States House of Representatives and also the Connecticut State Senate.

Clara Hill worked for women’s right to vote at the state level with the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association (CWSA). Clara gave speeches on women’s suffrage and distributed suffrage literature throughout the state. The April 7, 1913 edition of the Norwich Bulletin called Clara and fellow Norwalk suffragist Alyse Gregory, the “linguists” of a group of CWSA suffragists campaigning in the state, referring to their ability to give speeches in multiple languages including French, Italian, and German. It was also reported that Clara spoke at “suffrage factory meetings” to increase support of women’s suffrage among Connecticut factory workers (Norwich Bulletin, February 8, 1913, 2).

Helena (married name Weed) and Elsie Hill were active with the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage and later the National Woman’s Party (NWP), with Elsie working as an NWP national organizer and field secretary. The NWP fought for the immediate passage of a federal women’s suffrage amendment that would secure women’s right to vote across the country. It employed controversial campaign tactics, including dramatic suffrage demonstrations in Washington, D.C. in attempts to put pressure on President Woodrow Wilson and the United States Congress to pass the proposed women’s suffrage amendment. Helena and Elsie participated in these suffrage demonstrations in Washington D.C., and the two sisters were jailed for picketing in 1917 and again in 1918.

When Helena was arrested in 1917, she was carrying a banner that read, “Governments derive their powers from the consent of the governed.” She was arrested, found guilty of disorderly assembly, and sentenced to pay a fine of twenty-five dollars. Helena refused to pay the fine and was then sentenced to serve three days in jail. In 1918, Helena once again refused to pay a fine and was sentenced to serve fifteen days in jail, along with her sister Elsie, for their participation in NWP demonstrations in Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C.

While their home is no longer standing, the Hill sisters lived on West Avenue in Norwalk, Fairfield County, Connecticut.

By August 1920, the tireless efforts of suffragists like the Hill sisters, paid off with the passage and subsequent ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution which states, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”