Program

National Votes for Women Trail

Subject

Event

Location

950 River Rd, New Castle, DE 19720, USA

Lat/Long

39.6516339, -75.5866577

Grant Recipient

National Collaborative for Women's History Sites

During World War I, a group of women munitions workers at the Bethlehem Steel Plant in New Castle, Delaware joined the National Woman’s Party and fought for women’s suffrage, protesting in Washington, D.C. for women’s right to vote. The group included Catherine Thornton Boyle, Annie Melvin Arniel, Adelina Piunti, Lulu Patterson, Marie McKenzie, Ada M. Walling, and Florence Bayard Hilles. Some of the women were arrested and jailed. Hilles served three days in jail, Boyle served five days in jail, and Arniel was arrested eight times, serving a total of 103 days in jail. In an August 11, 1918 issue of the Delmarvia Star, Arniel was quoted:

As our boys are fighting for Democracy abroad, is it a crime to ask for Democracy in our own country? … We suffragists have been accused of being unpatriotic because of participating in the demonstration at Washington last Tuesday. Last winter I went to work in the Bethlehem Steel Plant at New Castle because I desired to help my country. While at the Bethlehem plant I was summoned to picket duty in Washington, was arrested and of course sentenced to sixty days imprisonment at Occoquan, Va., and because of the drastic treatment we received there many of us have been in poor health ever since. We were good enough to work in the steel plant and help load shells for the battle-fields of France but we still are not good enough to vote, it seems. Can anyone see justice in this? We are protesting against the unjust delay of the Senate in passing the Susan B. Anthony suffrage amendment and why shouldn’t we?

In 1919, the U.S. Congress voted in favor of the Nineteenth Amendment 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.” By August 1920, the necessary 36 states ratified the amendment, securing women’s right to vote across the United States.