THE TURNING POINT SUFFRAGIST MEMORIAL - LAST ONE

This is where we were heading today, the Occoquan Regional Park. We have been here before as I had another post which you can see at this link if you would like a refresher - or haven't seen it yet. It tells a little bit about Lorton Prison, so I may be repeating myself a little bit here. I also mention Dartmoor Prison which we visited often. Now that sounds a little strange. It was my dad who visited because of his work, we just 'saw' Dartmoor Prison when he dropped us off at a tearoom in the nearby town while waiting for him. At Lorton Prison I mentioned that Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie once performed in one of the fields. It was also where many years earlier, suffragettes were imprisoned and treated horribly.  

One of the birdhouses situated in this area of the garden, with a relatively young magnolia bush in the foreground.

There were several information boards, what the website called information stations. A website sharing more information and excellent photos you can see at this link. Just scroll down that page until you come to them.

I made a collage of various photos taken from these information boards.

The following came from their website here. It says it includes the three statues of prominent leaders I have shared. 

"The memorial includes three statues of prominent suffrage leaders, a Rotunda featuring the six pillars of democracy, and an Arroyo Bridge perfect for Girl Scout bridging ceremonies. Another major feature is the 24' section of the actual hand-forced, White House Fence (circa. late 1800's) in front of which suffragists picketed in 1917 that was provided to the memorial by the National Park Service. A Donor Wall lists the memorial's major donors.” 

There is a beautifully designed Memorial Garden where you can sit for a spell afterwards. Native flowers and trees have been planted, all with the suffrage colors in mind - purple, gold and white. My second photo above shows part of it. I would like to go back in the summer to see its full potential.

This is Alice Paul, who was portrayed in the first statue we saw just outside the entrance of the memorial. Her photo came from this page. 

For a reference I am repeating all the statues that were in previous posts.

This is Mary Church Terrell, and you can click on her name to go to more information. She is the second statue as you enter the memorial.  I borrowed her photo from this page.

This lady's statue is the second statue encountered at the Memorial.

The third lady is Carrie Chapman Catt, and she was an American Suffrage Leader. Her statue is the third one found in the Rotunda. More information can be read on this website.

This is her statue.

There was a railing showing plaques of various names from different states.  Gregg is standing in front of it.

These were those suffragettes who took part in the movement. I am sharing the one on its own because it is of two women from Virginia, Pauline Adams and Maud P. Jamison. You can click on both their names to go to more information. Reading about these ladies gives one a whole different perspective, makes them more real somehow. Both were from Norfolk, Virginia, where my husband was born and grew up.

The following is a collage of other names on this railing. There were ladies from several other states involved, but I didn't get them all. 

Also on the wall...

as was the following. The National Woman's Party awarded silver pins shaped like a jail cell door with a heart-shaped padlock to each of the women who had been jailed. The story of the Freedom Pin can be found here. This pin, called The National Woman's Party "Jailed for Freedom" pin was based on the Holloway Prison in England, that the English suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst gave to the suffragettes who had been imprisoned there.

If you want to learn more about where they were imprisoned, you can go to this page.

The stories of the pins and several other objects that were important symbols of the Women’s Suffrage movement can be found here.

I also found impressive photos taken on this subject by a Scottish photographer Christina Broom (1862-1239). At the website she is described as Britain's first woman press photographer. Those photos can be found here and were taken of the British Suffragette Movement. You can also read her biography at this website. 

The graphic below I didn’t find on any of the suffrage links, and I am not sure where I found them originally. They have been in my fashion folder for a long time. I have always enjoyed collecting pictures of clothing down through the ages. These seemed to be from the same time frame, give or take a few years.

"...the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified on August 18th, 1920.  The amendment removed bans on the American woman's right to suffrage."  You can read more here.

One last photo of the Beehive Kiln which you can see here. 

 The Occoquan Workhouse/Lorton Reformatory was closed several years ago. This link says that the last prisoners were transferred in 2001. We always passed it on our way to take a walk around Occoquan, which wasn't too far away. I knew on one side of the road we drove down, was for the men and the other was for the women. The guard towers are still there, although it has been turned into a very nice art center. It includes The Lucy Burns Museum which I would like to visit sometime. Lucy was one of the suffragettes imprisoned at the facility where she spent more time than any other suffragette.

I never knew any of the history back then. It's been eye-opening and mind boggling, and we owe them our own right to vote, a debt that will never be repaid. I may have taken that for granted. No more!

In all my links today there is a wealth of information. What I have given are mere snippets of a more powerful story.

Thanks for visiting and I hope you have found these posts interesting. This is the last one from our visit.

Have a great day!

TURNING POINT SUFFRAGIST MEMORIAL, LORTON IN VIRGINIA

I am continuing my post from this link. A few days before, I found out about The Turning Point Suffragist Memorial. I am always intrigued by this part of history. I will be putting another post together after this one, as there are more photos and more history to share about this time, and the suffragette connection to Lorton.

My first photo shows a statue of Alice Paul who was a member and leader of The National Woman's Party. She stands at the entrance. Throughout this post I have included information I found online, and you can read more about Alice here.

She was described as "A vocal leader of the twentieth century women's suffrage movement, Alice Paul advocated for and helped secure passage of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, granting women the right to vote.  (There are great old photos at these links.) 

She was born on January 11th, 1885, in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, and was the oldest of four children. Her parents were Tacie Parry and William Paul, a wealthy Quaker businessman. She was a descendant of William Penn, the Quaker founder of Pennsylvania. Her ancestors included participants in the New Jersey Committee of Correspondence in the Revolutionary era and a state legislative leader in the 19th century. She grew up in the Quaker tradition of public service. 

Ms. Paul’s parents embraced gender equality, education for women, and working to improve society. Paul’s mother, a suffragist, brought her daughter with her to women’s suffrage meetings, and was a member of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).

The next statue just inside the memorial grounds was that of Mary Church Terrell, the daughter of former enslaved people, born in Memphis, Tennessee. She was a well-known activist who championed racial equality and women's suffrage in the late 19th and early 20th century. 

Mary Terrell, born Mary Church on September 23, 1863, and was one of the first African-American women to earn a college degree. She taught in the Latin Department at the M Street School (now known as Paul Laurence Dunbar High School (the first African American public high school in the nation, in Washington, DC.) 

Ms. Church's mother, Louisa Ayres, was a successful entrepreneur at a time when most women did not own businesses. She is credited with having encouraged her daughter to attend Antioch College Model School in Yellow Springs, Ohio, for elementary and secondary education, because the Memphis schools were not adequate. 

She was an avid suffragist for many years, going back to when she was a student, and continued to be active in the happenings within suffragist circles in the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Through these meetings she became associated with Susan B. Anthony, an association which Ms. Terrell describes in her biography as a "delightful, helpful friendship," which lasted until Ms. Anthony's death in 1906.  More can be read about Mary Terrell here.   

Next, Carrie Chapman Catt (born Carrie Clinton Lane; January 9, 1859 – March 9, 1947) was an American women's suffrage leader who campaigned for the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which gave U.S. women the right to vote in 1920. 

Ms. Catt served as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association from 1900 to 1904 and 1915 to 1920. She founded the League of Women Voters in 1920 and the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in 1904, which was later named International Alliance of Women. She "led an army of voteless women in 1919 to pressure Congress to pass the constitutional amendment giving them the right to vote and convinced state legislatures to ratify it in 1920". Ms. Catt "was one of the best-known women in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century and was on all lists of famous American women." Her story can be found here.

 

More next time! I don't want to rush through as there is much to say about the brave women I learned about. Not only these ladies here, but many who were involved in the vote we now have today.