Please note that the following is a digitized version of a selected article from White House History Quarterly, Issue 53, originally released in print form in 2019. Single print copies of the full issue can be purchased online at Shop.WhiteHouseHistory.org No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. All photographs contained in this journal unless otherwise noted are copyrighted by the White House Historical Association and may not be reproduced without permission. Requests for reprint permissions should be directed to rights@whha.org. Contact books@whha.org for more information. Š 2019 White House Historical Association. All rights reserved under international copyright conventions.
PRESIDENTIAL SITES Quarterly Feature
A Presidential Site Becomes Home to the Suffrage Movement The National Woman’s Party on Lafayette Square WILLIAM SEALE
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LEFT AND OPPOSITE
Ogle Tayloe (left) built his house on Lafayette Square in 1828, and from there witnessed more than fifty years of life and politics on the Square. Presidents Van Buren, Polk, Taylor, Fillmore, and Buchanan were his frequent visitors. The house still stands on Madison Place today (opposite) as part of the National Courts Complex. previous spread
The Camerons entertained just about everyone, including Presidents Cleveland, Harrison, McKinley—who was often there—and the first Roosevelt. The house was often rented when the senator lived at a hotel and his wife was resident in London or Paris. Both were very annoyed that an opera house was built next door, denouncing it as noisy and honky-tonk. One of the tenants was almost as famous as the presidents and that was the National Woman’s Party. While students in England, Alice Paul, the party’s founder, and her colleague Lucy Burns had become involved with the work of Emmeline Pankhurst in demonstrating to achieve the ballot for women. Pankhurst’s strategy was to get noticed by the public in favor of her cause, and her efforts greatly annoyed the authorities as disturbing the peace. She was often jailed. Paul and Burns, too, had their time in British jails and workhouses. To honor the war cause and avoid negative press Pankhurst ceased her protests in 1914 when Britain entered the war against Germany. This sent the two American women home to America, where they found a suffrage movement under way but one that was very mild and addressed mostly the state legislatures. They joined in, leading the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, first as part of the National Woman Sufferage Association, but soon split, eventually forming the more militant National Woman’s Party.
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Suffragists gather near the entrance of headquarters for the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage on Madison Place, 1915. Their landlord was Senator Don Cameron, who added the bow front after purchasing the house from Ogle Tayloe’s heirs in 1887. The Camerons often entertained Presidents Cleveland, Harrison, McKinley, and the first Roosevelt here. bottom left
Suffragists call for Congress to pass “the federal suffrage amendment” as a crowd gathers around the statue of Lafayette in Lafayette Park, 1918. The Belasco Theater, adjacent to the headquarters of the National Woman’s Party on Madison Place, can be seen on the right of the photograph.
TOP AND OPPOS ITE: WHITE HOUS E HISTOR ICAL ASSOCIATION LEF T AND PREVIOUS SPREAD: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
a m o n g t h e p r e s i d e n t i a l s i t e s close to the White House is the Ogle Tayloe house, which stands on the east side of Lafayette Square and is in use today as part of the National Courts Complex. Built in 1828, or thereabout, as a private residence, it was a centerpiece of Washington society, beginning with its builder Ogle Tayloe, son of John Tayloe, the principal donor of the nearby St. John’s Church, and concluding with Senator Don Cameron in the early twentieth century. Tayloe welcomed Presidents Van Buren, Polk, Taylor, Fillmore, and his close friend Buchanan. Of Pierce we are not certain, but the rest enjoyed the good company of a solicitous host, in an elegant setting that included some three-hundred statues, mementos such as Napoleon’s walking stick, and abundant hospitality. Time passed and Senator Don Cameron purchased the property in 1887. He and his famously beautiful wife Lizzie reflected their large Pennsylvania fortune in a total modernization of the house. The “bow” projection you see today was built by them on an alley left by Tayloe when he built the house, and it provided the Camerons with a fine new entrance hall and sweeping new staircase.
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Party moved across Lafayette Square to a town house on Jackson Place. In January 1918 Wilson signaled his support for suffrage, and what was called the Susan B. Anthony Amendment passed the House of Representatives. On September 30, 1918, Wilson went to Capitol Hill to speak in favor of the amendment, warning the Democrats that unless the Senate acted they might lose their congressional majority in the upcoming election. That is what happened, and the incoming Republican majority passed the women’s suffrage amendment on June 4, 1919, sending it to the states for ratification. Three-quarters of the states had to ratify, and when Tennessee did so on August 18, 1920, women’s suffrage was ensured. In celebration, women massed in Lafayette Square. Alice Paul unfurled a banner from the Jackson Place headquarters of the National Woman’s Party and gave her victory address. Across the Square, members of the all-male Cosmos Club might have been watching from the windows of the Cameron house. They continued to preserve this “nonpresidential site” until it was condemned for government use in 1952.
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As women cheer, suffragist Alice Paul speaks from a balcony on Jackson Place and unfurls a banner—with one star for each ratifying state—in celebration of the state of Tennessee’s ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment (opposite), which guaranteed women the right to vote, August 18, 1920. S T O C K M O N TA G E / G E T T Y I M A G E S
Senator Cameron either rented or loaned his house, fully furnished, to Paul’s organization as its first official headquarters and for about a year the party carried on parades and demonstrations from there, mainly in front of the White House. President Woodrow Wilson was genuinely angered by suffragist demonstrations, which included a vast parade the day before he took office. He considered them both insolent pests and, by 1917, unpatriotic. Moreover, he believed that the issue of women and the vote was a matter for the state legislatures. In the demonstrators’ contempt for Wilson, Ogle Tayloe’s house became a “non-Presidential site.” The president never entered its doors. From the White House he saw it constantly swarming with women, who came in large numbers to play their part in the battle for woman suffrage. By 1917 the protests became hostile, with protesters arrested and taken to the D.C. Women’s Workhouse in Occoquan, Virginia. Some women were force-fed to thwart attempted hunger strikes. At the end of 1917, the Cosmos Club purchased the Cameron house and the National Woman’s
NATIONAL ARCHIIVES
The Nineteenth Amendment, passed by Congress on June 4, 1919, and ratified August 18, 1920, 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.�
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