On March 3, 1913, Woodrow Wilson arrived in Washington for his inauguration as president of the United States. But upon arrival, he was dismayed to find there was no crowd to greet him. People gave up meeting the president in order to observe a bigger spectacle down on Pennsylvania Avenue, a woman suffrage parade. Five thousand women, sporting purple, violet, and gold banners, had united under the leadership of suffragist Alice Paul to march through Washington in demand of their right to vote. Shouted and jeered at as they processed, these women braved the hostile crowd while gaining significant publicity for their cause. [pic][pic]
The movement of women into the public and political spheres had been gaining in momentum and popularity since the mid-19th century. Women demanded suffrage as early as 1848. The Seneca Falls convention brought together 200 women and 40 men, including feminists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, to make the claim for full citizenship. The delegates believed women to be citizens not limited in any way to their roles as wives or mothers. In the language of the founding fathers, they wrote, "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men and women are created equal." They rejected Victorian domesticity and its separation of women and men into private and public spheres, respectively. It was at Seneca Falls that the suffrage movement first began.
Women entered into public life more and more in the years after the convention. In part this was linked with the expansion of educational opportunities at the time. Women's colleges sprouted up all over the country, enrolling young, mainly white middle-class women. By 1870 there were 11,000 female students at these institutions of higher education. A decade later, there were 40,000. These women received a progressive education and, in their college experiences, found an inspiration to