Suffrage Hikes

The Suffrage Hikes of 1912 to 1914 brought attention to the issue of women's suffrage.[1] Florence Gertrude de Fonblanque organised the first from Edinburgh to London. Within months Rosalie Gardiner Jones had organized the first American one which left from The Bronx to Albany, New York.[2][3] The second hike was from New York City to Washington, D.C., and covered 230 miles in 17 days.[4][5]

Elisabeth Freeman in 1913
Suffrage hikers in Newark, New Jersey, in 1913

American participants

The major participants of the hikes, and the ones who covered the entire distance, were reporter Emma Bugbee,[6] Ida Craft (nicknamed The Colonel),[7] Elisabeth Freeman,[8] and Rosalie Gardiner Jones, who was known as The General.[8]

1912 Suffrage Hike to Albany

It began on Monday morning at 9:40 am, December 16, 1912, and left from the 242nd Street subway station in The Bronx[9] where about 500 women had gathered. About 200, including the newspaper correspondents, started to walk north. The march continued for thirteen days, through sun and rain and snow covering a distance of 170 miles, including detours for speeches. The first 5 pilgrims walked into Albany at 4:00 pm, December 28, 1912.[3][10]

1913 Suffrage Hike to Washington

Itinerary

See also

References
  1. "Marching for the Vote". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2009-07-30. This call was answered. On Feb. 12, with cameras clicking, 16 "suffrage pilgrims" left New York City to walk to Washington for the parade. Many other people joined the original hikers at various stages, and the New York State Woman Suffrage Association's journal crowed that "no propaganda work undertaken by the State Association and Party has ever achieved such publicity." One of the New York group, Elizabeth Freeman, dressed as a gypsy and drove a yellow, horse-drawn wagon decorated with Votes for Women symbols and filled with pro-suffrage literature, a sure way to attract publicity. Two weeks after the procession five New York suffragists, including Elizabeth Freeman, reported to the Bronx motion picture studio of the Thomas A. Edison Co. to make a talking picture known as a Kinetophone, which included a cylinder recording of one-minute speeches by each of the women. This film with synchronized sound was shown in vaudeville houses where it was "hooted, jeered and hissed" by audiences.
  2. "Gen. Jones's Hike Starts. Her Suffragist Army Will Carry a Petition tO Albany" (PDF). New York Times. January 2, 1914. Retrieved 2009-08-14. 'Gen.' Rosalie Jones and her suffragist army started a 'hike' to Albany yesterday to take a petition to the legislature asking for women watchers at the polls when the question of votes for women is voted upon in 1915. The march began at Broadway and 242d Street at 9 o'clock in the morning. ...
  3. Ida Husted Harper; Susan B. Anthony; Matilda Joslyn Gage (1922). History of woman suffrage. Fowler & Wells. p. 451. The "hike" began Monday morning, Dec. 16, 1912, from the 242nd street subway station, where about 500 had gathered, and about 200, including the newspaper correspondents, started to walk. From New York City to Albany there was left a trail of propaganda among the many thousands of people who stopped at the cross roads and villages to listen to the first word which had ever reached them concerning woman suffrage, and many joined in and marched for a few miles. The newspapers far and wide were filled with pictures and stories. The march continued for thirteen days, through sun and rain and snow over a distance of 170 miles, including detours for special propaganda, and five pilgrims walked into Albany at 4 p. m., December 28.
  4. "Media Stunts for Suffrage". ElizabethFreeman.com. Retrieved 2009-07-30. The most arduous media stunt was the 'Suffrage Hike' or 'pilgrimage' to Wilson’s first Inauguration in the winter of 1913. Organized by millionaire heiress Rosalie Jones, the hike coincided with a large parade that Alice Paul of the more radical Congressional Union ... was staging to confront Wilson and Congress on the issue.
  5. "Suffrage Hike Begins Today. 16 Women Will Start On Tramp To Washington Plan To Cover 230 Miles From New York In 17 Days. Will Hold Mass Meetings Along The Way". Hartford Courant. February 12, 1913. Retrieved 2009-07-31. The long-heralded women's suffrage "hike" from New York to Washington will start tomorrow. Sixteen women, with "General" Rosalie G. Jones in command, have pledged themselves it was announced, to walk the entire distance 230 miles. They hope to complete their...
  6. "Two Case Histories, Ishbel Ross and Emma Bugbee: Women Journalists Ride the Rail with the Suffragettes". Education Resources Information Center. Retrieved 2009-08-01. Bugbee walked with the suffragists on a week-long winter march from New York City to Albany
  7. "Col. Craft Is Angry. Snub For Gen. Jones. Talks of Rushing About Country at Six-Day-Bicycle-Race Speed and Says She Doesn't Like It". New York Times. February 25, 1913. So angry that she would not speak to General Rosalie Jones Colonel Ida Craft, second in command, led the detachment of suffragist hikers that spent the night at Overlea into Baltimore late this afternoon. General Jones was not in the lobby of the Hotel Stafford when Colonel Craft came tramping in.
  8. "Col. Craft Walks On, But Hikers Protest. Her Feet Swollen So Badly That She Falls Behind Companions. Says 'I Am Going Through.'" (PDF). New York Times. February 23, 1913. Retrieved 2009-07-29. Gen. Rosalie Jones, in command of the suffragist hikers, changed the army's schedule once to-day, and then she changed it back again. Early in the day, although the pilgrims were walking over bad roads under a sullen downpour of rain, the General said that from this town tomorrow the pilgrims would proceed to Baltimore, twenty-six miles away.
  9. Per Bronx County Historical Society pamphlet, the 242nd Street subway station is in The Bronx.
  10. "Six Tired Pilgrims End First Day's Hike. But the Drum Gives Out at the Start of the Suffrage March on Albany" (PDF). New York Times. December 17, 1912. Retrieved 2009-08-01.
  11. "Suffrage Hikers Undaunted By Cold. Plod on to Metuchen, N.J., Though One Woman Needs a Doctor When She Gets There" (PDF). New York Times. February 13, 1913. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 'The Army of the Hudson,' the warlike name selected for the suffragette hikers by Gen. Rosalie Jones, arrived in this town to-night after its first day's march toward Washington, where it will take part in the suffragette parade on March 3.
  12. "Parades, Marches, Processions". Votes for Delaware Women. Retrieved 2020-11-23.
  13. Dixon, Mike (2015-03-28). "Delaware Treated to a Spectacle as Suffragists Tramp Across State". Reflections on Delmarva's Past. Retrieved 2020-11-23.
  14. "Today in Herstory: Suffrage Hikers Descend on Wilmington, Delaware". Feminist Majority Foundation. 19 February 2015. Retrieved 2020-11-24.
  15. "Suffrage Hikers send Wilson a Flag". New York Times. 27 February 1913.
  16. "Pilgrims in Sight of National Capital". Brooklyn Eagle. 27 Feb 1913. Retrieved 11 Jan 2020.
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