IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.

Women's Suffrage: Marching for Rights 100 Years Ago

Thousands are overtaking the National Mall in the name of women's rights today, but this isn't the first time.
Image: Four women lead a march of thousands, holding a banner that says, \"We demand the passage of the Bristow-Mondell amendment,\" at the women's suffrage parade in Washington on March 3, 1913, one day before the inauguration of President Woodrow Wilson.
Four women lead a march of thousands, holding a banner that says, "We demand the passage of the Bristow-Mondell amendment," at the women's suffrage parade in Washington on March 3, 1913, just one day before the inauguration of President Woodrow Wilson.Library of Congress via AP
/ Source: NBC News

Thousands of women today are taking to the streets of Washington demanding a greater voice for women in American political life and respect for women's rights as human rights, one day after President Donald Trump took the oath of the Oval Office-- but this isn't the first time. The demonstration comes more than 100 years after the 1913 Women's Suffrage march on Pennsylvania Ave.-- dispatched just one day before the inauguration of President Woodrow Wilson-- which demanded the woman's right to vote.

Related: Women's March in Washington Echoed in Cities Around the World

Image: The enormous crowd marched down Pennsylvania Ave., looking toward the Capitol and past old Post Office.
The enormous crowd marched down Pennsylvania Ave., looking toward the Capitol and past old Post Office.Library of Congress via AP

The parade appeared to be going well, having drawn tens of thousands of spectators. But onlookers were mostly men who had traveled to Washington, DC, for the inauguration. The marchers were ridiculed, abused and assaulted, with policemen doing little to help the women in the mob. The hospitalization of 100 marchers drew stronger attention to the cause, and led to congressional hearings, and the removal of the DC superintendent of police from his post.

Image: Attorney Inez Milholland Boissevain rides astride the suffrage parade in as the first of four mounted heralds.
Attorney Inez Milholland Boissevain rides astride the suffrage parade in as the first of four mounted heralds.Library of Congress via AP

It would be another seven years before the Nineteenth Amendment secured the woman's right to vote in 1920.