Doris Stevens was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 suffragist

Women's suffrage

Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...

 and author of Jailed for Freedom.

Born in Omaha, Nebraska

Omaha, Nebraska

Omaha is the largest city in the state of Nebraska, United States, and is the county seat of Douglas County. It is located in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about 20 miles north of the mouth of the Platte River...

, Doris Stevens graduated from Oberlin College

Oberlin College

Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...

 in 1911. She worked as a teacher and social worker in Ohio and Michigan before she became a regional organizer with the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). In New York, she was friends with leading members of the Greenwich Village radical scene, including Louise Bryant and John Reed.

Doris Stevens joined with Alice Paul

Alice Paul

Alice Stokes Paul was an American suffragist and activist. Along with Lucy Burns and others, she led a successful campaign for women's suffrage that resulted in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.-Activism: Alice Paul received her undergraduate education from...

, Lucy Burns

Lucy Burns

Lucy Burns was an American suffragist and women's rights advocate. She was a passionate activist in the United States and in the United Kingdom. Burns was a close friend of Alice Paul, and together they ultimately formed the National Woman's Party.-Early life and education:Lucy Burns was born in...

, Mabel Vernon, Olympia Brown

Olympia Brown

Olympia Brown was an American suffragist. She is regarded as the first woman to graduate from a theological school, as well as becoming the first full time ordained minister...

, Mary Ritter Beard

Mary Ritter Beard

Mary Ritter Beard was an American historian and archivist, who played an important role in the women's suffrage movement and was a lifelong advocate of social justice through educational and activist roles in both the labor and woman's rights movements...

, Belle Case La Follette

Belle Case La Follette

Belle Case La Follette was a lawyer and a women's suffrage activist in Wisconsin, USA. La Follette worked with the women's peace party during World War I...

, Helen Keller

Helen Keller

Helen Adams Keller was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. She was the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree....

, Maria Montessori

Maria Montessori

Maria Montessori was an Italian physician and educator, a noted humanitarian and devout Catholic best known for the philosophy of education which bears her name...

, Dorothy Day

Dorothy Day

Dorothy Day was an American journalist, social activist and devout Catholic convert; she advocated the Catholic economic theory of Distributism. She was also considered to be an anarchist, and did not hesitate to use the term...

 and Crystal Eastman

Crystal Eastman

Crystal Catherine Eastman was a lawyer, antimilitarist, feminist, socialist, and journalist. She is best remembered as a leader in the fight for women's right to vote, as a co-editor of the radical arts and politics magazine The Liberator, and as a co-founder of the Women's International League...

 to form the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage (CUWS) in 1913. In 1914 Stevens became a full-time organizer, as well as executive secretary, for the CUWS in Washington, D.C. After working on the East Coast, including in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1913-14, she moved west to Colorado (1914), and then to California (1915). In 1916, the CUWS became the National Woman's Party

National Woman's Party

The National Woman's Party , was a women's organization founded by Alice Paul in 1915 that fought for women's rights during the early 20th century in the United States, particularly for the right to vote on the same terms as men...

 (NWP). She organized the first convention of women voters at the Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco in 1915 and the NWP election campaign in California in 1916.

Over the years, Stevens held several important NWP leadership positions, including membership on the executive committee. She served as vice chairman of NWP’s New York branch, spearheaded the NWP Women for Congress campaign in 1924, and worked in states where female candidates were among contenders for office. She also served as Alva Belmont’s personal assistant.

Stevens was arrested for picketing at the White House in the summer of 1917 and served three days of her 60-day sentence at Occoquan Workhouse before receiving a pardon. She was arrested again in the NWP demonstration at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in March 1919. Stevens published the quintessential insider account of imprisonment of NWP activists, Jailed for Freedom, in 1920.

Stevens clashed with Alice Paul

Alice Paul

Alice Stokes Paul was an American suffragist and activist. Along with Lucy Burns and others, she led a successful campaign for women's suffrage that resulted in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.-Activism: Alice Paul received her undergraduate education from...

 and led an unsuccessful attempt to challenge the leadership of Paul’s successor, Anita Pollitzer

Anita Pollitzer

Anita Lily Pollitzer was an American photographer.-Early life:Her mother, Clara Guinzburg Pollitzer , was the daughter of an immigrant rabbi from Prague. Her father, Gustave Pollitzer, ran a cotton company at Charleston, South Carolin...

. She was part of an internal dispute over the NWP’s emphasis on the World Woman’s Party and international rights rather than domestic organizing. During these tensions, a dissenting faction of NWP members tried to take over party headquarters and elect their own slate of officers, but Pollitzer’s claim to leadership was supported by a ruling of a federal district judge. Stevens parted ways with the NWP in 1947 and turned instead to activity in the Lucy Stone League

Lucy Stone League

The Lucy Stone League is a women’s rights organization founded in 1921. Its motto is "My name is the symbol of my identity and must not be lost"...

, a women’s rights organization based on Lucy Stone

Lucy Stone

Lucy Stone was a prominent American abolitionist and suffragist, and a vocal advocate and organizer promoting rights for women. In 1847, Stone was the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. She spoke out for women's rights and against slavery at a time when women were discouraged...

's retention of the maiden name after marriage. In her last years, Stevens supported the establishment of feminist studies as a legitimate field of academic inquiry in American universities.

She was portrayed by Laura Fraser

Laura Fraser

Laura Fraser is a Scottish actress.-Early life:Fraser is the daughter of Rose, a college lecturer and nurse, and Alister Fraser, a scriptwriter who also worked in business. She attended Hillhead High School and is a former member of the Scottish Youth Theatre...

 in the 2004 HBO film Iron Jawed Angels

Iron Jawed Angels

Iron Jawed Angels is a 2004 American drama film. It was directed by Katja von Garnier and starred Hilary Swank, Frances O'Connor, Julia Ormond, and Anjelica Huston. It focuses on the American women's suffrage movement during the 1910s. The film received acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival...

.

External links

• Doris Stevens Papers. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
• passport photo 1921 , Doris Stevens