January 9

A deputation organized by the National Woman's Party (NWP) and the Congressional Union calls on President Woodrow Wilson to present him with resolutions passed at a memorial service for Inez Milholland, who many regard as a martyr for the cause. The deputation requests federal action on suffrage. Wilson favors suffrage but will not use his influence to gain congressional action.

January 10

Twelve women leave the National Woman's Party headquarters at Cameron House and march to the White House where they begin to picket. They carry both lettered banners and purple, white, and gold banners. The picket continues for the next two months with special days set aside for states or various professional groups of women.

March 1-4

At a convention in Washington, D.C., the Congressional Union and the Woman's Party merge into the National Woman's Party. Alice Paul is elected as chairman, Anne H. Martin vice-chairman, Mabel Vernon secretary, and Gertrude Crocker treasurer. The convention decides that, whether or not the country is at war, the sole work of the NWP will be to obtain federal suffrage. On March 4, coinciding with President Wilson's second inauguration, one thousand women picket the White House. They try to see the president but are refused.

April 2

The United States enters World War I. The Susan B. Anthony amendment is introduced in the House by John Raker and others; on April 4 it is introduced in the Senate. As planned, the NWP resumes its picket at the Capitol and the White House, and continues to picket peacefully for the next few months.

April 26

The Senate Committee on Woman Suffrage holds a hearing where the speakers include Dudley Field Malone, Mary Beard, and Jeannette Rankin.

May 15

Hearings are held again before the House and Senate committees.

June 6

The House Rules Committee votes six to five to form a Woman Suffrage Committee.

June 20

Lucy Burns and Dora Lewis picket with the "Russian" banner, which accuses Wilson of deceiving Russia with his claim that the United States is a democracy, when in fact so many American women are unenfranchised. The banner is torn to pieces by the watching crowd. The next day a mob again destroys the picket's banners.

June 22

A mob destroys the banners held by Lucy Burns and Katherine Morey, who are then arrested by police. In the following week, the picket continues and more arrests are made. Burns and Morey are never brought to trial.

June 27

Virginia Arnold, Lavinia Dock, Maud Jamison, Katherine Morey, Annie Arniel, and Mabel Vernon are sentenced to three days in the District Jail for obstructing traffic.

July 14

Sixteen picketers are arrested and sentenced to sixty days at Occoquan Workhouse. President Wilson pardons them on July 19.

August 14

The picketers carry out the "Kaiser Wilson" banner, which accuses Wilson of being an autocrat by ruling over women who have no voice in the government. The watching crowd becomes a riot. The picketers and the NWP headquarters are attacked and shots are fired, while the police stand idly by. The picket and arrests continue through August, September, and October.

September 8

Dudley Field Malone, Woodrow Wilson's campaign manager and collector of the Port of New York, resigns in protest over government inaction on passing a federal amendment on woman's suffrage.

September 15

The suffrage bill is reported out of the Senate Committee on Woman Suffrage.

September 22

More socialist women join the White House picket. Twenty-one-year-old suffragist Ernestine Hara, Socialist Peggy Baird Johns, Russian immigrant Hilda Blumberg, and Margaret Wood Kessler are arrested for picketing the White House and sentenced to thirty days at the Occoquan Workhouse. Baird and others suggest that the women prisoners demand status as political prisoners, a plan which is readily accepted by the other incarcerated women, including Lucy Burns, and later Alice Paul.

September 24

The House creates a suffrage committee by a vote of 181 to 107.

October 20

Alice Paul is arrested for picketing and is sentenced with five others to seven months in jail. The prisoners are placed in the District Jail where they begin a hunger strike. Alice Paul is subjected to force feeding and transferred to a psychiatric ward for observation. During their imprisonment the suffragists are subjected to physical and mental abuse. They are denied their mail and often the right to see their counsel. They are given worm-riddled, tainted, and poorly prepared food and are exposed to unsanitary and diseased conditions. At various times the prisoners are refused even medical treatment. The suffragists detail their experience in prison both through correspondence and affidavits.

In order to relate their cause to the country, the NWP sends out speakers who travel to all corners of the country. Maud Younger travels to the South, Anne H. Martin to the West and Northwest, Dora Lewis and Mabel Vernon to the Midwest, Abby Scott Baker to the Southwest, and Doris Stevens to the Northeast. By describing the treatment of the suffrage prisoners, the NWP representatives are able to convert many hostile audiences to the picketers' cause. On other occasions, however, some cities deny them the right to even speak.

November 12

Thirty-one picketers, including Lucy Burns and Dora Lewis, who are part of a large picket organized to protest the treatment of Alice Paul and the other suffrage prisoners, are arrested and sentenced the following day to Occoquan Workhouse. When denied status as political prisoners, they start a hunger strike and refuse to cooperate with the jail authorities.

November 27

Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, and twenty others are released from jail.

December 6-9

The NWP holds a conference of its officers and National Advisory Council in Washington, D.C. The conference ends with a mass meeting where picketers who had served jail terms are presented with prison pins.