PROJECT PHOTOGRAPHS AND EPHEMERA
STANDING TOGETHER: Inez Milholland’s Final Campaign for Women’s Suffrage, 2016 - 2020
In October 1916, suffragist Inez Milholland was appointed as a “special flying envoy” to make a 12,000-mile swing through the American West. She was part of a radical campaign by the National Woman’s Party to send dozens of suffragists from the East out to 12 Western states and territories where women had the right to vote.
With the Presidential and Congressional elections just a few weeks away, their message for those women voters of the West was simple: stand together with suffragists in the Eastern states by casting a protest vote against President Wilson, the Democratic incumbent who had failed to make their cause a national priority for his administration.
Traveling with her sister Vida, Inez embarked on a grueling campaign traversing eight states in 21 days. Her itinerary, brutal even by today’s travel standards, consisted of street meetings, luncheons, railroad station rallies, press interviews, teas, auto parades, dinner receptions, and speeches in the West’s grandest theaters.
Arriving in Los Angeles on October 23, Inez delivered her last speech to about 1000 people at Blanchard Hall, where she collapsed on stage while speaking. She returned 15 minutes later to finish while sitting in a chair. Her final public words were, “President Wilson, how long must this go on, no liberty?”
Although she tried to be “indefatigable” according to the Los Angeles Daily Times, Inez’s rapidly deteriorating health forced her to stop campaigning. She died only one month later on November 25, 1916 at the age of 30—a martyr of the American suffrage movement.
Inez Milholland’s campaign trail as Special Flying Envoy for the National Woman’s Party, 1916.