In case you’ve been living off-grid in a cave for the past few months, you know that tomorrow is Election Day in America, and yet again, it’s a biggie. Given how this keeps happening, maybe we are in precedented times again, huh? Just that the precedent is terrifying and shitty. But what if half of the population (and all of us here at Frock Flicks, including most of our readership) didn’t have the right to vote? Thanks to generations of suffrage activists, American women have a say in our government, and Iron Jawed Angels (2004) attempts to show how Alice Paul and her compatriots got the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution passed.
This miniseries isn’t perfect in telling that history (nothing ever is), but it’s a decent start. And this still seems to be the only full-length depiction of the American women’s suffrage fight, whereas there are a couple movies or TV miniseries about British women’s suffragists (and yes, lots of frock flicks merely mention suffragists). As Anglophilic as some of us are here, we’re American born and deeply concerned about American elections, so kinda interested in some representation of our story too. This HBO production at least pulled in some big names, with Hilary Swank as Alice Paul and Anjelica Huston as Carrie Chapman Catt, representing the feisty new activist and the old-guard feminist, respectively.
The look of the film, featuring costumes by Caroline Harris, reliably captures the mid to late 1910s period. Lots of women in blouses, skirts, suits, and hats, like this:
Though Alice and pal Lucy fight over this purple hat, which seems silly, much like a romantic subplot given to Alice.
The real Alice Paul was deeply committed to the fight for women’s equality. After the Constitutional amendment was finally passed, she continued to work for equal rights by founding the World Woman’s Party in 1938, seeking to include women’s rights in the United Nations platform, and even working on the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
There’s also a dumb scene where Lucy complains about being almost 30 with no prospect of finding a husband.
The real Lucy Burns seems to have had little interest in romance. She retired from public campaigns after winning the vote and spent the rest of her life working for the Catholic Church.
Still, in spite of a few moments of attempting to appeal to some kind of heterosexist BS, most of the miniseries does focus on how Paul and Burns first try to work with the established National American Woman’s Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and then found their own National Woman’s Party (NWP).
The real Carrie Chapman Catt was Susan B. Anthony’s chosen successor as president of the NAWSA. She went on to found the League of Women Voters in 1920.
While this miniseries pits Catt’s NAWSA against Paul and Burns’ NWP as a conflict between old and young, cautious and rebellious, it was more complicated, of course. NAWSA was working on suffrage state by state, while NWP thought pressuring for a Constitutional amendment was a better idea.
The best thing about this miniseries IMO is how it brings to life several key events of this period’s suffrage movement. First is NAWSA’s 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession in Washington D.C., which Alice Paul and and Lucy Burns organized. It was magnificent occasion, possibly the first large political march on Washington, with between 5,000 and 10,000 marchers the day before President Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration.
The parade started with a woman on a white horse, labor lawyer, Inez Milholland. In the show, she’s portrayed by Julia Ormond:
Compare with the real Milholland:
I think the TV costume is more like that worn as part of the allegorical tableau that was staged on the Treasury Building’s steps the same day.
Following Milholland came the marchers. There were 26 floats, 6 chariots, 10 bands, 45 captains, 200 marshals, 120 pages, 6 mounted heralds, and 6 mounted brigades. The TV version isn’t quite so massive, but it does give a solid impression!
One group of marchers had walked in to join the parade, and they’re referenced in the TV version.
Only some of the participants are in white, contrary to the typical image.
Women with degrees did march in their college groups.
Ida B. Wells is shown in this movie joining Alice Paul in the parade, which isn’t accurate. Wells joined the Illinois delegation, and she refused to go to the back where the African American suffragists were segregated.
Iron Jawed Angels lightly glides over the lack of integration in the women’s suffrage movement of the time, and, like the rest of the politics here, simplifies everything. One thing that’s not glossed over is the tenacity of Alice Paul and her team’s campaigning.
Much like the real suffragists of the period, who relentlessly worked across the U.S.
The most daring and effective of their campaigns was the Silent Sentinels — over 2,000 women took turns nonviolently protesting President Wilson outside the White House from January 1917 to June 1919. About 500 of the protesters were arrested, and 168 served jail time.
The show recreates the signs, banners, and costumes accurately.
The quotes on these signs were used at some point during this protest.
However, this Susan B. Anthony quote was from a sign taken to the Republican Party’s national convention in Chicago:
The Silent Sentinels kept up their protest through all weather.
The miniseries shows snow, wind, and rain.
When these protesters were arrested and sentenced to jail, they were taken to the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia, where conditions were cruel. Food was inedible, and prisoners were routinely beaten. When she was sent there, Alice Paul went on a hunger strike, along with several other suffragist prisoners. Their captors responded by force-feeding the strikers. Force-feeding was used on U.K. suffragists in Holloway Prison as well.
These harrowing scenes are a reminder of what our feminist foremothers did to earn our rights today. Women quite literally put their lives on the line, so the least we can do is fill out our ballots to try and protect democracy again.
Have you seen Iron Jawed Angels? Are you registered to vote?
Find this frock flick at:
No and yes. It was a good series as I recall and thank you for highlighting its important message. The least we can do is vote to honor our sisters sacrifices.
What I found interesting in this post (beside the well written commentary and photos) is the reference to Ida B Wells. My son attended Wilson High School and in 2021, the students petitioned and were granted the permission to change the name to Ida B Wells. I had no idea that their political paths had crossed so closely. I find it very gratifying that she userpt his name.
SUPPLANTED, not usurped: given that Mr Wilson had deeply regressive racial views (To the point of segregating the civil service) and was shameless enough to cling to power (absolutely in defiance of the US Constitution) after being comprehensively incapacitated by a stroke, seeing his name voted off a school is a nice bit rough justice.
If it weren’t for Thomas Jefferson (Arguably the living embodiment of Doctor Johnson’s “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for Liberty among the drivers of negroes?”) Mr Wilson would be challenging for the title Least Favourite President.
Well, that and his yeoman work in World War One (Even if his complete incapacitation and refusal to admit this may well have played a key role in fouling up the Peace Process that followed the Armistice).
I not only saw IRON JAWED ANGELS when it ran on HBO, I actually got to see a little of it getting made. The Woman Suffrage Procession sequence was shot three blocks away from where I’m sitting typing this.
The street was covered with a false “period” pavement and some redressing was done to storefronts, camera angles were carefully chosen to avoid showing anything modern– and most importantly, in the “big” shot, digital post-production effects added the Capitol (and trees) and removed a few buildings. Seeing that transformation was a bit of a shock when you know what the area really looks like!
Also, when I saw it on HBO back in 2004, it ran as a 125 minute film, not a miniseries. Was it later expanded with deleted scenes and turned into a multi-part showing?
Is it just more or is the ‘hat scene’ an effort to make Our Heroes more flesh & blood than Legendary Icon?
We were recently in New York and saw the musical Suffs, based on these same people and events. It was great. It’s closing in NYC in January and will be touring. Try to see it if it comes to a town near you!