Basic Information

Lucy Burns was born on July 28th, 1879 in Brooklyn, New York and lived until December 22nd, 1966. Burns was a leader in the suffrage movement in the U.S. In April 1913 along with Alice Paul she formed a national organization, the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage which would later become known as the National Women’s Party. She also invigorated the American campaign for a federal woman suffrage amendment and was a leader of the militant wing of the suffrage movement between 1912 and 1919 (Sicherman, B. & Green, Carol Hurd, 1980, p.146).

Background Information

Lucy Burns’ early educational support from her parents helped her to become a force of nature for the women’s rights movement. She was the fourth child and fourth of five daughters in a family of eight children born to Ann and Edward Burns. Her parents were both Catholic and of Irish descent. Her father was a bank president and a strong supporter of his daughters’ educational aspirations. Lucy Burns graduated from the Packer Institute in Brooklyn in 1899. She then went on to get her A.B. in 1902 from Vassar College. She also studied etymology at the Yale University Graduate School from 1902 to 1903, taught English at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn from 1904 to 1906 and then did a study of languages at Oxford from 1906 to 1912. Burns also took occasional trips to England which exposed her to the militant leaders of the women’s suffrage movement there. Her expansive education and her experiences in England led her to focus on the fight for women’s rights (Sicherman & Green, 1980, p.146).

Contributions to the First Wave

Lucy Burns left Oxford to become involved in the fight for women’s rights in England as she felt that social action was more important than continuing to pursue education. During her time in England she became a paid organizer for a militant faction of the women’s suffrage movement which was called the Women’s Social and Political Union. She was involved in many parades and demonstrations. These demonstrations would often result in arrests and short periods of time in jail. During one of these arrests she met Alice Paul who had also been arrested for suffrage activism. Alice Paul was a fellow American who shared Burns’s frustration around the U.S. suffrage movement and they decided to return to the United States (Sweet-Cushman, 2019, p. 54). In the United States, Burns was instrumental in organizing the famous 1913 suffrage parade in Washington, D.C.  She was dissatisfied with the National American Woman Suffrage Association and its leaders, so along with Alice Paul she formed a national organization, the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, later known as the National Women’s Party, which took a more aggressive approach in demanding that Congress initiate a constitutional amendment to give women the right to vote. Burns also led White House demonstrations against President Woodrow Wilson which caused her to be arrested and imprisoned. Due to her aggressive actions in the fight for suffrage, Lucy Burns spent more time in prison than any other American suffragist. During her time in prison she was most known for organizing hunger strikes in protest of suffragists imprisonment. After her time in prison, she led a publicity tour called the Prison Special that included other suffragists who had been jailed and they all spoke on behalf of the vote (Sweet-Cushman, 2019, p. 55). 

“It is unthinkable that a national government which represents women should ignore the issue of the right of all women to political freedom.”

– Lucy Burns (Biography.com, 2016)

Analysis and Conclusion

One of Lucy Burns strengths is definitely her educational background.  All the education she received as well as the travel she was able to take as part of that schooling helped her to learn about activism and gave her a passion to participate in social activism. The years she spent in England fighting for the right to vote certainly fueled the way she led the Nation Women’s Party in the United States as the suffrage movement looked quite different before she arrived on the scene. The timing of her involvement in the movement was also pivotal as the suffrage movement had declined after the end of the Civil War and the polarizing 15th Amendment, as many women were disheartened at the lack of progress they had achieved. 

Overall, Lucy Burns played an important role in suffrage that isn’t widely known. She was a strong minded woman who continually took action to push forward on the road to the vote. These actions often led her into danger such as her many trips to prison, yet even being imprisoned didn’t stop her from protesting. She was definitely a woman ahead of her time in terms of her education and her ideals. The privileges we have today as women might not have been possible without the hard work of suffrigists like Lucy Burns. 

References

Biography.com Editors (2016). Lucy Burns Biography. A&E Television Network  Retrieved on 11/02/2020, https://www.biography.com/activist/lucy-burns

Sicherman, B. & Green, Carol Hurd. (1980). Notable American women : The modern period : A biographical dictionary (Women and social movements: scholar’s edition). Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Retrieved on 11/02/2020 https://alliance-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/kjtuig/CP71152335060001451

Sweet-Cushman, J. (2019). Burns, Lucy 1879–1966. In D. G. Bystrom & B. Burrell (Eds.), Women in the American Political System: An Encyclopedia of Women as Voters, Candidates, and Office Holders (Vol. 1, pp. 54-55). ABC-CLIO. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX7650000042/GVRL?u=wash_main&sid=GVRL&xid=56382bdb

Taylor, X (ca. 1913) Lucy Burns, half portrait, seated. , ca. 1913. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress on 10/30/2020, https://www.loc.gov/item/2016650622/