This presentation is a selection of 448 of the approximately 2,650 photographs in the Records of the National Woman's Party, housed in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress.

Representing the militant wing of the suffrage movement, the National Woman's Party (NWP) effectively commanded the attention of politicians and the public through its aggressive agitation, relentless lobbying, creative publicity stunts, and disarming examples of civil disobedience.  It used tableaus, parades, demonstrations, and picketing--as well as its members' arrests, imprisonment and hunger strikes-to spur public discussion and win publicity for the suffrage cause. Women of Protest presents images that depict the NWP's broad range of tactics as well as individual portraits of organization leaders and members. The photographs span from about 1875 to 1938 but largely date between 1913 and 1922. They document the National Woman's Party's push for passage and ratification of the 19th Amendment, as well as its later campaign for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.
   The National Woman's Party was one of the most important national suffrage organizations in the U.S. as well as a leading advocate for women's political, social and economic equality throughout much of the 20th century.  An offshoot of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), the NWP was instrumental in achieving passage and ratification of the 19th Amendment nationally extending suffrage to women on August 26, 1920. 
"Women of Protest: Photographs from the Records of the National Woman's Party" is one of more than 125 thematic collections in American Memory (http://memory.loc.gov), the Library's multimedia Web site containing items ranging from the papers of U.S. presidents, Civil War photographs and early films of Thomas Edison to papers documenting the women's suffrage and civil rights movements, Jazz Age photographs and the first baseball cards.