Bringing Hot Drinks to Protesters

Prominent women suffragists Florence Brewer Boeckel and Betty Mackaye bring hot drinks to women picketing in front of the White House during the winter of 1917. In January of that year, the National Womans Party took up the strategy of picketing the White House after years of lobbying, petitioning, and parading had failed to convince President Woodrow Wilson to take up their cause. Newspaper coverage of the protesters noted that wintry blasts turned their lips blue. The picketers stood atop boards and hot bricks to try and keep warm and were provided with cups of hot chocolate by their colleagues.