Inez Milholland - Activism

Activism

Her causes were far reaching: in addition to prison reform, she sought world peace and worked for equality for African Americans. Milholland was a member of the NAACP, the Women's Trade Union League, the Equality League of Self Supporting Women in New York (Women's Political Union), the National Child Labor Committee, and England's Fabian Society. She was also involved in the National American Woman Suffrage Association, which later branched into the grassroots radical National Woman's Party. She became a leader and a popular speaker on the campaign circuit of the NWP, working closely with Alice Paul and Lucy Burns.

In 1913, at the age of 27, Milholland made her most memorable appearance, as she helped organize the suffrage parade in Washington D.C., scheduled to take place the day before President Woodrow Wilson's inauguration. She led the parade wearing a crown and a long white cape while riding atop a large white horse named "Gray Dawn."

At the beginning of World War 1, Milholland traveled overseas as a war correspondent for a Canadian newspaper to gain access to the front lines. From there she composed pacifist articles, which led to her censure by the Italian government, which ousted her from the country.

She was also a leading figure on Henry Ford's ill-fated Peace Ship expedition of late 1915, steaming across the Atlantic with a team of pacifist campaigners who hoped to give impetus to a negotiated settlement to the First World War. However, she left the ship in Stockholm because the trip was unorganized and dissension had ensued between passengers. Her role has recently been fictionalized by the British novelist Douglas Galbraith in his novel King Henry.

Milholland vehemently protested against America's involvement in World War I. She was a labor lawyer and was involved in the production of the socialist journal, The Masses.