Milholland, Inez, 1886-1916

<p>Inez Milholland Boissevain (August 6, 1886 – November 25, 1916) was a suffragist, labor lawyer, socialist, World War I correspondent, and public speaker who greatly influenced the women's movement in America. She was active in the National Woman's Party and a key participant in the 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession.</p>

<p>Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Inez Milholland grew up in a wealthy family. Known as Nan, she was the eldest daughter of John Elmer Milholland and Jean Milholland née’ Torrey. She had one sister, Vida, and one brother, John (Jack). Her father was a New York Tribune reporter and editorial writer who eventually headed a pneumatic tubes business that afforded his family a privileged life in both New York and London. In London she met and was impressed by the English suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst. Milholland’s father supported many reforms, among them world peace, civil rights, and women's suffrage. Her mother exposed her children to cultural and intellectual stimulation. Milholland spent summers on her family's land in Lewis, Essex County, New York; the property is now the Meadowmount School of Music.</p>

<p>Inez Milholland received her early education at the Comstock School in New York and Kensington Secondary School in London. After finishing school, she decided to attend Vassar but when the college wouldn't accept her graduation certificate she attended Willard School for Girls in Berlin.</p>

<p>During her attendance at Vassar College she was once suspended for organizing a women's rights meeting. The president of Vassar had forbidden suffrage meetings, but Milholland and others held regular "classes" on the issue, along with large protests and petitions. As a student she was known as an active radical. Defying the campus suffrage meeting ban, she convened one in a cemetery across the road. She started the suffrage movement at Vassar, enrolled two-thirds of the students, and taught them the principles of socialism. Milholland was president of the campus Intercollegiate Socialist Society, which was dominated by women at the time and reflected their identification with the oppressed. For Milholland, socialism was "a vital means to correct the monster evils under the sun."</p>

<p>With the radical group she had gathered about her, she attended socialist meetings in Poughkeepsie which were under the ban of the faculty. An athletic young woman, she was the captain of the hockey team and a member of the 1909 track team; she also set a record in the basketball throw. Milholland was also involved in student productions, the Current Topics Club, the German Club, and the debating team.</p>

<p>After graduating from Vassar in 1909, she tried for admission at Yale University, Harvard University, and Cambridge University with the purpose of studying law, but was denied due to gender. Milholland was finally matriculated at the New York University School of Law, from which she took her LL.B. degree in 1912.</p>

<p>Inez Milholland Boissevain was an American suffragist and labor lawyer. She is best known for leading the 1913 women's suffrage parade in Washington, D.C., dressed in a flowing white cloak and crown and riding a white horse. Though she took advantage of her reputation as “the most beautiful suffragette,” her commitment to social change was far from symbolic. She was a talented speaker and a passionate advocate for women’s rights, socialism, and pacifism.</p>

<p>Inez Milholland was born to a wealthy family in Brooklyn, New York. She grew up in New York City and London. While in England, she met the militant suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst and became a political radical. As a student at Vassar College, Milholland challenged a rule that banned discussion of suffrage on campus by holding meetings in a nearby cemetery. This defiant spirit would animate her life’s work.</p>

<p>After graduating from Vassar in 1909, Milholland started working as a suffrage orator in New York City. She also advocated for women’s labor rights. She was arrested picketing alongside female shirtwaist and laundry workers during strikes in 1909 and 1910. She also used her resources as a member of an upper-class family to pay bail for other strikers and organize fundraisers. After being rejected from several law schools because she was a woman, Milholland earned a law degree from New York University in 1912.</p>

<p>On March 3, 1913, Milholland achieved wide fame when she served as the herald of the Woman Suffrage Procession in Washington, D.C. Astride a horse named “Grey Dawn” and dramatically dressed in white to represent the “New Woman” of the twentieth century, she led thousands of women down Pennsylvania Avenue in the first organized march on Washington. Her work for women’s rights continued after the parade. She gave numerous suffrage speeches in the United States and England. She also campaigned for pacifism as World War I brewed in Europe.</p>

<p>During an Atlantic Ocean crossing to England in 1913, Milholland met a Dutch coffee importer named Eugen Jan Boissevain. She proposed to him while they were still aboard the ship. They were married shortly after they landed. Boissevain supported and encouraged his wife’s work.</p>

<p>Over the next few years Milholland began to experience poor health from pernicious anemia. She refused to stop her activism. In 1916, she started a suffrage tour of the Western United States. On October 22, she collapsed while giving a speech in Los Angeles. Audience members reported that the last words she said before collapsing were addressed to Woodrow Wilson: “Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?” Inez Milholland died a few weeks later at the age of thirty.</p>