1. England
1.1. Key Figures
1.1.1. Emmeline Pankhurst
1.1.1.1. "Holloway became a place of horror and torment. Sickening scenes of violence took place almost every hour of the day, as the doctors went from cell to cell performing their hideous office." (Emmeline Pankhurst describing the force feeding in prisons toward suffragettes who were on hunger strikes.)
1.1.1.2. The founder of the Women's Social and Political Union & a suffragette prisoner who went of hunger strikes.
1.1.2. Marion Wallace Dunlop
1.1.2.1. Was the first suffragette to go on a hunger strike. She did it out of protest for not being given the status of a political prisoner after being imprisoned for damaging a wall of Parliment during a protest.
1.1.3. Mary Clarke
1.1.3.1. Mary Clarke was the younger sister of Emmeline Pankhurst. She was arrested at the "Black Friday" protest and was taken to the Holloway Prison where she braved both hunger strikes and force feeding until she was relaed. However three days later she was found passed out and died due to a burst blood vessel that is thought to be connected to her time in Holloway
1.2. Key events
1.2.1. The Cat and Mouse Act of 1913
1.2.1.1. The Temporary Discharge for ill-health was put into effect to release suffragettes early who were too sick from going on hunger strikes.
1.2.2. Public Relations
1.2.2.1. The Women's Social and Political Union would publish newspaper articles to garner public support with horror stories from the prisons.
1.2.2.2. Political cartoons depicting violent force feeding and horrible prison conditions were also published to the public
1.2.3. End of Hunger Strikes
1.2.3.1. The end of Hunger Strikes came in 1914 due to WW1 by the Women's Social and Political Union.
2. America
2.1. Key figures
2.1.1. Alice Paul
2.1.1.1. Alice Paul was an American Suffragette who studiied in England and got involved with the movement there. When she returned to America she implemented many of the stratagies that were used in England, including hunger striking. She founded that NWP and created Silent Sentinels which were the 40 women who were tourtured during The Night of Terror.
2.1.2. Lucy Burns
2.1.2.1. She was the leader of the prison special railroad tour & was one of the American suffragettes who spent the most time in prison (was in the Night of Terror).
2.1.2.2. Also studied in Britain and learned from the WSPU and when she returned to America, joined forces with Alice Paul.
2.2. Key Events
2.2.1. Night of Terror (Nov 15th 1917)
2.2.1.1. 32 suffragettes were arrested after a large protest in D.C and joined Alice Paul in the Occoquan Prison. When they arrived they immediately went on a hunger strike and on that night the prison attendant told his guards ton punish the women. Paul was put in a straitjacket, Day was slammed against an iron bench multiple times, Dora Lewis passed out after her head was pushed into an iron bed, and in reaction, Alice Cousu had a heart attack.
2.2.2. The Aftermath of The Night of Terror
2.2.2.1. Public Support
2.2.2.1.1. This tragedy was exactly what the NWP (National Women's Party) needed to gain public favor. They published prison diaries and created the "Prison Train" where they took newly released suffragets to share their stories with the public. The events created inmense public simpathy in support of Womens Suffrage.
2.2.2.2. Political Support
2.2.2.2.1. With the increased pressure from the public, President Woodrow Wilson released the 33 suffragette prisoners from Occoquan. He then later on September 30, 1918, announced his support for Women's Suffrage, which was pivotal in the passing of the 19th amendment.
3. What do both hunger strikes have in common?
3.1. Treatment in Prisons
3.1.1. Suffragettes were force fed by prison officials using a mixture of milk, egg, and other liquids that were forcibly poured into their stomachs via a tube.
3.2. Publicity
3.2.1. In 1914 an American journalist, Djuna Barnes, had herself force fed in a public demonstracion in NY that depicted the horrors that English suffragettes were undergoing. This is the intense connection that was running between the countries and a couple years later American suffragettes adopted the same tactics.
3.3. Leaders
3.3.1. As we can see, many American Suffragette leaders learned and studied under British Suffragettes and implemented their tactics, such as hunger strikes.