The Story of the Woman's Party

by Inez Haynes Gillmore

A young relative of one of the jail officials, in the uniform of an officer of the United States Army, used to come into this building at night, and look in through the undraped grating of these cells. Once he unlocked the door, and came into a room where two young pickets were sleeping. “Are you a physician?” one of them had the presence of mind to ask.

He answered that he was not. She lay down, and covered her head with the bedclothes. Presently he left.

There were open toilets in all these cells, and they could only be flushed from the outside. It was necessary always to call a man guard to do this. They came, or not, as they pleased.

In the Suffragist of July 28, 1917, occurs the first account of Occoquan, by Mrs. Gilson Gardner. Mrs. Gardner, it will be remembered, was one of that early group of sixteen pickets whom the President pardoned after three days.

She says:

The short journey on the train was pleasant and uneventful. From the station at Occoquan the women sent to the Workhouse were put into three conveyances; two were filled with white women and the third with colored women. In the office of the Workhouse we stood in a line and one at a time were registered and given a number. The matron called us by number and first name to the desk. Money and jewelry were accounted for and put in the safe. We were then sent to the dining-room. The meal of soup, rye bread, and water was not palatable....

From the dining-room we were taken to the dormitory. At one end of the long room, a white woman and two colored women were waiting for us. Before these women we were obliged, one by one, to remove all our clothing, and after taking a shower bath, put on the Workhouse clothes. These clothes consisted of heavy unbleached muslin chemises and drawers, a petticoat made of ticking, and a heavy dark gray cotton mother hubbard dress. The last touch was a full, heavy, dark blue apron which tied around the waist. The stockings were thick and clumsy. There were not enough stockings, and those of us who did not have stockings during our sojourning there were probably rather fortunate. We were told to wear our own shoes for the time being, as they did not have enough in stock. The one small rough towel that was given to us we were told must be folded and tucked into our aprons. The prisoners were permitted to have only what they could carry.

The dormitory was clean and cool and we longed to go to bed, but we were told we must dress and go into the adjoining room where Superintendent Whittaker would see us. Mr. Whittaker brought with him a man whom we afterward learned was a newspaper man. The superintendent informed us that for about an hour we could do as we chose, and pointing to the piano said that we might play and sing. The piano was not unlocked while we were there, but that night no one had a desire to sing. Although Mr. Whittaker’s words were few and not unpleasant, we realized that our presence did not cause him either embarrassment or regret.

We were told that one dormitory was given up to colored women; in the other one, the one in which we were to sleep, there would be both colored and white women. We had asked to be allowed to have our toilet things and were told we could not have them until the next morning, that is, we would be permitted to have our combs and toothbrushes then. But we were not permitted to have these until Thursday. One woman told us we must not lend our comb to other prisoners and must not mingle with the colored women....

The days were spent in the sewing-room. We were permitted to talk in low tones, two or three being allowed to sit together. While we were there, the sewing was very light. We turned hems on sheets and pillow slips and sewed on the machine. There were both white and colored women working in the sewing-room. The work was monotonous and our clothing extremely heavy.