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Doris Stevens (October 26, 1892 Omaha, Nebraska – March 22, 1963 New York City) was an American suffragist and author of Jailed for Freedom, and a prominent participant in the Silent Sentinels vigil at Woodrow Wilson's White House to urge the passage of a constitutional amendment for women's voting rights Early Life[edit] (deleted) Doris Stevens graduated from Oberlin College in 1911. She worked as a teacher and social worker in Ohio and Michigan before she became a regional organizer with the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and organized rallies and events in Midwestern States. In New York, she was friends with leading members of the Greenwich Village radical scene, including Louise Bryant and John Reed. Beginning Activism[edit] In 1913, Doris Stevens joined with Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, Mabel Vernon, Olympia Brown, Mary Ritter Beard, Belle Case La Follette, Helen Keller, Maria Montessori, Dorothy Day and Crystal Eastman to form the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage (CUWS). The following year Stevens became a full-time paid organizer and executive secretary for the CUWS in Washington, D.C. In 1914 she meets Ava Belmont, who is a future benefactor of the National Woman’s Party, and begins to work under her direction. Later that year she moved to Colorado and in 1915 to California to continue her CUWS work and had a love affair with a man named Frank P. Walsh. In 1915, Stevens organized the first convention of women voters at the Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, California. Later that year, the CUWS became the National Woman's Party (NWP) with help from Stevens. She went on to organize the NWP election campaign in California in 1917. Stevens was arrested for picketing at the White House in the summer of 1917 for women’s suffrage and served three days of her 60-day sentence at Occoquan Workhouse before receiving a pardon from Woodrow Wilson. She was arrested again in the NWP demonstration at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in March 1919. Stevens published the quintessential insider account of the imprisonment of NWP activists, Jailed for Freedom, in 1920, then takes off to Europe with Alva Belmont. Later Life[edit] In 1921 Stevens marries a lawyer named Dudley Field Malone, who she traveled to Europe with also. (deleted) In 1924 September-November: runs NWP's "Women for Congress" campaign out of Philadelphia. She served as vice chairman of NWP’s New York branch, spearheaded the NWP Women for Congress campaign in 1927-1930, and worked in states where female candidates were among contenders for office. In September of 1928 she attended the League of Nations meeting in Geneva to propose the appointment of women plenipotentiaries to international conferences. In August she was arrested again for protesting outside of Kellogg Briand Peace Pact Conference in France. During these years, she also served as Alva Belmont’s personal assistant and divorced her husband. Stevens clashed with Alice Paul and led an unsuccessful attempt to challenge the leadership of Paul’s successor, Anita Pollitzer. She was part of an internal dispute over the NWP’s emphasis on the international rights rather than domestic organizing. During these tensions, a dissenting faction of NWP members tried to take over party headquarters and elect their own slate of officers, but it was overruled. In 1931 she was named the first woman member of American Institute of International Law. In January of 1933 Alva Belmont dies, Stevens files a suit against her estate when it is revealed she has been written out of Belmont's will. She remarried in 1935 to Jonathon Mitchell. In November of 1936 she attended the People's Conference for the Peace of America in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In December she attended the Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace in Buenos Aires. In August of 1938 she traveled to the Dominican Republic to advise President Rafael Trujillo on women's legal equality. In December she attended the Eighth International Conference of American States in Lima, Peru. In 1939 she was replaced as U.S. commissioner on IACW, and engaged in battle to keep her seat. In 1940, she Published Paintings and Drawings of Jeanette Scott and was elected to National Council of NWP. Stevens parted ways with the NWP in 1947 in dispute over leadership style and focus of the group. In 1951-1963 she served as vice-president of the Lucy Stone League, a women’s rights organization based on Lucy Stone's retention of her maiden name after marriage. In her last years, Stevens supported the establishment of feminist studies as a legitimate field of academic inquiry in American universities. In 1963, Stevens dies of a stroke in New York City.

In popular culture[edit] Doris Stevens was portrayed by Laura Fraser in the 2004 HBO film Iron Jawed Angels.

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