Silent Sentinels Picket the White House

Two members of the National Woman’s Party hold vigil outside the White House as part of the Silent Sentinels protest. Beginning in 1917, these suffragists stood quietly but firmly six days a week, demanding President Woodrow Wilson support a constitutional amendment granting women the right to vote. This image is of the "Watchfire" campaign, which began on January 1, 1919 while Woodrow Wilson was in Europe attending the Paris Peace Conference to promote and negotiate global democracy. Suffragists used the moment to spotlight the contradiction between Wilson’s international ideals and the continued denial of voting rights to women at home.

The banner criticizes Wilson’s portrayal as a global champion of democracy while millions of women in the U.S. remained disenfranchised. Despite arrests, imprisonment, and public hostility, the Silent Sentinels maintained their protest—helping to keep suffrage in the national spotlight and pressuring lawmakers to act. Their efforts contributed to the eventual ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920.