#OnThisDay, 10 Nov 1917, 41 suffragists are arrested outside the White House in Washington DC.
This was the largest number of women arrested on the same day. They were charged with “blocking traffic” on the wide pavement of Pennsylvania Avenue.
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Any suffragists found guilty would refuse to pay the fine so that they'd be sent to jail instead. Once numbers exceeded the capacity of the local jailhouse, convicted women were sent to the Occoquan Workhouse.
At Occoquan, some began hunger strikes and were force fed.
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In November 1917, the supervisor of the workhouse ordered the guards to brutalise the suffragists. They dragged, beat, choked and pinched the women. One was left with her hands chained over her head all night. Another was slammed into the edge of her bed so hard her cellmate thought she was dead.
Media reports of the brutalisation created public pressure, and by the end of November all the suffragist women had been released.
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