Betty Gram Swing

Betty Gram participated in landmark events of the women's rights movement in the early to mid-twentieth century. She joined the women's rights movement in 1917 and was subsequently jailed five times and went on two hunger strikes. When she was sent to Tennessee to push for the last vote needed to ratify the 19th amendment, a local newspaper announced, “110 Pounds of Femininity Hit Memphis”.[1] Contemporary newspaper accounts often noted her attractiveness. She remained active for many decades in women's rights and other causes.[2] In 1921, Gram married well-known radio commentator Raymond Gram Swing. She insisted that he take her last name as well if she was taking his and became Betty Gram Swing. The couple were the parents of two sons and a daughter. They divorced in 1944.[3]

National Woman's Party members picketing the Republican convention, Chicago, June 1920. L-R Abby Scott Baker, Florence Taylor Marsh, Sue Shelton White, Elsie Hill, Betty Gram.

After graduating from the University of Oregon, Betty Gram embarked on a stage career, which she left when she came east to join the National Woman's Party (NWP), led by Alice Paul. The NWP had split with other women's suffrage groups over its focus on a constitutional amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote, as well as on its aggressive tactics. Other groups, namely the National American Woman's Suffrage Association, had built a state-by-state suffrage strategy and opposed the NWP's targeting of President Wilson and Democrats as well as its picketing effort.[4]

The National Woman's Party began its Silent Sentinels picketing of the White House in January 1917. In March of that year, over one thousand women took part. By June, the White House decided to arrest the picketers. Since holding signs is not illegal, the women demanded to know the reason for their arrest. The eventual charge was obstructing traffic. Those charges were dismissed and no trial was held. But a new pattern had begun - the women picketers were not deterred. Upon their release, they went straight back to picketing the White House and were arrested again. A front-page photo in the Evening Tribune of San Diego bore the caption, "Washington has found that the only way to keep a picket away from the White House is to put her in jail."[5] This time the picketers were found guilty of obstructing traffic and fined $25 or three days in jail. The women refused to pay the fine. A rapid escalation followed until the leader of the NWP, Alice Paul was sentenced to 7 months in jail. Betty and her sister, Alice Gram, and 39 others were jailed for obstructing traffic on November 10, 1917; that picket was part of a protest of Alice Paul's sentence. The charge of obstructing traffic was widely understood as a sham - the Oregonian newspaper clearly stated as much in an article covering the Gram sisters' arrest.[6] In the same article, Betty was quoted as saying, "I am going to prison for the suffrage case, with the full knowledge that I have committed no offense."[6]

Instead of being sent to the local jail, the November 10th picketers were sent to the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia, where the inmates were forced to do prison labor. Horrible conditions faced the women in the workhouse - they were beaten, kept in isolation, and given rancid food. After being refused recognition as political prisoners, the women declared a hunger strike. The leaders of the NWP, including Alice Paul, were force fed. The Gram sisters were released after 17 days in jail, along with 22 other hunger strikers, although they had been sentenced to 30 days.[7]

The arrests and hunger strike were widely covered in newspapers across the country and Betty was featured prominently. The Oregonian noted that, by the time they were released, Betty and Alice had lost 12 and 19 lbs respectively.[8] But their arrests and ill-treatment did not deter the Grams or the other picketers, who continue pressuring President Wilson and Congress to take up a constitutional amendment granting women the right to vote. In January 1919, Betty Gram was one of two sentries outside the White House standing guard over a bonfire in which they burned President Wilson's speeches.[9] The next month she was arrested in Boston when 21 members of the National Woman's Party gathered in front of the State House with suffrage banners. They were there to protest President Wilson's arrival in Boston. The women were arrested when they refused to comply with police orders to move. In newspaper accounts, Betty was singled out as resisting arrest and had to be "lifted bodily" into the police wagon.[10]

Senator Freylinghuysen of New Jersey congratulates Betty Gram on the ratification of the 19th Amendment by the NJ legislature in Feb of 1920.

After multiple attempts through 1918 and the beginning of 1919, on June 4, 1919, Congress finally passed the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution granting women the right to vote, pending ratification by the states. Betty Gram and the National Woman's Party quickly shifted their efforts from the White House to the states. Betty became a leader in the ratification campaign, working in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Delaware, West Virginia, Tennessee, and other states. In January 1920, suffragists defeated a New Jersey referendum movement that would have put the question of ratification directly to voters.[11] Delaware became an important battleground state, with an active anti-suffrage movement. According to the Boston Herald, the NWP sent its "most experienced ratification campaigners" there, including Betty Gram.[12] In June 1920, suffragists picketed the Republican National Convention in Chicago, hoping to pressure the Republican legislature of Delaware and Republican governors of Connecticut and Vermont for their failure to ratify the amendment. The Cleveland Plain Dealer, covering the convention, described Betty Gram as "young, vivacious, and pretty" and referenced the miniature steel jail door she wore as a breast pin, symbolizing her time in jail for the cause of women's suffrage.[13] The NWP did not picket the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco.

In July 1920, Betty Gram was on her way to Tennessee to capture the 36th, and last, state needed for ratification. Her hometown paper, the Oregonian, interviewed her on her work to get women the right to vote. Betty said, "I joined the picket group because I realized suffrage was at a standstill and unless something dramatic was done, nothing could be accomplished.".[14] On August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution. The long battle was won.

Having finally succeeded in their years-long effort, the National Woman's Party and other women's groups had to reconsider the makeup and mission of their organizations. In addition, the NWP lost some members as women focused on their careers or other causes. Still others "found that marriage and family responsibilities at least temporarily curtailed their NWP activities."[15] Shortly after the ratification of the 19th amendment, Betty Gram set off for Europe to resume her music studies. After marrying Raymond Swing in 1921, her husband's career as a radio commentator and foreign correspondent took them to England, where they lived for over a decade. Now Betty Gram Swing, Betty continued her work for women's rights in the UK and in the international arena.

In 1926, Betty Gram Swing, along with two other American members of the NWP, formed an English outpost of the group in order to aid British feminists in their efforts to repeal the laws limiting women's voting rights to women over the age of 30.[17] Having also fought (and picketed) for equal pay for women and married women's employment rights during her years in England, Betty Gram Swing returned to the United States in 1934. In the fall of that year, she gave a speech to the Inter-American Commission of Woman at the Pan-American Union warning that women would lose their hard-earned rights unless they were ready to fight for them. A Washington Post article covering the speech described Betty as one of "the youngest and most beautiful leaders in international feminism."[18] The article notes that Betty was focused at that time on having the Equal Rights Treaty "ratified and adhered to by all nations."

• Betty Gram Swing Papers Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.