Lucy Burns

Lucy Burns (July 28, 1879 – December 22, 1966) was an American suffragist and women's rights advocate. She was a passionate activist in the United States and the United Kingdom, who joined the militant suffragettes. Burns was a close friend of Alice Paul, and together they ultimately formed the National Woman's Party.

Early life and education

Burns was born in New York to an Irish Catholic family. She was described by fellow National Woman's Party member Inez Haynes Irwin as "a woman of twofold ability. She speaks and writes with equal eloquence and elegance. [...] Mentally and emotionally, she is quick and warm. [...] She has intellectuality of a high order; but she overruns with a winning Irishness which supplements that intellectuality with grace and charm; a social mobility of extreme sensitiveness and swiftness."

She was a gifted student and first attended Packer Collegiate Institute, or what was originally known as the Brooklyn Female Academy, for second preparatory school in 1890. Packer Collegiate Institute prided itself on "teaching girls to be ladies", and they emphasized religious education while advocating more liberal ideals such as educating "the mind to habits of thinking with clearness and force."

Burns also met one of her lifelong role models, Laura Wylie, while attending Packer Collegiate Institute. Wylie was one of the first women to go to Yale University Graduate School. Burns also attended Columbia University, Vassar College, and Yale University before becoming an English teacher.

Burns taught at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn for two years. While Burns enjoyed the educational field, she generally found the experience to be frustrating and wanted to continue her own studies. In 1906, at age twenty-seven, she moved to Germany to resume her studies in language.

In Germany, Burns studied at the Universities of Bonn and Berlin from 1906 to 1909. Burns later moved to the United Kingdom, where she enrolled at Oxford University to study English. Burns was fortunate enough to have a very extensive educational background as her father, Edwards Burns, supported her and financed her international education.

Early activism

Burns's first major experiences with activism were with the Pankhursts in the United Kingdom from 1909 to 1912. While attending graduate school in Germany, Lucy Burns traveled to England where she met Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters, Christabel and Sylvia. She was so inspired by their activism and charisma that she dropped her graduate studies to stay with them and work in the Women's Social and Political Union, an organization dedicated to fighting for women's rights in the United Kingdom. She started selling their newsletter Votes for Women, and joined a protest on June 29, 1909, where she was arrested.

Burns was later employed by the Women's Social and Political Union as a salaried organizer from 1910 to 1912. While working with the Pankhursts in the United Kingdom, Lucy Burns became increasingly passionate about activism and participated in numerous campaigns with the WSPU. She amazed a young Grace Roe, for coming from America to support the movement, even saying she had come to London to be arrested and that it "was a very grave honour." One of her first major contributions was organizing a parade in Edinburgh as part of the campaign in Scotland in 1909. She was the WSPU Edinburgh organiser for two years.

Burns was an active supporter of the campaign to boycott the 1911 census; she invited suffragettes from residents and non-residents of Edinburgh to a large gathering in the city's Cafe Vegetaria on the night of the census, so that they could not be officially registered.

Prison in Britain

Burns was with Jennie Baines, Mary Leigh, Alice Paul, Emily Davison and Mabel Capper trying to stop a Limehouse meeting on the Budget by Lloyd George. In a fracas with a senior police officer led to Burns being described by the magistrate as "setting an extremely bad example" and getting a harsher sentence. While Burns is not a widely known speaker from the woman's rights movement, she did make a variety of speeches in marketplaces and on street corners while in Europe. Her activism resulted in numerous court appearances and reports of "disorderly conduct" in the newspapers. In August 1909, she hid with Adela Pankhurst, Alice Paul and Margaret Smith on the roof of the St Andrew's Hall in Glasgow, where she planned to break through the roof and disrupt a political speech by the Earl of Crewe in front of an all-male audience. Burns was again with Alice Paul and Edith New and other suffragettes in Dundee trying to enter a political meeting of Herbert Samuel, MP, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and, unable to gain access, Burns then broke police station windows and got a ten-day sentence, where she and others went on hunger strike, damaged the cells and refused to do prison work. Burns and Paul were involved in a stunt at the London Lord Mayor's Ball, mingling with guests then approaching Winston Churchill with a hidden banner shouting "How can you dine here while women are starving in prison?". Again, this resulted in prison, self-starving and force feeding.

Burns had been given a Hunger Strike Medal 'for Valour' by WSPU.

Relationship with Alice Paul

While working with the WSPU, Burns first met Alice Paul at a London police station. Both women had been arrested for demonstrating, and Paul introduced herself when she noticed that Burns was wearing an American flag pin on her lapel. The women discussed their suffrage experiences in the United Kingdom and the American women's movement.

Burns and Paul bonded over their frustration with what they considered the inactivity and ineffective leadership of the American suffrage movement by Anna Howard Shaw. Their similar passions and fearlessness in the face of opposition made them quickly become good friends. Both women were passionate about activism, and the feminist struggle for equality in the UK inspired Burns and Paul to continue the fight in the United States in 1912.

Suffrage historian Eleanor Clift compares the partnership of Paul and Burns to that of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She notes that they "were opposites in appearance and temperament... [w]hereas Paul appeared fragile, Burns was tall and curvaceous, the picture of vigorous health...unlike Paul, who was uncompromising and hard to get along with, Burns was pliable and willing to negotiate. Paul was the militant; Burns, the diplomat."

Despite their stark differences, Paul and Burns worked together so effectively that followers would often describe them as having "one mind and spirit.". However Paul described Burns as "always more valiant than I was, about a thousand times more valiant by nature."

National American Women Suffrage Association

Upon returning to the United States, Paul and Burns joined the National American Women Suffrage Association (NAWSA) as leaders of its Congressional Committee. Both women felt it was critical to hold the political party in power responsible for a federal suffrage amendment. By holding an entire party accountable, Paul and Burns believed that congressmen would be forced to take action or risk losing their seats. This militant tactic was presented by Paul and Burns at the 1912 NAWSA convention in Philadelphia to Anna Howard Shaw and other NAWSA leaders. NAWSA leaders rejected their proposal because they felt any action against the Democratic Party, which had just won the presidential election, was premature at that point. Not willing to back down without a fight, Burns and Paul enlisted the help of Jane Addams, a well-respected and more unorthodox NAWSA leader, to petition their cause to her fellow NAWSA leaders. While the women were forced to tone down their proposal NAWSA leaders did authorize a suffrage parade, which Burns, Paul, and other activists organized as the Woman Suffrage Procession of 1913, occurring the day before Woodrow Wilson's first inauguration. NAWSA's one stipulation was that Paul and Burns' Congressional Committee would receive no further funding from NAWSA. While Burns and Paul readily agreed to this stipulation, this event marked the beginning of their divide with NAWSA.