Chapter 12
The new bars over the first floor windows made Cameron House feel like a prison. When I needed to console myself from the incessant feeling that the walls were falling down on me, I thought of the bars as a metaphorical jail representing the prison that had held women captive since the waiting began. Now, after the riot, Alice Paul and Lucy Burns were more determined than ever to end the waiting.
Aren’t we doing our part for our country, they asked? Aren’t we eating wheatless and meatless, wearing khaki and sending our sons and husbands, fathers and brothers over there to fight the great fight? Aren’t we working outside our homes, away from our families, a mass female exodus into the world to fill the gaps left by the men? Aren’t we farmers and elevator operators and mail carr
