53 Facts About Doris Stevens

Doris Stevens was the first female member of the American Institute of International Law and first chair of the Inter-American Commission of Women.

Doris Stevens was in charge of coordinating the women's congress, held at the Panama Pacific Exposition in 1915.

Between 1917 and 1919, Doris Stevens was a prominent participant in the Silent Sentinels vigil at Woodrow Wilson's White House to urge the passage of a constitutional amendment for women's voting rights and was arrested several times for her involvement.

Once the right to vote was secured, Doris Stevens turned her attention to women's legal status.

Doris Stevens supported passage of the Equal Rights Amendment and worked with Alice Paul from 1927 to 1933 on a volume of work comparing varying impact on law for women and men.

Doris Stevens fought the roll-back of policies removing the gains women had made to enter the work force during World War II and worked to establish feminism as an academic field of study.

Doris Stevens continued fighting for feminist causes until her death in 1963.

Dora Caroline Stevens was born on October 26,1888, in Omaha, Nebraska to Caroline D and Henry Henderbourck Stevens.

Doris Stevens's father was a pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church for forty years and her mother was a first generation immigrant from Holland.

One of four children, Doris Stevens grew up in Omaha and graduated in 1905 from Omaha High School.

Doris Stevens went on to further her education graduating from Oberlin College in 1911 with a degree in sociology, though she had originally pursued music.

In 1913, Doris Stevens arrived in Washington to take part in the June picketing of the Senate.

Doris Stevens did not plan to stay, but Alice Paul convinced her to do so.

Doris Stevens was hired by the NAWSA, and was assigned to the newly formed Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, which had been created by Alice Paul and Mary Ritter Beard.

Doris Stevens was hired to serve as executive secretary in Washington, DC, as well as serve as regional organizer and was assigned the eastern district.

Doris Stevens became the national organizer, charged with organizing women in states in which they were able to vote to use their ballots and oppose any candidate not in favor of full enfranchisement of women.

One of the first places Doris Stevens traveled to was Colorado, where CUWS was successful in attaining commitment from one congressman to support the women's cause.

Undaunted, Whitney and Doris Stevens continued their planning efforts for the Panama Pacific Exposition CUWS Congress in San Francisco.

In San Francisco at the CUWS headquarters in 1915, Doris Stevens discussed the strategy of employing a "million-vote smile", positing that smiling was a useful tool in the fight to win over men's support.

Doris Stevens had been involved in supervising each of these events, though local women planned and orchestrated them.

At the beginning of 1916, Doris Stevens announced the policy that the CUWS had organized in twenty-two states and planned on recruiting delegates for each of the 435 House Districts.

Doris Stevens met her first husband, Dudley Field Malone, when he represented her for her protest in front of the White House.

Doris Stevens had been serving as an Assistant Secretary of State in the Wilson cabinet, but was converted to the suffragist cause and resigned his post.

Doris Stevens appeared with Stevens at fundraising events and helped raise thousands of dollars for their cause, which was gaining momentum, as President Wilson finally endorsed enfranchisement.

Between 1918 and 1919, Doris Stevens continued alternating speaking engagements and picketing.

Doris Stevens was arrested again, along with Elsie Hill, Alice Paul and three "Jane Doe" suffragists at the NWP demonstration of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in March 1919.

Doris Stevens published the quintessential insider account of the imprisonment of NWP activists, Jailed for Freedom, in 1920.

In 1920, Alva Belmont was elected president of the NWP and Doris Stevens served as Belmont's personal assistant, even writing Belmont's autobiography.

Belmont and Steven's relationship was contentious, but the younger Doris Stevens accepted years of control by Belmont over many of her personal actions.

On December 5,1921, in Peekskill, New York, Doris Stevens and Malone were secretly married by a hardware store owner who was a Justice of the Peace and immediately sailed for their two-month honeymoon in Paris.

Doris Stevens divorced Malone in 1929 after a string of infidelities on both sides and failed attempts at reconciliation.

Doris Stevens served as vice chair of NWP's New York branch, spearheading the NWP Women for Congress campaign in 1924.

Unable to run herself due to her having established a legal residence in France, Doris Stevens worked toward the goal of securing the election of 100 women to Congress in states where female candidates were among contenders for office.

Doris Stevens met with feminists throughout Europe and held public meetings to gather data, including Dr Luisa Baralt of Havana, Dr Ellen Gleditsch of Oslo, Chrystal Macmillan and Sybil Thomas, Viscountess Rhondda of the UK, the Marquesa del Ter of Spain, Maria Verone of France and Helene Vacaresco of Romania, as well as various officers of the International Federation of University Women and others.

Doris Stevens continued meeting with women and gathering data until January 1928, when she attended the Pan-American Conference in Havana.

Doris Stevens convinced the governing body of the Pan American Union to create the Inter-American Commission of Women on April 4,1928.

Doris Stevens served as chair of the CIM from its creation in 1928 until her ouster in 1938.

In 1929, Doris Stevens returned to the United States and began to study law, taking classes at the American University and Columbia University in international law and foreign policy.

Doris Stevens returned to the United States and her studies.

Doris Stevens was very active in working with Latin American feminists through the CIM, even though focused on perusing her own interests over the concerns of many Latin American feminists.

Historian Katherine Marino describes in Feminism for the Americas how Doris Stevens refused to fund conference travel for fellow Latin American CIM members like Clara Gonzalez and effectively sidelined the well-known and respected Uruguayan feminist Paulina Luisi from the CIM.

The Roosevelt administration, hoping to get rid of Doris Stevens, then argued that the women's task was completed and the CIM should be abandoned.

Doris Stevens did not go quietly and the clash continued throughout 1939 with Eleanor Roosevelt backing Winslow and suffragists backing Doris Stevens.

Eleanor's objection to Doris Stevens was multi-faced, in that she did not think that the Equal Rights Amendment would protect women and on a personal level, she believed Doris Stevens behaved in an unladylike manner.

In 1940, Doris Stevens was elected to serve on the National Council of the National Woman's Party.

Doris Stevens sued the estate, eventually receiving US$12,000, but she believed that Paul had sabotaged her relationship with Belmont.

Doris Stevens parted ways with the NWP in 1947 and turned instead to activity in the Lucy Stone League, a women's rights organization based on Lucy Stone's retention of her maiden name after marriage.

Doris Stevens was one of the reorganizers along with Freda Kirchwey, Frances Perkins and others.

Doris Stevens had long been a proponent of a woman retaining her own name and did not take her husband's name in either of her marriages.

Doris Stevens had remarried to Jonathan Mitchell on August 31,1935, in Portland, Maine.

Doris Stevens took part in the McCarthy hearings and Stevens, after her marriage to him, moved politically to the right, from her previously socialist leanings.

From 1951 to 1963, Doris Stevens served as vice-president of the Lucy Stone League, though she struggled with maintaining militancy.

Doris Stevens died on March 22,1963, in New York City, two weeks after having a stroke.