14 Facts About Zelie Emerson

Zelie Passavant Emerson was an American suffragette in England.

Zelie Emerson suggested and then founded the Workers' Dreadnought newspaper with Sylvia Pankhurst, and she was injured by London police in a suffrage riot in 1913.

Zelie Emerson's grandfather was a Lutheran minister, William Passavant; her great-grandmother Fredericka "Zelie" Basse Passavant was the inspiration for the town name of Zelienople, Pennsylvania.

Zelie Emerson was active in the labor movement in Chicago for several years, and worked at the Northwestern University Settlement house, before she met Sylvia Pankhurst and moved to England.

Zelie Emerson was active in the Women's Social and Political Union in London, and in the breakaway group, the East London Federation of Suffragettes.

Pankhurst wrote that Zelie Emerson recognised that the working class audience appreciated that winning the women's suffrage would benefit the men.

Pankhurst and Zelie Emerson were arrested for violent demonstrating, including throwing stones at Bow police station in February 1913, and sentenced to six weeks in Holloway Prison.

Zelie Emerson was released after a hunger strike, forced feeding, solitary confinement, and a suicide attempt, after seven weeks.

Zelie Emerson served on the Committee for the Repeal of the Prisoners' Act in 1913.

In November 1913, Zelie Emerson was injured by London police in a suffrage riot.

Zelie Emerson was found to have a concussion, but within a month was arrested again for rioting.

Zelie Emerson decided to join the suffragettes in drilling in the use of clubs, boxing, and jiu-jitsu.

Zelie Emerson testified at one of her trials that she had decided to carry a "Saturday night club," a rope dipped in tar and weighted with lead, to defend herself against the police.

Zelie Emerson was arrested again in 1914, and there was talk of expelling her from the country, under the Aliens Act.