The 1919 Prison Special: Constituting white women's citizenship |
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| Authors: | Catherine H Palczewski |
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| Institution: | Communication Studies, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA, USA |
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| Abstract: | During the spring of 1919, the National Woman's Party sponsored the Prison Special, a cross-country train tour of 26 white women who had been jailed as a result of their protest activity for woman suffrage. Using visual, embodied, and verbal enactments of imprisonment and civic action, the Prison Special constituted white women's citizenship through simultaneous rhetorics of inclusion and expulsion. The Prison Special's foregrounding of white women's martial capabilities, respectability, and vulnerability justified white women's inclusion in the category of citizen. The Prison Special's contrast of the imprisoned white suffragists to Black women co-prisoners participated in the expulsion of Black women from the category of citizen. |
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| Keywords: | Prison Special woman suffrage body argument constitutive outside citizenship |
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