Biography
Betty Gram was a member of the National Woman's Party and one of the "Silent Sentinels" imprisoned during the 1917-1919 campaign to picket the Wilson White House for woman suffrage. Held at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia or the District of Columbia Jail, many of these prisoners joined hunger strikes and were force-fed.
Updated Boston custody chronology: arrested and incarcerated February 24, 1919; sentenced February 25; released March 4, 1919. The dated stay is eight elapsed days. These dates follow the supplied record correction; earlier source notes are retained as historical background where accounts differ.
Updated Boston custody dates
Updated Boston custody chronology: arrested and incarcerated February 24, 1919; sentenced February 25; released March 4, 1919. The dated stay is eight elapsed days. These dates follow the supplied record correction; earlier source notes are retained as historical background where accounts differ.
Stevens individually identifies this woman as a picketer and reports her imposed sentence. These details supply the missing case label without altering actual-custody dates or counters.
Kenneally individually identifies Betty Gram among the women jailed at Charles Street following the February 1919 Boston suffrage demonstration and proceedings before Chief Justice Wilfred A. Bolster. This is separate from the 1917 Washington/Occoquan case. The eight-day sentence was nominal; the article describes early releases after fines were paid, without supplying an individually established complete duration for this prisoner.
Kenneally, Historical Journal of Massachusetts 45(1), Winter 2017, printed pages 113–118.
The article also reports Gram’s arrest while demonstrating for women’s rights outside the French president’s home in 1929. This is a separate French episode; the brief account supplies no individual jail admission, release date or measured term. Printed page 126.
Stevens records Gram’s graduation from the University of Oregon, former stage career and work in Portland’s juvenile courts. The entry identifies her as business manager of The Suffragist and a national organizer for the National Woman’s Party.
