Biography
Lillian Ascough 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.
Stevens identifies Mrs. W. D. Ascough as the former Connecticut NWP chair, trained for the concert stage in London and Paris. She lists a fifteen-day August 1918 Lafayette Square sentence and a five-day February 1919 watchfire sentence, plus Ascough’s Prison Special participation. The current undated generic case cannot be assigned to either episode without a stronger bridge, so these distinctions are preserved as narrative rather than duplicated rows.
Doris Stevens, Jailed for Freedom, Appendix 4, printed page 355.
Doris Stevens identifies Mrs. W. D. Ascough as a former Connecticut National Woman’s Party chairman from Detroit who trained for the concert stage in London and Paris before devoting herself to suffrage. The Library of Congress explicitly identifies the same woman as Lillian Ascough. Stevens records two distinct imposed terms: fifteen days for the August 1918 Lafayette Square meeting and five days for the February 1919 watchfire demonstration. She also took part in the Prison Special tour. Neither term is treated as a measured total actually served; exact physical endpoints remain unknown.
Doris Stevens, Appendix 4, printed page 355; Library of Congress, Mrs. W. D. Ascough / Lillian Ascough.
