Biography
Lucille Shields 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. Doris Stevens recorded her term as: July 4, 1917: three days; January 13, 1919: five days; shortly afterward: three days for applauding in court.
Stevens explicitly reports that Lucille Shields served five days for the January 13, 1919 watchfire demonstration, separate from her July 1917 term. Exact admission and release endpoints are not established here.
Doris Stevens, Jailed for Freedom, Appendix 4, PDF pages 14.
After expressly describing Shields’s five-day January 1919 watchfire service, Stevens says she was sentenced again, soon after release, to three days for applauding suffrage prisoners in court. That later imposed term is distinct from the two recorded picketing and watchfire episodes. No date or additional three days of actual service is assigned.
A 2020 Panhandle-Plains Historical Review history, using the spelling Lucile Shields, reports that Shields was first arrested at the White House on June 25, 1917 and released on bond. It separately describes her July 4 picketing arrest and the proceeding before Judge Andrew Mullowney for blocking traffic. The defendants rejected a $25 fine and personal bonds conditioned on refraining from further protest, choosing the three-day jail sentence. Shields also declined her husband Alexander’s offer to pay bail. These accounts distinguish the June arrest and bond from the subsequent July jail episode; they do not supply a new continuous custody total. Panhandle-Plains Historical Review, volume XCI (2020), “Women’s Suffrage,” printed pages 14–16 and notes 23–31.
