Biography
Martha Foley 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: February 1919: eight days in Charles Street Jail.
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.
James J. Kenneally’s reconstruction identifies Martha Foley among the February 1919 Boston suffrage prisoners whose proceedings were heard by Municipal Court Chief Justice Wilfred A. Bolster. The eight-day sentence described in this episode was nominal; individual releases after fines were paid must not be replaced with an assumed eight days served.
Kenneally, Historical Journal of Massachusetts 45(1), Winter 2017, printed pages 113–118.
Kenneally also describes a separate prosecution following Boston’s May Day disturbance in 1919: Foley was charged and tried for inciting a riot and assaulting a police officer. He reports that her case was placed on file after an appeal resulted in a hung jury. This account is not treated as an acquittal or as proof of a particular physical release or custody duration. Printed pages 126–127 and note 70.
Stevens describes Foley of Dorchester as an active worker in the Massachusetts labor movement.
