Biography
Ruth Small 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 Ruth Small 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.
Stevens records Small’s participation in several state suffrage campaigns before national work and her responsibility for the National Woman’s Party’s Boston headquarters for a time.
Doris Stevens, Jailed for Freedom, Appendix 4, printed page 368.
