Background
Elisabeth Freeman was born in England in 1876 to Mary Hall Freeman, who was estranged from her husband. Elizabeth, her mother, and two siblings emigrated to the United States, where they lived on Long Island, New New York
Elisabeth Freeman was born in England in 1876 to Mary Hall Freeman, who was estranged from her husband. Elizabeth, her mother, and two siblings emigrated to the United States, where they lived on Long Island, New New York
After moving back to London, she helped a woman who was beaten by a policeman and both she and the woman were arrested. The woman brought her into the suffrage movement, within which she learned the arts of campaigning, including public speaking, media work and recruitment. Having developed such skills in London, she then brought them back to the United States, where she was employed by the suffrage movement.
One notable example of her activism occurred in 1913, when she took part in the national Suffrage Hike to the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson in Washington, District of Columbia As a publicity stunt in New York City she wore a gypsy costume and drove a wagon stenciled with "Votes for Women" slogans and piled with women"s suffrage literature.
On May 16 1916, while working for the suffrage movement in Texas, she was asked by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to investigate the lynching of Jesse Washington. Foreign a week, she talked to people in Waco, and her documentation of the lynching to West. East. B. Du Bois was the base for garnering national attention.
In the years between 1917 and 1919, she was active for the peace movement, where she lobbied Congress and continued her work fighting for the cause of civil rights, although speaking up against United States policies concerning the war garnered strong reactions. Freeman owned an antique store in Provincetown, Massachusetts from 1925 until 1937, when she moved to Pasadena, California for health reasons.
She died of pleurisy in February 1942.