Katherine Morey - Infinite Women

The following is republished with permission from WAPUSH Wednesday, part of the campaign to get a Women’s AP US History course in high schools. It was written by Serene Williams.

Born: 1891, United States
Died: Unknown (after 1940)
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Katharine Pinkham

Suffragist, Pacifist, Leader of the National Woman’s Party in Massachusetts

Katherine Morey was a longtime activist with the National Woman’s Party who participated in both state and national level campaigns. Born in 1891, she was a descendant of Abner Hosmer, who was notable as the second man to die in the Revolutionary War. A longtime resident of Brookline, Massachusetts, her mother, Agnes Morey, was also a member of the National Woman’s Party and went to prison alongside her daughter during World War I.

In 1914, Katherine participated in a march alongside thousands of women in Boston on behalf of women’s suffrage. By 1916, she belonged to the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage and eventually served as Massachusetts state chairman for the National Woman’s Party. That year, she participated in a campaign to encourage women to move to western states that had already enfranchised women to increase the number of women participating in politics. Morey renounced her Massachusetts citizenship and wrote to the Governor of Kansas to say she would become a citizen of that state because women in Kansas could vote during the 1916 presidential campaign. Morey worked directly with notable suffragist Harriet Stanton Blatch on the Kansas campaign.

In February 1917, Morey helped organize a public event around the White House to call attention to President Wilson about the need for women to have the right to vote. At this protest, women were organized in half–those from states where women could vote and those from states where women did not have voting rights. Morey was in charge of organizing the women from the states without women’s suffrage.

In 1917, Morey protested outside the White House during the First World War. Morey had several run-ins with the law as a result of her suffrage work. In June of 1917, she and Lucy Burns were the first picketers to be arrested and she served three days in jail. In February 1919, Morey was arrested in Boston during a protest scheduled to take place when President Woodrow Wilson returned from Europe prompting world peace. Morey carried the American flag in this protest and she was sentenced to eight days at the Charles St. Jail. Also that year, Morey went to jail over refusing to pay fines for picketing and became visibly ill, losing 12 pounds.

Morey continued to be involved with the National Woman’s Party after the ratification of the 19th Amendment. In the mid-1920s, she worked on campaigns to secure equal pay for female teachers, support the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, and ensure women had access to serving on juries. Morey married Herbert K. Pinkham in 1921 and after this marriage she continued to use her maiden name as she saw fit and remained politically active. For example, in 1924 she published an essay in the Boston Globe arguing women should be encouraged to keep their own name after they marry. Although Morey is not widely known today, during the late 1910s and early 1920s, she played a pivotal role in expanding rights for women throughout the United States.