Biography
Lucy J. C. Daniels was the fifth child of Francis and Lucy Barrett Daniels of Grafton. Her four older brothers married, eventually moved west, and became successful businessmen or lawyers, returning to Grafton periodically. Neither Lucy nor her younger sister Susan married. As adults both invested their inheritance wisely and remained prominent in Grafton though they diverged in their interests and political views.
After elementary school, Lucy attended Kimball Union Academy in Meriden, N. H., and Gannett Institute for Young Ladies in Boston, where she later resided during the winter months. A lifelong learner, Daniels became a member of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Society in 1885, graduated in 1896 from one of the first law school programs for women at New York University, and was awarded a law degree from Portia Law School for Women (now New England Law) at the age of 68 in 1926.
An ardent suffragist, Daniels noted that she gleaned her ideas from her mother. She was exposed to suffrage activism in Boston and became involved with the National American Woman Suffrage Organization (NAWSA) and the National Woman’s Party (NWP) She belonged to the Vermont Equal Suffrage Association (VESA) and corresponded periodically with its chief lobbyist and speaker Annette W. Parmelee during the 1910s.
In 1911, Daniels refused to pay her property taxes in protest against Grafton’s representative to the legislature who had voted against a bill allowing women to vote in town meetings. As a result, the selectmen auctioned off some of her bank shares to recoup the tax, but a nephew purchased the lot, which remained in the family. In a public pronouncement, she painted a large sign on one of her buildings in Grafton: “A Square Deal: Votes for Vermont Women.” Daniels placed ads in the Bellows Falls Times and reiterated the claim that “taxation of women without votes for women is tyranny.”
Daniels recognized the plight of disenfranchised wage-earning and African-American women, who faced class or racial as well as gender bias. Arguing that many women were now working even if they were married, she held that the vote would allow them to effect legislation regulating their working conditions and wages. She insisted that she would not vote in school meetings, even though she qualified as a local taxpayer, until all women had that right for, “I am not an aristocrat,” she proclaimed.
Daniels’s association with national organizations led her to advocate for the federal amendment and to participation in the 1913 suffrage parade in Washington, D.C. designed to draw attention to Congressional action. She offered parade organizer Alice Paul $50 to recruit 100 African-American women for the event. Paul was willing to include black women but declined the offer in deference to southern sentiments. At least 50 black women marched anyway.
Prompted to bring similar tactics to Vermont, Daniels organized a grand suffrage procession and demonstration in Grafton the following year. During a statewide campaign on May 2, 1914, she incorporated flags and other paraphernalia she had secured from the 1913 parade to create a colorful display. In honor of Daniels’s aunt, who had cast her first vote on a temperance issue in Illinois, attendees planted a tree, after which Daniels and others advocated for woman suffrage in outdoor speeches.
Daniels became more radical in her suffrage activism after Alice Paul and Lucy Burns organized the National Woman’s Party and staged nonviolent protests against President Wilson in 1917. After the country had entered World War I, when many Americans considered these protests unpatriotic, Daniels became one of the “Silent Sentinels.” They stood quietly every day in front of the White House to demand action on woman suffrage with such banners as, “Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?” and labeling him “Kaiser Wilson” during the war. Bystanders tried to pull down their banners, creating a riot, prompting police to arrest the women for obstructing traffic. Daniels was arrested three times, jailed, and treated roughly by guards on one occasion despite the nonviolent stance of the protesters. Many of her compatriots went on hunger strike and were subsequently force fed, whereby they gained considerable attention from the press.
In her final radical act, Daniels joined other members of the NWP in Boston to disrupt President Wilson’s return from the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Along with 16 other women, she spent several days in Charles Street Jail. At home in Grafton during summer, Daniels discovered that her notoriety had spurred local vandals to break into her home and paint “Jailbird Retreat” on her house.
After suffrage was achieved in 1920, Daniels spent less and less time in Grafton. She was a devoted vegetarian, a peace advocate, and a supporter of other social justice issues. She gave generously to charitable causes and local institutions in Grafton; upon her death in 1949, she left a large legacy to the Grafton Public Library.Education
New York University, 1896
Portia Law School for Women, 1926Occupation
Suffragist