1868-1952
Louise Parker Mayo was a former schoolteacher, a mother of seven, co-manager of her family’s farm, and the operator of the “school barge,” the first horse-drawn school bus in Framingham. Despite her seemingly traditional path in life from school teacher to farm wife and mother, Mayo was a firebrand with the courage of her convictions. She served on the first executive board of the Framingham chapter of the Equal Suffrage League organized in 1914.
Mayo joined the picketing at the White House in July of 1917, not long after the U.S. entered World War I. Suffragists considered it a national embarrassment that a country purporting to fight for democracy in Europe failed to extend the right to participate in democracy to half its own population. Mayo’s neighbor, Mrs. Bowditch, who supported the cause but would not go herself, funded the trip.
The picketing campaign in which Mayo participated was an ongoing protest that was the very first of its kind. Picketing the White House was already considered a radical act, and doing so during a time of war was considered by many to be outright sedition. Police began arresting protesters, and it was the testimony of these women that inspired Mayo to travel to Washington. On July 14, 1917, Mayo and 16 other members of the Women’s Congressional Union were arrested for “unlawful assembly” and “obstructing traffic,” and were sentenced to 60 days in the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia. President Wilson pardoned the women 3 days later.