Biographical Sketch of Katherine Lincoln (Brougham)



Biographical Database of Militant Woman Suffragists, 1913-1920
 
Biography of Katherine Lincoln (Brougham), 1895-?
 

By Anna Haralampoudis, undergraduate, SUNY College at Oneonta

Katherine Lincoln was born in Delaware in 1895 to Surrick and Mary (or Mabel) Lincoln. In 1915, Katherine’s father opened a river camp in the state of New York. Katherine begin working for Traveler’s Aid, a social welfare program that helped women and children traveling alone. During this period, Katherine became very involved with the woman suffrage movement and supported the National Woman’s Party.

On November 10, 1917, Katherine Lincoln was arrested while picketing the White House and, after refusing to pay a fine, sentenced to prison in the Occoquan Workhouse. During this time, she and many others challenged the notion of inequality through participation in hunger strikes. She spent approximately thirty days in prison and was released alongside twenty-two other hunger strikers. Initially after women achieved the right to vote within the United States, Katherine Lincoln officially relocated to New York and began to advocate for the Irish cause against the British Embassy. In 1922, at the age of twenty-seven, Katherine Lincoln married a man named Brougham. By 1930 she lived with her parents in White Plains, New York, when she was around the age of thirty-five.

Katherine Lincoln dedicated many years of her life to women’s causes and as a worker in the National Woman’s Party. She also taught in a private school. After women won the right to vote, Katherine campaigned for Anne Martin, a candidate for the United States Senate from Nevada. She then seems to disappear from the historical record.

Sources:

“Accuse Jailers of Suffragists,” New York Times (November 17, 1917): 1; “City Briefs,” Washington Post (January 27, 1922): 13; “Saranac Lake,” Washington Post (June 21, 1915): 7; “Suffragist Pickets Get Arrested Again,” New York Times (November 13, 1917): 4; “Suffrage Pickets Freed from Prison,” New York Times (November 28, 1917): 13; “Summer Homes and Camps,” New York Times (July 6, 1930): 13; Doris Stevens, Jailed for Freedom: American Women Win the Vote, ed. Carol O’Hare (Troutdale, OR: New Sage Press, 1995; originally published, 1920), 364. “United States Census, 1930,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X4GV-P24 (accessed April 19, 2016), Surrick Lincoln, 1930. “Women Post Pickets At British Embassy, Demand Irish Freedom, Attack England; Colby Apologizes, But Picketing Goes On,” New York Times (April 3, 1920): 1. Alfred A. Wright, ed., Who’s Who in the Lyceum (Philadelphia: Pearson Brothers. 1906), 129.

Note: The spelling of Katherine Lincoln’s varies. It is spelled Katherine, Catherine, or Katharine.

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