Remembering Elizabeth Selden Rogers, One of Putnam County’s Leading Suffragists Who Arrested at the White House

In honor of the 100-year anniversary of the 19^th Amendment

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Under the tutelage of Alice Paul, founder of the suffrage group, Congressional Union, Putnam County resident Elizabeth Selden White Rogers, helped establish suffrage groups throughout the county in the 1910s under the group name Women’s Political Union. 

In those days, married women formally used their husband’s names, so she was always known as Mrs. John Rodgers, Jr. She was married to a prominent New York City physician and used her position as a platform to advocate for women’s voting rights.  The Rogers owned a summer home in Towners, New York, called “Freedom Farm” where, it is said, she tended to her children and, according to the August 20, 1915, article in The Putnam County Courier, “directs the farm work, makes all the butter and runs the cream separator.”

Later the Union became part of the National Women’s Party (NWP) and Rogers helped host suffrage meetings and events in all the towns and villages in Putnam.  In 1915 she toured with Oxford educated suffrage speaker, Miss Eleanor Brannan.  In Putnam they would meet with the likes of Edith Diehl, Marjorie Addis, Antoinette Hopkins, Helena Fish, Kate deForest Crane, and many more.

At the height of her fight for women’s suffrage, Rogers participated in the July 14, 1917, Bastille Day NWP picketing of the White House. She and her fellow protestors were arrested, tried, and found guilty.   Although they were sentenced to 60 days at Occoquan Workhouse in Lorton, Virginia, President Woodrow Wilson was pressured to pardon them after a few days. Rogers was deemed a militant suffragist.

During the final stages of the suffrage campaign, Rogers was the chair of the National Advisory Council of the NWP and the legislative chair for New York State.

Following the passing of the 19^th Amendment in 1920, the Rogers retired from Putnam County farm life and returned to New York City in 1922. In her later years, Elizabeth remained active in advocating for women’s rights, including women’s income equality and civic reform.

“If not for the brave women, like Elizabeth Selden Rogers, who fought long and hard for suffrage, women would have no voice in the political arena, much less the opportunity to run for and hold elective office,” County Executive MaryEllen Odell said. “All of the rights we, as women, hold today stem from that long, hard-won battle. As Putnam’s first female county executive, I am proud to remember the story of Putnam County’s Elizabeth Rogers and so many more suffragists who led the way.”

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