THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT
Ernestine Hara Kettler
January 25, 1896 – November 1, 1978
“I was actually outraged that women didn’t have the vote. I mean there were, after all, as many women in the country as men, and what is this business? Why is a woman so far below a man intellectually that she’s not fit to vote.”
At age 13, began associating with the Young People’s Socialist League and attending political meetings in Union Square, New York City. A member of the NWP, Kettler was one of the suffragists who chained themselves to the White House gates, were arrested in 1917 and served time in Virginia’s Occoquan Workhouse for “obstructing traffic.” An active member of the Los Angeles chapter of NOW.
More About Ernestine:
- Jailed for Freedom: A Women’s Suffragist Remembers Prison, 1973 interview with historian Sherna Gluck, Ernestine Hara Kettler recalled her stint in the workhouse.
- Biographical Sketch of Ernestine Hara Kettler written by Hannah Rosenstein.
- Cited in Barbara Love’s book, Feminists Who Changed America 1963-1975, page 253