Lillian Ascough


Lillian Ascough was an American Suffragist. Originally from Detroit, Michigan, she served as the Connecticut Chair of the National Woman's Party and the Vice President of the Michigan Branch NWP. At the August 1918 demonstration at Lafayette Square, Ascough was sentenced to fifteen days in jail. Then, in February 1919 she participated in the watchfire demonstrations and was again arrested and sentenced to five days in jail. She was a speaker in the Suffragist Special Tour of the U.S. during Feb-Mar 1919.

Education

Ascough studied in Paris and London for stage concerts but left her education in order to become a suffragist.

Suffragist Special Tour

Lillian Ascough, Abby Scott Baker, Harriot Stanton Blatch, Lucy Burns, Agnes Campbell, Anna Constable, Sarah T. Colvin, Edith Goode, Jane Goode, Florence Bayard Hilles, Julia Hurlbut, Caroline Katzenstein, Dorothy Mead, Ella Riegel, Elizabeth Rogers, Mrs. Townsend Scott, Helen Todd, and Marjory Whittemore were a part of the Special Tour, the Suffrage Special, wherein these women spoke publicly, distributed literature, and sold the Suffragist. This tour is credited with arousing interest in federal suffrage among many voting age women.

July 12th Connecticut rally

Ascough joined a rally in Hartford and Simsbury, Connecticut to appeal to President Woodrow Wilson to grant women the right to vote. A telegram written by the protestors was sent to Wilson, and published on July 13, 1918 in the Hartford Courant:
There Ascough was documented declaring that Senator Brandegee’s mind belonged to an earlier generation and compared it to an antique, "interesting to observe, but not for present day use."