Stevens, Doris, 1888-1963

Doris Stevens was born Dora Caroline Stevens on October 26, 1888, in Omaha, Nebraska, to Henry Henderbourck Stevens (1859-1930) and Caroline D. Koopman Stevens (1863-1932). Doris had an older sister, Alice Stevens Burns (1885-1954), and two younger brothers, Harry E. Stevens (ca.1892-1943) and Ralph G. Stevens (1895-1968). In December 1921, she married lawyer Dudley Field Malone (1882-1950), keeping her name. She filed for divorce in 1927; it was granted in 1929. In 1935, Stevens married journalist Jonathan Mitchell (1899-1983), with whom she had been involved since 1923.

Stevens graduated from Omaha High School in 1905 and from Oberlin College in 1911. A talented piano and cello player, she taught music lessons to finance her college education. After graduation, she worked as a teacher. She became active in the suffrage movement; in 1913, the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, which became the National Woman's Party (NWP), hired her. Stevens was a paid organizer for the NWP through 1920, at which time she published her book, Jailed for Freedom, which described the imprisonment of women activists in 1917 during the NWP's radical campaign for suffrage. Stevens continued to be a member of the NWP for the next thirty years and served the party in various capacities: as a vice president, as chair of the Committee on International Action, and as a member of the National Council. From the mid-1920s until her death, Stevens's main residence was in Croton, New York, among a bohemian colony of artists and activists. From 1928 to 1939, Stevens served as chair of the Inter-American Commission of Women, an advisory group created by the Pan American Union (later the Organization of American States). After 1939, Stevens turned to lecturing, composing songs about her Nebraska childhood, and organizing her archives and writing about her work with the IACW. She remained active in the Lucy Stone League, another women's rights organization, until her death of a stroke in New York City, on March 22, 1963.

• 1888: October 26: Dora Caroline Stevens born in Omaha, Nebraska
• 1911 - 1913 : Organizes pro-suffrage rallies and events in Midwestern states
• 1913 - 1916 : Works as paid organizer for Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage (CU)
• 1914: Meets Alva Belmont, future benefactor of National Woman's Party (NWP), begins to work under her direction
• 1915: Organizer, first Convention of Women Voters in San Francisco, California Meets lawyer Frank P. Walsh in San Francisco and begins a love affair
• 1916: Helps found the Woman's Party (in 1917 becomes the National Woman's Party)
• 1916 - 1920 : Works as paid organizer for Woman's Party/National Woman's Party
• 1917: Arrested while picketing the White House for women's suffrage, sentenced to 60 days in Occoquan Workhouse, pardoned by President Wilson after three days
• 1920: October: Jailed for Freedom published December: travels to Europe with Alva Belmont
• 1921: December: marries lawyer Dudley Field Malone and travels to Europe with him
• 1923: Meets journalist Jonathan Mitchell in England
• 1924: September-November: runs NWP's "Women for Congress" campaign out of Philadelphia
• 1925: Works on NWP's industrial equality campaigns, in New York State and nationally
• 1926: Serves on U.S. Department of Labor Women's Bureau Advisory Committee May-June: attends the International Suffrage Alliance conference at the Sorbonne in Paris France; chairs its Committee on Equal Rights
• 1927 - 1930 : Chairs NWP's Committee on International Action
• 1927: Files for divorce from Dudley Field Malone
• 1928: January-February: attends Sixth International Conference of American States, in Havana, Cuba April: appointed chair, Inter-American Commission of Women (created at above conference) August: arrested while protesting outside Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact Conference, Rambouillet, France September: attends League of Nations meeting in Geneva to propose the appointment of women plenipotentiaries to international conferences
• 1929 - 1931 : Takes classes on international law and foreign policy at American University and Columbia University
• 1929: June: attends first International Session of the Open Door Council in Berlin October: addresses the Institut du Droit at Briarcliff Manor, New York; first woman to do so October: divorce from Dudley Field Malone is finalized
• 1930: February: attends and chairs first meeting of Inter-American Commission of Women in Havana March: attends Conference for the Codification of International Law in the Hague
• 1931: Named first woman member of American Institute of International Law June-July: attends meeting of League of Nations' Women’s Consultative Committee on Nationality in Geneva
• 1933: January: Alva Belmont dies, Stevens files a suit against her estate when it is revealed she has been written out of Belmont's will December: attends Seventh International Conference of American States, Montevideo, Uruguay
• 1935: Marries Jonathan Mitchell
• 1936: November: attends People's Conference for the Peace of America in Buenos Aires, Argentina December: attends Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace in Buenos Aires
• 1938: August: travels to the Dominican Republic to advise President Rafael Trujillo on women's legal equality December: attends Eighth International Conference of American States in Lima, Peru
• 1939: Replaced as U.S. commissioner on IACW, engages in battle to keep her seat
• 1940: Publishes Paintings and Drawings of Jeanette Scott Elected to National Council of NWP
• 1946 - 1947 : Joins lawsuit against leadership of NWP in dispute over leadership style and focus of the group
• 1951 - 1963 : Serves as vice-president of Lucy Stone League
• 1963: March 22: Dies of a stroke in New York City

From the guide to the Papers, (inclusive), (bulk), 1884-1983, 1920-1960, (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)