On this 100th anniversary of the Great War, the Wayland High School History Project once again teamed up with the Wayland Historical Society to test the extent to which national trends and developments played out in our community & region a century ago. In the spring 2015, some 70 juniors set out to examine the home front, exploring small town life during the Progressive era of the 1910’s. And we struck gold!
We are pleased to re-introduce Jessica Lord Cox Henderson to the world. A mother of six and an uncompromising activist of national repute, Henderson hijacked our classes’ plans to delve into multiple early 20th century domestic themes, and we instead exhumed what turned out to be her incredible story. In a whirlwind of action akin to Theodore Roosevelt, Henderson both embraced and spearheaded multiple causes, most notably joining Alice Paul on the front lines of the suffrage movement and proudly serving jail time for her audacious belief that women should not only have the right to vote, but must also have the constitutional protections of full and equal rights. A pacifist during the World War, Henderson openly defied mainstream patriotism, believing the war was in the interests of plutocrats and corporatists alone, ultimately resulting in an official investigation (we even discovered her Bureau of Investigation file). As the 1920’s began to roar, we find Mrs. Henderson serving as one of the key figures in the Sacco-Vanzetti defense effort, meanwhile moving progressively further left in her political orientation despite, and enabled by, her significant wealth. Whether it was suffrage, social justice, pacifism, or anti-vivisection, her commitment to cause was unflappable.
So how does a rather ordinary woman, born in Pittston Maine and subsequently spending most of her adult years in Wayland, end up raising a traditional family while simultaneously raising hell? Research teams posit our best answers to that question within, where you will find five biographical chapters along with a complete collection of the documentary evidence. Our research reveals much about a remarkable woman who dared to noisily dissent, both calling into question the flaws of her era and demonstrating a critical component of the American political tradition.
Kevin Delaney
Wayland High School
June, 2015
About the sources: This project could not have happened without, of course, digital access to the libraries and archives across the country. Especially critical was Ancestry.com and their corresponding newspaper site Newspapers.com (provided free to schools). Other key newspaper databases include Genealogy.com and Proquest Historical Newspapers (Boston Globe, New York Times, Christian Science Monitor) and Fold3.com, a military documents database, which holds Henderson’s Bureau of Investigation file. Among the several sites where we found Henderson suffrage pictures (usually unidentified) are the Library of Congress Women of Protest collection, Historic New England, and multiple googlebooks. Of course, our generous friends at the Wayland Historical Society opened their files so that we could scan away and then tap into digitized local documents at will. The remaining sources are too numerous to mention in this space, but we have included them all in both our five biographical chapters and the “pictures and other sources” archive.
We are pleased to re-introduce Jessica Lord Cox Henderson to the world. A mother of six and an uncompromising activist of national repute, Henderson hijacked our classes’ plans to delve into multiple early 20th century domestic themes, and we instead exhumed what turned out to be her incredible story. In a whirlwind of action akin to Theodore Roosevelt, Henderson both embraced and spearheaded multiple causes, most notably joining Alice Paul on the front lines of the suffrage movement and proudly serving jail time for her audacious belief that women should not only have the right to vote, but must also have the constitutional protections of full and equal rights. A pacifist during the World War, Henderson openly defied mainstream patriotism, believing the war was in the interests of plutocrats and corporatists alone, ultimately resulting in an official investigation (we even discovered her Bureau of Investigation file). As the 1920’s began to roar, we find Mrs. Henderson serving as one of the key figures in the Sacco-Vanzetti defense effort, meanwhile moving progressively further left in her political orientation despite, and enabled by, her significant wealth. Whether it was suffrage, social justice, pacifism, or anti-vivisection, her commitment to cause was unflappable.
So how does a rather ordinary woman, born in Pittston Maine and subsequently spending most of her adult years in Wayland, end up raising a traditional family while simultaneously raising hell? Research teams posit our best answers to that question within, where you will find five biographical chapters along with a complete collection of the documentary evidence. Our research reveals much about a remarkable woman who dared to noisily dissent, both calling into question the flaws of her era and demonstrating a critical component of the American political tradition.
Kevin Delaney
Wayland High School
June, 2015
About the sources: This project could not have happened without, of course, digital access to the libraries and archives across the country. Especially critical was Ancestry.com and their corresponding newspaper site Newspapers.com (provided free to schools). Other key newspaper databases include Genealogy.com and Proquest Historical Newspapers (Boston Globe, New York Times, Christian Science Monitor) and Fold3.com, a military documents database, which holds Henderson’s Bureau of Investigation file. Among the several sites where we found Henderson suffrage pictures (usually unidentified) are the Library of Congress Women of Protest collection, Historic New England, and multiple googlebooks. Of course, our generous friends at the Wayland Historical Society opened their files so that we could scan away and then tap into digitized local documents at will. The remaining sources are too numerous to mention in this space, but we have included them all in both our five biographical chapters and the “pictures and other sources” archive.
Special thanks to Ms. Kristen Emerson, student teacher of the period 7 class, whose hard work and can-do spirit helped make this possible. The Wayland Historical Society's collective effort, of course, was indispensable. A robust thank you to Molly Faulkner, Jane Sciacca, Lois Davis, Joanne Davis, and Jan Dunn.
Banner photo features the town center flag dedication in 1906 (Wayland Historical Society collection).