Bettina Borrmann Wells (born 1874) was a Bavarian-born English suffragette who toured the United States as an organizer and lecturer. (She rejected the term "suffragist" for her work, preferring "suffragette".)
Early life and education Bettina Borrmann was born in Nuremberg, Bavaria, and was a graduate of the University of Geneva."Suffragette Leader to Talk in Chicago" Inter Ocean (7 April 1908): 3. via Newspapers.com In 1914, 1915, and 1916 she earned bachelor's and master's degrees in economics and psychology at Columbia University. Catalog (Columbia University 1918): 386.Catalog (Columbia University 1919): 385. Her master's thesis was titled "The economic basis of the present feminist movement" (1915).Bettina Borrmann Wells, "The economic basis of the present feminist movement" (Columbia University, master's thesis 1915).
Suffragette Bettina Borrmann Wells was a member of the Women's Social and Political Union.Mrs. B. Borrmann Wells, "The Suffragette Movement" New York Times (19 February 1907): 8. In November 1908, Bettina Borrmann Wells served a three-week sentence in Holloway Prison,"Suffragists Invade Opposition Meeting" New York Times (5 December 1908): 2. for "obstructing a policeman" at a demonstration in London.Allan L. Benson, "The Hopes of the Suffragette in America" New York Times (13 December 1908): SM7. She called herself a "suffragette", explaining that "a suffragette is a suffragist who is willing to die for the cause.""In Fighting for the Ballot" New-York Tribune (2 April 1909): 8. via Newspapers.com By 1910 Wells had moved away from Emmeline Pankhurst's arm of the movement"Hitting Mrs. Pankhurst" Montreal River Miner and Iron Country Republican (14 January 1910): 6. via Newspapers.com and she was very active in the Manchester wing of the Women's Freedom League. In 1911 an American newspaper described her as head of the propaganda department of the "Women's Federation League" of England."Miss Borrmann Wells" Central New Jersey Home News (24 March 1911): 8. via Newspapers.com
Activities in the United States In the United States in 1908, Wells, Maud Malone, Christine Ross Barker, Sophia Loebinger, and others organized open-air meetings of the Progressive Woman Suffrage Union in New York City's Madison Square, Wall Street, Harlem, and Brooklyn,"Suffragists Lose Hearer" New York Times (22 January 1908): 5. ]"Suffragettes Win the East Side Boys" New York Times (22 March 1908): 5. against significant resistance from the city's residents and business leaders."Suffragettes Protest" New York Times (30 April 1908): 16. ]"Wall St. Derides the Suffragettes" New York Times (28 February 1908): 7. "Suffragettes Do Not Like Harlem" Billings Gazette (29 April 1908): 8. via Newspapers.com In spring 1908, Wells and Malone led a suffrage parade in New York City, without a permit.Linda J. Lumsden, Rampant Women: Suffragists and the Right of Assembly (University of Tennessee Press 1997): 73-74. Later that year, Wells and three other suffragists attempted to meet with Theodore Roosevelt in Oyster Bay, New York, but they were rebuffed by the Secret Service."Oyster Bay Frowns on Suffragettes" New York Times (6 August 1908): 5. via Newspapers.com
She toured the United States and Canada"Pitchfork for Brooklyn, Policy of Suffragettes" Brooklyn Daily Eagle (22 January 1909): 3. via Newspapers.com with her husband, meeting with suffrage activists in various cities."Suffragette Leader Comes to Pittsburg" Pittsburgh Press (23 April 1908): 1. via Newspapers.com "Women will only get the vote when they make men believe they are serious and will pay the price for it," she told an audience in Brooklyn, "They won't get it by arranging for pink teas and yellow bazars.""No Respect at Albany" Brooklyn Daily Eagle (5 March 1909): 5. via Newspapers.com In 1909 she published a pamphlet, America and Woman Suffrage, detailing suffrage activities in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and Idaho.B. Borrmann Wells, America and Woman Suffrage (1909). from the Ann Lewis Women's Suffrage Collection.
Wells also wrote pro-suffrage letters to the editor, both in Great BritainB. Borrmann Ann Wells, "Women's Suffrage" Llandudno Advertiser (12 February 1910): 3. via Welsh Newspapers Online and in the United States."Mrs. Wells Misquoted" New York Times (23 February 1909): 8. "I admit that 'better laws have passed without any vote of woman'," she conceded in one 1908 letter to the New York Times. "One can also get to California on foot, but most of us prefer speedier methods of traveling."Mrs. B. Borrmann Wells, "Votes for Women" New York Times (20 December 1908): 10.
Wells traveled to Washington, D.C. in January 1917, to take a turn as one of the "Silent Sentinels" picketing the White House, in the early weeks of that protest."British Suffragist is Picket" Washington Post (26 January 1917): 2. via Newspapers.com"British Suffragist is on Picket Duty" Evening Star (25 January 1917): 12. via Newspapers.com
Personal life Bettina Borrmann married English businessman Herbert James Clement Wells in 1900. She was a member of the Lyceum Club of London, and of the Society of Women Journalists of London.Columbia University, Officers and Graduates (1916): 1023.
References