Iron Jawed Angels

Summary

Katja von Garnier′s drama for the American pay TV channel HBO is based on facts and tells the story of a group of women who fought for women′s suffrage in the second decade of the 20th century in America.

The United Stated, 1912: Alice Paul and Lucy Burns get involved with the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). But her ideas and actions become to radical for the already established activists. Thus, the two women leave the NAWSA to found the National Woman′s Party (NWP). But after staging several protests against President Woodrow Wilson and holding vigils in front of the White House, many suffragettes are put on trial under exaggerated pretences and sent to jail under extremely harsh conditions. It takes the help of Senator Thomas Leighton whose wife Emily Leighton is also detained to call the attention of the public to the brutal conditions the women have to suffer in jail.