Mabel Vernon, born on this day in 1883, was an American suffragist, pacifist, and teacher who was a leader within the Congressional Union for Women Suffrage (CUWS). Vernon is also known for organizing campaigns of daily picketing outside Woodrow Wilson's White House; participants were known as the "Silent Sentinels".

Vernon's suffragist organizing began in 1912, when she worked at the National American Woman Suffrage Association convention as an usher. Active in pro-suffrage campaigns in the following years, she took on a role as a leader, along with Alice Paul, in organizing the Silent Sentinels campaign in 1917.

The Silent Sentinels, also known as the "Sentinels of Liberty", were a group of women who protested in front of the White House constantly for two and a half years, holding signs that said "Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?" and "Kaiser Wilson, have you forgotten your sympathy with the poor Germans because they were not self-governed? 20,000,000 American women are not self-governed. Take the beam out of your own eye."

Throughout the years of protest, many of the approximately 2,000 women who picketed were harassed, arrested, and unjustly treated by local and federal authorities, including the torture and abuse inflicted during the November 14th, 1917 "Night of Terror". In total, nearly 500 women were arrested, and 168, including Mabel Vernon, served jail time.

Following the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, enfranchising 26 million women, Vernon supported women political candidates and feminist legislation. She also earned a Master's Degree in Political Science from Columbia University in 1924.

"If our pickets had not done anything more than stand there that first day, they would have accomplished much for the Federal Amendment, because through the press millions and millions of people were reached on that one day and made to think of national woman suffrage."

- Mabel Vernon