October 11, 2019

    History/Woman Suffrage Movement Prior to Ratification

    • Many leaders of the abolitionist movement to end slavery in the nineteenth century also supported woman suffrage in the twentieth century. Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth are examples.
    • The text that would become the 19th Amendment in 1920 was first proposed in Congress in 1878.
    • The official colors of the formal woman suffrage movement in the United States were gold, white, and violet, or “Give Women the Vote.” Red was the official color of the anti-suffrage movement.
    • Female performers in the circus often supported woman suffrage. The Barnum & Bailey’s Circus Women’s Equal Rights Society was established in 1912. (No picture, but article: https://narratively.com/barnum-bailey-forgotten-high-flying-suffragists/)
    • The artist who created the iconic program for the Woman Suffrage Procession on March 3, 1913, Benjamin Moran Dale, was only 24 years old.
    • July 17, 1915 was “Suffrage Bluebird Day” in Massachusetts, as 100,000 die cut tin bluebirds (12” x 4”) with “Votes for Women Nov. 2” emblazoned on their chests were distributed in advance of a state referendum.
    • Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, later bought a farmhouse in Westchester County, New York. Her estate was named Juniper Ledge and included a “suffrage forest:” 14 trees with bronze plaques, each one naming a suffrage leader.
    • National suffrage organizations printed fliers in several languages besides English, including German, Polish, Italian, Yiddish, and French, in order to reach certain immigrant populations.
    • Many women’s organizations produced cookbooks during the suffrage movement to promote “good cooking and sure voting.”