In Real Life

This collection of posters illustrates real people or events that occurred during the Suffrage Movement. By depicting these inconic activists, suffragists hoped to educate viewers about their leaders' contributions; foster a sense of connection to them; and ultimately inspire others to join the cause.
 
The posters feature the following women: Susan B. Anthony, Inez Milholland Boissevain, Lucretia Coffin Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mary Livermore, Lydia Maria Francis Child, Sara Jane Lippincott, Anna Elizabeth Dickinson, and Carry Chapman Catt.  All of these women were important activists who contributed to the progress of women's rights in the United States.
 
However, women of color are notably absent from these posters, despite their equally important contributions to advancing women's rights. For example, in the group portrait titled Representative Women, an important woman that could have been added is Harriet Tubman, a key leader of the Underground Railroad and a supporter of women's suffrage. Although black female activists including Soujourner Truth and Ida B. Wells spoke out in favor of women's suffrage, mainstream American women's suffrage organizations feared alienating white Southern voters and only featured images of white women in their publications. This left black women to "craft and mobilize" their own images in support of themselves. They drew on the power of photography in distributing portraits of themselves evidencing their equality and fitness for suffrage. Some of these portraits can be seen in our related exhibition, "Suffragist Portraits."
 
Lewis, Sarah Elizabeth, "Photos as Civic Weapons for Black Activists," The New York Times, August 16, 2020.
 

Inez Milholland

Justice to Women - Susan B. Anthony

Representative Women

3c Progress of Women

Votes for Women

Inez Milholland

A poster depicting women's suffrage leader Inez Milholland riding a white horse as she did in the 1913 suffrage parade.

 

The strikingly beautiful activist and lawyer Inez Milholland led the 1913 suffrage parade in Washington, DC, wearing a white cape and crown, similar to how she is depicted in the poster. The clothing she wore was a tribute to Joan of Arc, who was a heroine of the suffrage movement. Milholland was so devoted to achieving women's suffrage that she continued campaigning even when her health suffered. She had pernicious anemia, which caused her to collapse while giving a suffrage speech in Los Angeles in 1916 and die shortly after at the young age of 30. She was celebrated as a marytar for women's suffrage.

 

National Park Service, "Inez Milholland," https://www.nps.gov/people/inez-milholland.ht

Justice to Women -

Susan B. Anthony

A poster of Susan B. Anthony in profile with text at the bottom summarizing her activism on behalf of women's rights. 
 
This poster, published in 1921 by the National Child Welfare Association, New York, commemorates Anthony's tireless leadership of the women's suffrage movement. It was published 15 years after her death in 1906 and a year after the ratification of the 19th amendment, which stated, "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."
 
Susan B. Anthony took an active interest in shaping her legacy by co-authoring the six-volume History of Woman Suffrage which helped to secure her iconic status in history.
 
Interchange: Women's Suffrage, the Nineteenth Amendment, and the Right to Vote, Journal of American History, Volume 106, Issue 3, December 2019, Pages 662–694, https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jaz506

Representative Women

A group portrait showing seven important women from the suffrage movement in America.

 

Lucretia Coffin Mott; Sarah Jane Clarke Lippincott; Elizabeth Cady Stanton; Anna Elizabeth Dickinson; Susan Brownell Anthony; Mary Ashton Rice Livermore; and Lydia Maria Francis Child were all active on the lecture circuit of the nineteenth century. According to the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, "between 1860 and 1880, it became common for American reformers to gather on stages — then called lyceums — to promote abolition, temperance, education reform, and women's rights. Lyceum associations allowed suffragists to speak. In their lectures, suffragists addressed men and women of diverse backgrounds — across state, racial, and economic divides — and reached wider audiences than through women's organizations alone."

 

Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.77.196

The Woman Who Dared

A political cartoon by artist Thomas Wurst depicting Susan B. Anthony as Uncle Sam.

 

This satirical portrait, titled "The Woman Who Dared," was published by The Daily Graphic in response to Susan B. Anthony's arrest and trial for voting in 1872. She was found guilty and fined but refused to pay. The image shown on the poster is from 10 days before she went to trial. The image portrays fears about women's suffrage upsetting the gender order, as men perform chilcare in the background, while women rally for their rights and a female police officer looks on.

 

Prints and Photographs Division, The Library of Congress, "The Woman Who Dared," https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/95512461/

3c Progress of Women

A 3c stamp from 1948 shows three important historic women to commemorate 100 years of women's progress

 

Three women are shown on a postage stamp: Carrie Chapman Catt, American, 1859 - 1947; Elizabeth Cady Stanton, American, 1815 - 1902; Lucretia Coffin Mott, American, 1793 - 1880. The stamp was made in 1948 to commemorate 100 years of women's progress.

 

Smithsonian National Postage Museum, "Progess of Women Issue," https://postalmuseum.si.edu/exhibition/about-us-stamps-modern-period-1940-present-commemorative-issues-1940-1949-1948-1949-6

Votes for Women

A French cartoon of suffragist Susan B. Anthony carrying a banner reading "Votes for Women." She is wearing the winged helmet of Hermes/Mercury, a symbol of speed, and carries an umbrella that substitutes for a dory, a spear with a flat end that was a symbol of high status and triumph. Above, a group of fashionably attired women dance in a line. The caption reads, "Modern Joan of Arc!! This is how my compatriots represent the Suffragists."