EPHEMERA: Votes for Women wallet. "Tightwad."
[Suffrage]. "Votes for Women" Wallet. "Tightwad." Trade Mark Reg. U. S. Patent. [NP: ND but ca. 1915].
Wallet of black pebble-grained leather. Size: 1 3/4 x 9" (open), 1 3/4 x 3 7/8" (folded); with interior bill-holding flap and exterior flap with snap stamped "Votes for Women" in gold on front; "Tightwad" stamped in blind on inside, followed by "Trade Mark Reg. U.S. Patent" with line of numbers below; showing some wear but generally very good. Housed in custom-made felt lined orange box with silk pull, black morocco label.
By 1915, American suffragists realized that "publicity and propaganda" were increasingly necessary to make the public aware of their struggle and to promote the movement's virtue. In that year, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the four major Eastern states, each had a suffrage referendum on their ballots. While ephemera and artifacts had always been a part of political campaigns, the suffragists carried the idea to new extremes, suffusing the culture with their message in the forms of armbands, spoons, badges, playing cards, china, buttons, megaphones, blouses, paper napkins and cups, rare dolls, and other kinds of paraphernalia. In short, they used modern methods of advertising in a highly creative manner. While we have seen buttons and banners and sashes, we have never seen a suffrage billfold such as this. (Selling Suffrage, by Finnegan, pp. 111-38)
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