Suffragettes, New York State Fair, Syracuse, N.Y.
[Suffrage, NY]. Postcard: Suffragettes, New York State Fair, Syracuse, N.Y. (Members of the Women’s Political Union at the State Fair suffrage tent). [Syracuse, N.Y.: Crystal Mgs. Co., ND, but ca. 1915].
Postcard: 5-5/16 x 3-5/16”; color image, photograph of “Votes for Women” suffrage tent with a group of suffragettes in the foreground wearing “Votes for Women” sashes, two women seated in the front displaying English suffragette umbrellas with the legends “Tea Every Afternoon 3/0.6” and “W[omen’s] P[olitical] U[nion] 120 S.W.”; split back, unused; minute touches of wear along edges, else fine.
Throughout the final decade of the campaign for woman suffrage, suffragists used public venues with increasing frequency to publicize the movement and to gain access to future supporters, largely inspired by their English counterparts who, under the leadership of the Pankhursts, had employed public demonstrations to dramatize their cause with great success. Street rallies, parades, automobile “tours,” booths at local fairs became a regular part of suffrage activities. While English and American suffrage supporters often visited each other on either side of the ocean, joint cooperation in this sort of suffrage activity is seldom recorded so vividly. In 1915 New York, as well as Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, held a referendum on the enfranchisement of women. This postcard captures just one aspect of the highly organized and vigorously marshaled efforts on the part of suffragists in the months preceding the vote. This attractive image appears on the cover of Marjorie Spruill Wheeler’s One Woman, One Vote.
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