EPHEMERA: Votes for Women bluebird window hanger.
[Boston: Mass. Woman Suffrage Assn.] Nov. 2 [1915]. Die-stamped metal window hanger, of blue bird, 12" long from top of head to end of tail, 3-1/2" wide across breast. With stamp and insignia of Lithographers of America at lower left corner of tail. "Votes for Women Nov. 2" in black along gold ground (birds under belly and tail). "Mass. Woman Suffrage Assn. Gertrude H. Leonard Theresa A. Crowley" in black along outside edge of bird's tail. The bird is on a black perch, facing left, head turning right with beak open. A striking and extremely colorful piece of ephemera, unusual in size.
Two skillful repairs: to top of bird's head below beak and at bottom of tail between "N" of Women and "N" of Nov. Several small dots of rust on back. Housed in custom made case. Generally very good+. An extraordinary image. Part of the advertising campaign for a woman suffrage amendment waged by the NAWSA in Mass., NY, NJ, and PA in 1915. The attempt was unsuccessful. Women would have to wait until 1917 for success in these states.
Although home to many women's rights and suffrage leaders – Margaret Fuller, Caroline Dall, Julia Ward Howe, Alice Stone Blackwell (just to name a few) – Massachusetts voted down woman suffrage in 1895 and remained an anti-suffragist stronghold into the next century. The 1915 anti-suffragists forces organized themselves early and well throughout the state. A mere 36% of the state's voters approved the woman suffrage referendum - the most humiliating defeat of all those which buffeted the movement that November. Two years later another referendum finally succeeded.
See Weatherford, A History of the American Suffragist Movement, p. 203.
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