Suffrage Songs Selections from the Songs submitted in the Competition for the Bishop Prize" leaflet.
(Gilman, Charlotte Perkins). Leaflet: “Suffrage Songs Selections from the Songs submitted in the Competition for the Bishop Prize.” [NP], Februry 1, 1909. 13 suffrage songs including C.P. Gilman’s, “Song for Equal Suffrage.”
Leaflet, 6-1/8 x 9-1/2”, printed in black on white stock. Folded once vertically and thrice horizontally; a crease across the upper right corner; one jagged tear at upper margin (discreetly reinforced by tape at reverse); tiny brown stain at fold crease right margin; about very good. In custom-made lettercase.
The leaflet prints 13 suffrage songs, most notably Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “Song for Equal Suffrage.” Suffrage songs formed an important element of suffrage meetings, gatherings, conventions, rallies and parades. Early on, Julia Ward Howe’s The Battle Hymn Of The Republic was given words appropriate to the suffrage cause and widely adopted as the suffrage anthem. Three adaptations of Battle Hymn, in fact, appear here: “The New Day” by May Estelle Cook, “The New Battle Hymn” by Julia Ward Mills, and “The Marching Song” by Louis J. Black. Bertha Coover’s “ 'Votes for Women' Song” (sung to the tune of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”) proclaims: “What is it the women do now demand?/ ‘Tis votes, 'tis votes./We hear their clamor on every hand / For votes, for votes.” Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s verse, which appears also to be sung to the tune of The Battle Hymn Of The Republic, opens “Day of hope and day of glory! After slavery /and woe, / Comes the dawn of woman’s freedom, and the/ light shall grow and grow/ Until every man and woman equal liberty shall know,/ In Freedom marching on!”
Gilman’s song envisions women dedicated not to self, “But larger service”: “We will help to make a pruning hook of every/outgrown sword,/We will help to knit the nations in continuing accord...” The poem first was printed in The Woman’s Journal (February, 1909) and later in Gilman’s Suffrage Songs And Verses—a title which we have never seen nor have known to have been offered. Aside from Gilman’s Suffrage Songs, only one other title that we are aware of, collected suffrage verses. Though an integral part of the suffrage movement, these songs were fleeting and seldom documented in print. A rare Charlotte Perkins Gilman item and an exceedingly scarce piece of suffrage history.
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