POSTER: Coming in with the tide.
Poster: "Coming in with the Tide Indeed!.” [London]: Carl Hentsche Limited, Artists' Suffrage League, [ND, ca. 1908-1910].
Poster: 19-1/2 x 29-3/4"; printed in red, white, green and brown; signed E.J. Harding Andrews; poster professionally repaired along center (vertically and horizontally) where split and restored along edges where chipping had occurred; backed with japanese tissue; about very good.
The poster depicts a stout older woman sweeping her doorstep, muttering "Coming in with the tide indeed! / I'll soon stop their tide!!" "Mrs. Partington" at the lintel above the door frame behind her. The house is poised at the ocean's edge with "Vote for Women", "Votes", and "Womens Suffrage" swirling on the water's surface. A sailboat approaches the shore, with a white billowing sail imprinted in red "Woman's Suffrage.” Two women set at the rear of the sailboat and a third stands at the prow waving a handkerchief. "Justice" is emblazoned in red at the sides of the sail.
Lisa Tickner, in The Spectacle Of Women, notes that there are just 15 known posters published by the Artists' Suffrage League. Mrs. Partington was a stock anti-suffrage figure who also makes an appearance in Mary Winsor's sketch, "A Suffrage Auction" [see below]. As this poster reflects, by the end of the first decade, British and American woman suffrage supporters had a sense of the inevitability; though obstacles remained, they increasingly believed it was a matter of when rather than if — an important sea change from the prior decade.
The increasing militancy of British woman suffragettes had been followed closely in the American press; while American suffragists were of two minds about the tactics of their English counterparts, the energy and utter commitment displayed by suffragettes inspired and challenged the Americans. The poster is just one example of British suffrage material crossing the Atlantic. Though the poster has suffered grievous damage, conservation has recaptured the effectiveness and vitality of its original impact.
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