Results for: Suffrage

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Pamphlet: single sheet, 6 x 6-1/2" folded to 6 x 3-1/4", 4pp; printed self-wrappers. Fine. The leaflet offers a succinct comparison between women and men regarding "Citizenship", "Military Duty", "Employment", "Jury Duty", "Divorce", "Property", "Support", "Settlement Entitling to Support in Case of Need", "Guardianship of Minor Children", and "Property at Death". A widow, for instance, may claim a $500.00 exemption from taxes if her whole taxable estate is less than $1,000. "Man has no corresponding exemptions". And as for the working women, "Hours of labor and conditions concerning health and safety exceptionally well looked after". Antisuffragists suggested repeatedly that the laws which Progressives had fought for to curb abusive work places proved that women did not need the vote and, in fact, were coddled in comparison to their male counterparts. It was an irony which rankled, of course. Kinnard does not note the leaflet in her ANTIFEMINISM IN AMERICAN THOUGHT nor does OCLC locate a copy.

Leaflet: "Some Rights and Exemptions Given to Women by Massachusetts Law"
[Anti-suffrage],
Boston: Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women, 1911.
Price: $75.00
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Only printing. Pamphlet: 9-1/8 x 5-3/4", 16pp; printed buff self-wrappers (stapled). Near fine. Henry Billings Brown (1836-1913) was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Benjamin Harrison and served as an associate justice from 1891 to 1906. In his address, Brown refutes the idea that "either men or women have a natural right to vote": "They may be said to have a natural right to protection in their persons, their property and their opinions, but they have no natural right to govern or to participate in the government of others." [A remarkable position for a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.] Furthermore, state laws often favor women over men, supporting he suggests, womanly distaste for "manual labor". If women should be and are equal under the law they still differ from men, which Brown sets out in five brief sentences. Among women's deficits , for instance, is "The dispassionate view of important questions, which we call the judicial temperament". Their strengths, which he also enumerates, lie in the domestic sphere. And, like many antisuffragists, he envisions danger in granting the vote "to large classes who have not heretofore enjoyed it. True, this is a government of the people, but not necessarily of all persons constituting the people." Brown concludes his address by declaring that "in winning public favor they will leave behind them something of their attachment to the virtues of private life; that contact with coarse men at the polls will familiarize them with the vulgarities of politics; in short, that in becoming more like men they will become less like women". Kinnard, ANTIFEMINISM IN AMERICAN THOUGHT, 620. OCLC notes numerous institutions with microform copies; but, just five institutions hold the pamphlet itself: Connecticut Historical Society, Mount Holyoke College, NYPL, Tulane University and University of Ottawa.

Pamphlet: "WOMAN SUFFRAGE: A Paper Read by Ex-Justice Brown before the Ladies' Congressional Club of Washington, D.C., April, 1910"
[Anti-suffrage] Brown, Henry Billings.
Boston: Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women, [1910].
Price: $100.00
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Celluloid button: 11/16" in diameter, "VOTES / FOR / WOMEN" in black against a gold ground; straight back pin. With stiff gold celluloid ribbon imprinted in black, "VOTES 'YES' / NOVEMBER 2". Gold ground of pin showing aging. Generally very good. Four key Northeast states held referendum on woman suffrage on November 2nd, 1915: Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. The National American Woman Suffrage Association produced buttons, banners, pennants, posters in quantity which could be used by the state associations. Despite these pooled resources, all four referendums went down to defeat - it was a stunning setback to the movement. This suffrage button is the one produced most widely during the final decade of the movement which saw the most vigorous public activity by its suffragists. The presence of the celluloid ribbon, however, is unusual. A very attractive example.

Political button: VOTES FOR WOMEN Vote "Yes" November 2
[Suffrage],
[NP]: , [ca. 1915].
Price: $195.00
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Broadside: "The Congress Shall Have Power to Enforce this Article by Appropriate Legislation." Can Any Legislator Vote for This and Not Break His Oath of Office to His State?
[Anti Suffrage] Callaway, James.
Montgomery: Brown Printing Co., ca. 1919.
Price: $500.00
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Handbill: 8-3/4 x 5-3/4", printed black on tan stock. Very good. Michigan held a referendum on woman suffrage in 1913 which went down to defeat amid considerable controversy over the handling of vote counts. The initial count showed a majority of voters approved woman suffrage; subsequent reporting revised the voting tallies with the 'nays' prevailing. Suffragists felt robbed. Five years later, however, Michigan voters approved an amendment to the state constitution giving their women the franchise. The flyer could date to either 1913 or 1918. Frances Willard as President of the W.C.T.U. put the resources and considerable grassroots organization of the Union behind the woman suffrage movement. Yet suffragist literature printed by the W.C.T.U. is relatively uncommon. This handbill offers a salient and standard suffrage argument  that women are taxed as citizens and should have the privileges of citizenship: "An actual investigation of the official records in fifty-six counties of Michigan revealed the fact...that 86,665 women pay taxes in those counties amounting to $3,155,266.42 on $150,000,000 worth of property....Do you really believe that 'taxation without representation is tyranny?' ".

Handbill: "Taxation without Representation is Tyranny"
[Suffrage, Michigan],
St. Louis, Mich.: Michigan W.C.T.U. Press Bureau, [c. 1913-1918].
Price: $100.00
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Flyer: 9 x 6", printed black on off-white stock. Folded twice; short tears at creases (at edges) with a few closed tears at left margin (not affecting text). Good. Alice Paul, Lucy Burns and their associates organized the first national woman suffrage parade which took place on March 3, 1913 in Washington, DC just prior to Woodrow Wilson's inauguration. Onlookers thronged to see the marchers. Some might be anti-suffrage, but they came and they looked. Suffragists realized parades and public demonstrations could be an effective means to publicize the movement. More automobile caravans, parades, rallies and demonstrations followed. Organized by the Congressional Union under the direction of Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, with the cooperation of the NAWSA, on May 9, 1914 a procession in Washington, DC of suffrage supporters marched from Lafayette Square to the east plaza of the Capitol and presented state suffrage resolutions to a committee of senators and congressman. UP HILL WITH BANNERS FLYING records: "At the foot of the Capitol steps, the enormous gathering sang the WOMAN'S MARCH. Then five hundred and thirty-one delegates representing every Congressional and Senatorial district in the country...marched up the long steps into the great Rotunda of the Capitol". Mrs. A.M. Blair is likely Apolline Madison Blair (b. 1860) who served as President of the Board of Lady Managers of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis and who, according to the WOMAN'S WHO'S WHO OF AMERICA, "became distinguished for her promotion of organizations to popularize higher ideals of musical culture". The flyer notes: "Members of the Chorus are asked to wear white", which very quickly had become the standard dress code for suffrage parades. Irwin, UP HILL WITH BANNERS FLYING, pp. 66-67. WOMAN'S WHO'S WHO OF AMERICA, p. 104.

Flyer: A CHORUS OF 100 WOMEN'S VOICES Under the direction of Mrs. A.M. Blair will Sing on the East Capitol Steps at the close of the Suffrage Procession on Saturday
[Suffrage],
[NP: , c. 1914].
Price: $150.00
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Leaflet: "County Suffrage Leaflet No. 2 of the Los Angeles County Woman Suffrage League" and "County Suffrage Leaflet No. 1. A New Departure"
[Suffrage, California],
[Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles County Woman Suffrage League, c. 1901].
Price: $175.00
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Only edition. Pamphlet: 6 x 3-1/2", 12pp; beige wrappers (stapled) printed in blue. Illustrated with a black and white suffrage map at page 3. Near fine. The pamphlet uses the formula which shaped numerous suffrage broadsides  a set phrase followed by an argument for woman suffrage. "HAVE YOU HEARD", in bold, "That woman suffrage is coming all the world around"; or "That the women of Great Britain and Ireland had equal suffrage for many years on equal terms with men in all elections except for members of Parliament..."; or "That the women of nineteen States will vote for the next President of the United States?". The pamphlet enumerates the countries where women can vote, the states where woman have suffrage and the various anti-suffrage forces which seek to deny or curtail women's rights. HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE records that the although Maine women had sought the vote throughout the latter half of the 19th century, organized woman suffrage had few resources and fewer monies. When the Maine legislature voted to put a woman suffrage amendment before the voters in the fall of 1917, suffragists had a campaign fund of $500 and six months, in the midst of a newly declared war, to persuade Maine voters to their cause. Deborah Knox Livingston, a NAWSA organizer, reported: "Maine presented as difficult a field for the conducting of a suffrage campaign as has ever been faced by any group of suffragists in any part of the country". But, the "argument for suffrage...was put before the voters very thoroughly. One hundred thousand [fliers] were circularized with the convincing speeches of U.S. Senator Shafroth of Colorado and later with a leaflet Have you Heard the News? which carried the strong appeal of the suffrage gains over the entire world". Harper, Ida (ed.), HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE, Vol. VI, pp. 239-240OCLC does not locate a copy.

Pamphlet: "Have You Heard the News?"
[Suffrage, Maine], Woman Suffrage Committee.
[Bangor, Maine: Woman Suffrage Campaign Committee Printed by N.W.S. Pub. Co., August, 1917].
Price: $150.00
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Only edition. "Reprinted from THE LOS ANGELES GRAPHIC", noted at the front cover. Leaflet: 6-1/4 x 13-1/4" folded to 6-1/4 x 3-5/16", 8pp; printed black on white stock (self-wrappers). Front cover shows mild and uneven tanning. Very good. Mrs. Simons writes: "This question of woman suffrage is much larger than is suggested by the old-fashioned philosophizing of our anti-suffrage friends about 'Woman's Sphere' ". She argues that lack of political rights oppresses women economically; i.e., "Women are cheap because they are helpless", left "a prey to sordid employers, because they are denied the one legitimate weapon to protect themselves and their claims". And children are even more vulnerable. Like many Progressives, and surely Mrs. Simons is one, she sees true democracy, one which allows equal opportunity to all, as the means to curtail many social evils and obliterate economic disparities. She touches upon the blight of prostitution, the unhealthy handling and sale of food, the lack of equal pay for equal work, and the lack of government funds to combat tuberculosis, diphtheria, measles, scarlet fever and other diseases. Tthrough their work in schools and charities, women "already are in politics". Political equality will acknowledge the right of women to full citizenship and give women the means to affect change. Born Grace Churchyard in Buffalo New York in 1866, she attended the Buffalo Seminary and graduated from Smith College. She married in 1888 and the couple eventually settled in California. Grace Simons involved herself in a number of civic organizations and activities. A longtime suffrage supporter, she established the first woman suffrage organization in Buffalo, joined the College Equal Suffrage League, the Political Equality League of California and served as chair of the Suffrage Committee of the Southern California Civic League. WOMAN'S WHO'S WHO OF AMERICA, p. 747. OCLC notes two locations: Columbia University and the University of California, Los Angeles.

Leaflet: "Equality of Opportunity"
[Suffrage, California] Simons, Mrs. Seward Adams .
Los Angeles: Political Equality League, [1905?].
Price: $200.00
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Pamphlet: "First Annual Meeting of The Arkansas Equal Suffrage Central Committee"
[Suffrage, Arkansas],
Little Rock, Arkansas: Central Printing Co., [c. 1918].
Price: $250.00
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AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED
Bloor, Ella Reeve.
[Connecticut]: to "Friends of N.J.W.S.A.", Nov. 15h [1909].
Price: $250.00
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"Suffrage Song To Be Sung to the Tune of 'America' " with "Battle Hymn of the Republic by Julia Ward Howe"
[Suffrage],
[NP]: [NAWSA], [ND].
Price: $150.00
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First edition. 8vo (7-1/2 x 5-1/8"), 119pp; (+ endmatter); olive brown wove cloth stamped in dark brown at the front cover. Front free endpaper age-toned. Light touches of wear. Very good. With a foreword by the author dated January 1919. The contents: Our Selves and Our Government; Town Government; County Government; Borough Government; City Government; State Government; National Government; Political Parties; Elections; The Education System; Courts; Taxation; and, New Problems. The endmatter provides essential information in three tables: Chief Legislative Body; Chief Executive; and, Chief Judicial. As 1919 opened, suffragists had confidence Congress, at very long last, would pass the 19th Amendment. While passage of the amendment and ratification remained the NAWSAs key priority, the organization knew it needed to educate women on governance. Once women had the vote, they would need to use it. Mary Austin, for instance, a dedicated suffragist, published THE YOUNG WOMAN CITIZEN (1918). Similarly, THE ACTUAL GOVERNMENT OF CONNECTICUT offers a succinct account of the various levels of government and its workings. In her foreword, Schoonmaker notes that all the good will to make changes or correct wrongs avails little without the knowledge of how to prosecute those changes: "Citizenship can no longer be thought of as an honor or privilege which can be bestowed or withheld at will, accepted or rejected as we ourselves see fit to accept or reject it".

THE ACTUAL GOVERNMENT OF CONNECTICUT
[Suffrage] Schoonmaker, Nancy M[usselman].
New York City: National Woman Suffrage Publishing Co., Inc., 1919.
Price: $45.00
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First edition. Copy of suffrage activist May Brayton Briggs with her signature at the front free endpaper. 8vo, 100pp; (including Appendices); navy blue vertically-ribbed cloth stamped in gold front and spine; pale blue dust jacket printed in black. The jacket displays minor fading and some wear around the spine ends. The book is fine. The presence of the original dust jacket is unusual. Catt has compiled documents related to "why an amendment to the Federal Constitution is the most appropriate method of dealing with the question" of woman suffrage. Of the six chapters, Catt has written or compiled those entitled, "Why the Federal Amendment?"; "Election Laws and Referenda"; "The Story of the 1916 Referenda" and "Objections to the Federal Amendment". Mary Sumner Boyd and the Hon. Henry Wade Rogers, Judge of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, NYC, contributed the two chapters focusing on state issues. Appendix A reviews suffrage in other countries; Appendix B classifies the "36 male suffrage states" according to how state constitutions are amended and how difficult passage of woman suffrage according to the NAWSA. Woman suffrage had received a disheartening setback in 1915 when Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania all voted down state referenda on the question. Anna Howard Shaw's faltering presidency finally ended and Carrie Chapman Catt succeeded her to the head of the NAWSA. She developed a two-prong campaign which came to be known as Mrs. Catt's "Winning Plan" [NAW] and which sought passage of a suffrage amendment while continuing to push for winning suffrage for women on a state level. Her tact and statesmanship won over Woodrow Wilson and other influential politicians. [Robert Booth Fowler's essay "Carrie Chapman Catt, Strategist" in ONE WOMEN, ONE VOTE is invaluable for its fine analysis of Catt's political skills. He emphasizes how controversial her "winning plan" was when Catt insisted that suffrage be pursued on the federal level.] 1917 proved the pivotal year in this long campaign. This book underscores Catt's insistence on persuasion by reason. (Though Catt also cleared the path for the 19th Amendment by leading the NAWSA in a campaign in 1917 to unseat four unsympathetic senators. As a politician and a general she was quite prepared to promulgate a 'take no prisoners' policy when necessary.) Here, the dry titles of the articles provide intentional camouflage; in fact, the book is a decisive plan-of-action conceived and executed by a skilled and determined strategist of the first order. May Brayton Briggs became a supporter of woman suffrage, as she wrote, "not because I desired and decided to be, and then sought props to support my position but because my reading, observing and thinking, gradually brought me to the conclusions which I found were in harmony with those held by the advocates of equal suffrage". The Kroch Library at Cornell University now holds various manuscripts which Briggs wrote during the campaign for women suffrage in Massachusetts: notes for speeches, verses on anti suffrage complaints and being on the stump, etc. She was a lively, energetic voice on behalf of women's rights. NAW I, pp. 309-312 (re Carrie Chapman Catt). Weatherford, A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN SUFFRAGIST MOVEMENT. Wheeler, ONE WOMAN, ONE VOTE, pp. 295-314. Krichmar 1517. A copy exceptional for its provenance and condition.

WOMAN SUFFRAGE BY FEDERAL CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT compiled by Carrie Chapman Catt
Catt, Carrie Chapman (ed).
New York: National Woman Suffrage Publishing Co., Inc., 1917.
Price: $1,250.00
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Card: 5-7/8 x 3-3/4", printed black on yellow card stock. Slight overall use with a faint crease at upper right. Very good. The card advertises a "Votes for Women Ball" at the Fourth Regiment Armory in Jersey City, Friday, April 28, 1916. Tickets are fifty cents, and reserved seats "fifty cents extra". The card also notes: "Exhibition General and Competitive Dancing". New Jersey decisively voted down a woman suffrage amendment in November 1915. New Jersey suffragists were convinced that liquor interests had swayed the election by ferrying men over from New York City to vote. (The special election allowed voters to register and then vote.) However unwelcome the defeat, the women soon rallied. Suffragists held meetings, rallies, auto tours, lectures, parades, plays, reviews and teas to garner public support, replenish always meager coffers, and encourage their own. This, however, is the first "Votes for Women" Ball I have encountered. An attractive piece.

Promotional Card: SECOND ANNUAL VOTES FOR WOMEN BALL
[Suffrage],
[NP]: , [ca. 1916].
Price: $150.00
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Postcard: "The Amendment Float - Suffragette's Parade - March 3rd 1913 - Washington - D.C."
[Suffrage],
(Baltimore, Md.: I & M. Ottenheimer, [1913]).
Price: $100.00
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Program: 9 x 6", unpaginated; white wrappers (stapled) lettered in black and with a bold red/white/blue stripe running diagonally from upper left to lower right. Rumpled. About very good. The Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women was created in 1882, the first formal anti-suffrage organization in the United States. It remained active, especially during the final decade of the suffrage movement, until passage and ratification of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. The playbill prints a List of Patronesses which reflects the many distinguished Massachusetts families which lined up against woman suffrage; among those named: Mrs. Charles Francis Adams, 2nd; Mrs. George R. Agassiz; Mrs. Harcourt Amory; Mrs. Edward H. Bradford; Mrs. Arthur T. Cabot; Mrs. William C. Endicott, Jr.; Miss Marion H. Fenno; Mrs. Francis L. Higginson; Mrs. Clement S. Houghton; Mrs. Francis C. Lowell; and, Mrs. Endicott P. Saltonstall. The program also lists those serving as Candy Girls, Flower Girls, Tea Girls and Ushers as well as those on the Candy, Flower, Finance, Programme, Music, Tea, and Ticket-Distribution Committees. The program features a scene adapted from Victor Hugos LES MISERABLES entitled The Bishops Candlesticks and a two-scene comedy sketch Uncle Williams Lobster (A Comedy of the Maine Coast) with musical interludes. The program, of course, carries a variety of advertisements by Boston merchants and an announcement of the Associations recent publication of ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS. The program documents women who supported the Association and its activities, and suggests the dignified, elegant tone they sought to convey in their public events. ( In contrast, of course, to the vulgarity of suffragists speaking on street corners, parading with banners and flags, and otherwise making public spectacles of themselves.) What is striking is the absence of a sketch or short play which lays out anti-suffrage themes. The program aims at sheer entertainment, devoid of political rhetoric.

Program: "Short Plays and Music..Wilbur Theatre..Monday, May 8, 1916 Under the Auspices of Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women"
[Anti-Suffrage],
[Boston, Massachusetts]: , [1916].
Price: $95.00
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Printed circular: single sheet, 9-1/2 x 6", printed on off-white stock, in a stenographic hand, over the signatures (reproduced) of Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, Mary A. Livermore and Henry B. Blackwell. Folded twice to fit an envelope; mild overall rumpling. About very good. The Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, under the leadership of Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe and Mary Livermore, succeeded in persuading the Massachusetts legislature to grant women the right to vote in school elections in 1879. The next goal was the right to vote in municipal elections. The legislature had voted down municipal suffrage in 1869 and again in 1881 despite the concession to women of a say in school elections. The Association continued to lobby for this extension of womens rights and in the winter of 1889 thought the situation promising. The circular declares: "For the first time in twenty years it seems probable that the Legislature may secure Municipal Suffrage to women". It urges suffrage supporters to write state representatives and senators promptly: "Do not lose a single day. Ask every other Suffragist you know, man or woman, to write similar letters. If one half of the 100,000 citizens of Massachusetts who have petitioned would do this, Municipal Woman Suffrage would be granted at once". The faint gleam of hope extinguished itself. The legislature continued to debate the issue, without voting upon it. Massachusetts women failed to gain a further advance upon suffrage until ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Uncommon. OCLC does not locate a holding and we have never seen a circular with the replicated signatures of these important suffragists.

Printed Circular: "Dear Friend..."
[Suffrage] Stone, Lucy, Julia W. Howe, Mary A. Livermore and Henry B. Blackwell.
Boston: Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, Feby. 17, 1889.
Price: $250.00
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Cabinet photograph: Image, 5-1/2 x 3-15/16", photographer's board, 6-3/8 x 4-1/8", albumen print mounted to off-white printed photographer's board. The photograph is a three-quarters portrait with an aged Mott seated, wearing Quaker garb of a plain dress and a white cap. "Lucretia Mott / Quaker - Abolitionist- Phila." in black ink at reverse (not in Mott's hand). Tiny nick to image at upper edge; mild overall use and age-toning with a few light stains to the board. Very good. Lucretia Coffin Mott (1793-1880), Quaker minister, a pioneer in the women's rights movement and abolitionist, gave her formidable intelligence and spirit to key 19th c. reform movements. She met Elizabeth Cady Stanton at the World's Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840 and this historic meeting resulted in the Seneca Falls Conference in 1848. She spent her life trying to better the lives of those less fortunate: whether working for abolition or, after the Civil War, pressing for Negro suffrage and furtherance of their educational opportunities, working for women's rights, speaking on behalf of religious freedom or calling for the end to capital punishment. She contributed much to this country's notions of right and wrong, social justice and personal commitment to ideals. Photographer Isaac G. Tyson, with his brother, took a number of photographs in Gettysburg during the Civil War where they had a gallery. Later he moved to Philadelphia and acquired a reputation as a portrait photographer. As well as Lucretia Mott, Tyson photographed James Mott, Mary Ann McClintock (another of the Seneca Falls four) and Edward Hicks. Mott had posed for the photographer at least once earlier. Swarthmore Friends Historical Library holds a copy of the albumen print, which dates it to June 4, 1878. The library also holds another photograph taken around the same time of Lucretia with daughter Maria Mott Davis and granddaughters Anna D. Hallowell and Maria Hallowell. A handsome image. We have not been able to locate another copy other than that at Swarthmore.

CABINET PHOTOGRAPH
[Mott, Lucretia].
[Philadelphia: Tyson, ND, but June 4, 1878].
Price: $750.00
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Leaflet: "Answer to Anti-Suffragists"
[Suffrage, Virginia] [Valentine, Lila Meade].
[Richmond, VA: Equal Suffrage League of Virginia, ca. 1917-1918].
Price: $150.00
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