Pamphlet: Attorney Gilbert E. Roe Cites 15 Ways the Laws of New York Discriminated Against Women in 1914

In 1914, New York attorney Gilbert E. Roe, a stalwart of the New York Men’s League for Woman Suffrage, cited in an address to that group 15 different ways in which New York’s laws discriminated against women. The text of Roe’s address (shown as a download below) was published in pamphlet form by the National American Woman Suffrage Association in cooperation with the Men’s League. R.C. Beadle, who wrote the introduction to the pamphlet (and occasioned Roe’s remarks), was the Men’s League’s executive secretary at the time, having succeeded Max Eastman.

Adapted from page 140 of The Suffragents: How Women Used Men to Get the Vote (2017) by Brooke Kroeger:

At a Men’s League meeting that winter, the attorney Gilbert E. Roe laid out all the ways New York law discriminated against women, a presentation the league turned into a pamphlet because of the “wide interest” his disquisition generated. For a reason no known documentation helps to explain, Beadle included a note with the published text to tell readers that the League was a “cooperating organization” in the Empire State Campaign Committee. Had the men of suffrage begun to get too much publicity? “While it is apparent that most of the campaigning will have to be done by the women,” Beadle’s note read, “still the interest and support of men, if only to the extent of a large membership list for the Men’s League, is of immense value.” Roe cited more than fifteen ways the law worked against women. He started with income and property, and the Men’s often-made point that the government taxed women as it did men even though women had no vote in determining either the tax rates or how tax revenue might be spent. He also mentioned inheritance rights; under the law, when husband and wife had joint earnings, women got a much worse deal.

If you’re interested in reading more about the role that men played in the movement for women’s voting rights, see Brooke Kroeger’s The Suffragents, Henry B. Blackwell’s essay “Objections to Woman Suffrage Answered,” and W.E.B. Du Bois’ writings on suffrage. 

George Creel, “Chivalry Versus Justice”

Until April of 1917, when George Creel became the head of the Committee on Public Information as the United States entered World War I, he was an active member of the Men’s League for Woman Suffrage, serving as its publicity chairman. The willingness of well-known male journalists like Creel to take their support for suffrage public through the press and the magazines—he did both—was key to the movement’s growing support in the final decade of the campaign. In this piece, Creel counters a prevailing conception women’s position in society. “There is the bland theory of vine clad cottages and dense walls of fragrant honeysuckle, behind which every right thinking woman sits in security surrounded by her babes,” he wrote. “What of the squalid holes in 13,000 licensed tenements in New York alone?”

Creel had advanced a similar argument in a letter to the editor of the New York Times a year earlier, in response to a statement he heard at an anti-suffrage meeting, a contention that winning the ballot would mean the disintegration of the home. “Home? What home?” Creel asked rhetorically in his letter of response. “Surely they cannot mean the dark, squalid holes in the 13,000 licensed tenements in New York City alone, where whole families and adult boarders sleep, eat, and work in a single room, toiling incredible hours for incredible pittances.”

“Chivalry Versus Justice” was also printed in the magazine Pictorial Review. To find a nearby library where you can access the Pictorial Review issue it appeared in, click here. Downloads of the pamphlet and Creel’s letter can be found below, along with the link to the letter to the editor in the New York Times archive.

“‘Homes,’ Mr. Creel Wants to Know Which Ones Suffragism Threatens.” New York Times, April 18, 1914, p. 10.

Historical Connections: The Weird Familiarity of 100-Year-Old Feminism Memes

This 2016 Atlantic article by Adrienne LaFrance links today’s political memes to suffrage and anti-suffrage propaganda imagery from the early 20th century. LaFrance argues that politics often clashes with gender norms, particularly when women and women’s issues are poised to make history—such as when women were fighting to get the vote or when Hillary Clinton was running for president. Both the images of yesterday (pamphlets, postcards, posters, and the like) and images of today (memes) often rely on humor to either support or oppose women’s role in politics.

You can find many examples of suffrage-era propaganda of the sort LaFrance describes in the Catherine H. Palczewski Suffrage Postcard Archive.

Pamphlet Distributed by the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage

This pamphlet from the Jewish Women’s Archive lists arguments by the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, or NAOWS. One of the most commonly cited arguments was simply that women did not want to vote. NAOWS was formed in New York City in 1911 and was led by Josephine Dodge. It disbanded in 1920.

You can view an NAOWS poster featuring another argument against women’s suffrage—this one predicated on a supposed connection between suffrage and socialism—here.

You can read more about the New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage here, via Encyclopedia Britannica.

You can read more about Dodge and other prominent female anti-suffragists here, via National Public Radio.

Pictures of the 1913 Women’s Suffrage Parade

To mark the centennial anniversary of the 1913 Women’s Suffrage Parade in Washington, DC, Atlantic magazine Senior Editor Alan Taylor collected 24 photographs to feature in a slideshow. Taylor explains why the march was so important, and selects some of the more striking images of the parade. There are also photos of a program for the parade, as well as portraits of the organizers.

Go to this link to see the photos, which are housed in the Library of Congress.

Henry B. Blackwell Essay: Objections to Woman Suffrage Answered

Relatively early demonstrations of prominent male support for suffrage was critically important to the movement. Henry B. Blackwell (1825-1909) was among the founders of the Republican Party and of the American Woman Suffrage Association. In this essay, he cites 19 common anti-suffrage arguments and offers point-by-point refutations of each. A copy of both pages of the leaflet is appended below.

The essay appeared in the March 1896 issue of the Woman Suffrage Leaflet, a bi-monthly publication of the Woman’s Journal. Blackwell co-edited Woman’s Journal, which his wife, the suffragist Lucy Stone, founded in 1870.

You can find a free online version here, via the National Archives. (National Archives Identifier: 306657)

You can read more about the Woman’s Journal here.

Woman Suffrage Memorabilia: A Site Devoted to Such Artifacts as Buttons, Post Cards, Ribbons, Sheet Music, and Ceramics

This delightful website, curated by Kenneth Florey, includes a plethora of rich visual materials from the suffrage era.

From the site:

The primary purpose of this site is to provide a repository for information about memorabilia connected to the woman suffrage movement in both England and America. Subjects discussed here will include woman suffrage buttons, suffrage ribbons, suffrage sashes, suffrage advertising cards, suffrage jewelry, suffrage sheet music, suffrage postcards, Cinderella stamps and other aspects of suffrage ephemera. The focus is not on pamphlets and autograph material, although articles about these types of items do appear on occasion.

Florey is also the author of American Woman Suffrage Postcards, a book of photographic history.

Votes for Women, a 1912 Suffrage Map of the United States

This map from the National American Woman Suffrage Association shows the status of women’s suffrage in the US in 1912, including the date when suffrage was granted in each state.