To celebrate the centennial anniversary of women’s suffrage in the United States, Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence, is open at the National Portrait Gallery March 29, 2019 – January 5, 2020. Votes for Women features more than 120 portraits and objects spanning 1832 to 1965 that explore the American suffrage movement and the political challenges women faced.
Dear Wild West Women,
In 1911, the West led the way to winning the vote. Today thousands of women are joining together to celebrate the 19th Amendment Centennial. 1920 ~ 2020.
A small group of amazing persistent women has set their Centennial goal on a “Votes for Women” float in the Tournament of Roses Parade on January 1, 2020. They have invited each of us will be a part of this historic event.
The entire country will see this glorious, inclusive float marking the beginning of 2020 ~ the year of the Women’s Suffrage Centennial. The float theme is Years of Hope, Years of Courage . It is going to be 60 feet long and 30 feet high. The nation will a see a spectacular portrayal of our long history to earn the right to vote featuring central women in the campaign.
Floats and parades were a major tool in bringing attention to women’s right to vote. Cities both large and small learned about suffrage as women in automobiles, on floats and in parades spread their message across the country. The 2020 float and presence in the Tournament of Roses Parade will be a remarkable continuation of our legacy illuminating the importance of the VOTE.
Your donation will make you part of this float and parade.
Hundreds of women have begun sending $25 – $100.
It truly is a WOMEN’S FLOAT!
Join the excitement today.
CLICK TO MAKE YOUR CONTRIBUTION.
Remember to always celebrate suffrage with your VOTE,
Martha.
One hundred years ago this week, on June 4, 1919, the U.S. Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would guarantee women the right to vote, and sent it on to the states for ratification (which took another 14 months). The battle for women’s suffrage in the United States had been taking place for years—in Congress, in the streets, and at home—with supporters organizing demonstrations, petitions, parades, and speeches, and coordinating with fellow activists in England, France, and other countries. Gathered below, images of some of the brave women who worked tirelessly for years to demand equal rights, and finally succeeded by having them written into law.
With the centennial anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment approaching, a look back at the surprising history of giving women the vote
If you look at black-and-white photographs of suffragists, it’s tempting to see the women as quaint: spectacles and undyed hair buns, heavy coats and long dresses, ankle boots and feathered hats. In fact, they were fierce—braving ridicule, arrest, imprisonment and treatment that came close to torture. Persistence was required not only in the years before the 19th Amendment was ratified, in 1920, but also in the decades that followed. “It’s not as though women fought for and won the battle, and went out and had the show of voting participation that we see today,” says Debbie Walsh, director of the nonpartisan Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. “It was a slow, steady process. That kind of civic engagement is learned.”
This forgotten endurance will be overlooked no more, thanks to “Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence,” a major new exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery through January 5, 2020, that features more than 120 artifacts, including the images and objects on these pages. “I wanted to make sure we honored the biographies of these women,” says Kate Lemay, a Portrait Gallery historian and the curator of the exhibit, which portrays the suffragists as activists, but also as students, wives and mothers. “I wanted to recognize the richness of their lives,” Lemay says. “I think that will resonate with women and men today.” The exhibit is part of the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative, intended to be the nation’s most comprehensive effort to compile and share the story of women in this country.
Click Here to Read the Full Story
We invite you to explore the stories of women’s access to the vote across America, through the histories of these 20 people who were among those who made it possible. Looking for more histories of suffragists?
It’s hard to imagine that less than 100 years ago, all women did not have the right to vote in the United States. Many students across the nation now memorize the infamous 19th Amendment, passed in 1920, as granting American women the right to vote. But in fact many women to the west of the Mississippi had gained the right to vote long before their East Coast sisters joined them in 1920. At the beginning of 1920, women had already achieved full equality in suffrage in 15 states, and partial suffrage in another 20, leaving only 12 states where women were completely left out of the voting process. Indeed, here in California, women have had the right to vote since 1911, when the Golden State joined a total of five other Western states in granting women the full right to vote in all elections.
![Women vote for President... why not in California? [broadside]](http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/calheritage/ucb/honeyman/figures/HN001873aA.jpg)
California was not the first state to give women the right to vote. That title belongs to Wyoming, which granted full suffrage to its citizens in 1869 while still a territory. Wyoming was followed by the likes of Utah, Colorado, and Idaho, all giving women the right to vote in the 19th century. California had also attempted to pass equal suffrage before the turn of the century but the motion failed. Today the Bay Area is considered a progressive stronghold but in 1896 it was actually San Francisco and Alameda counties that crippled the suffrage attempt that year. Strong business interests, particularly the producers and sellers of alcohol, virulently opposed female suffrage, convinced that women with their conservative mindsets would vote for prohibition. All hope was not lost, however, and Californian suffragettes and their allies would try again 15 years later.
With the memory of defeat ever present, California suffragettes implemented a new strategy when the topic of equal suffrage came up for a vote once more. Recalling that business had a strong hold on the state’s major cities, supporters of equal suffrage targeted voters in rural and southern California. To get the word out they used traditional tactics such as handing out more than 90,000 “Votes for Women” buttons and distributing three million pieces of promotional literature across southern California alone. But the suffragettes did more than put up posters and hand out buttons. They also pasted their message on billboards and often used electric signs, relaying their message with a spark.
October 10, 1911, was the day of reckoning in which allies of equal suffrage would see if their efforts bore fruit. Again both San Francisco and Alameda counties voted down the measure, and suffrage passed by just a hair in Los Angeles, to the dismay of many suffragettes. But all was not lost, and the tide began to turn as votes from California’s rural districts were tallied. When the final tally was made, equal suffrage had just barely come out on top with a miraculously small margin of just 3,587 votes, out of a total 246,487 ballots cast.
Today in California 73% of eligible adults are registered to vote, but just 43% of those adults turned out for the November 2014 election, a record low. This is a significant decrease from 2012 in which 72% of registered voters turned out to the polls.
One-hundred five years ago, fewer than 4,000 people were pivotal in changing the course of California history. Had they not voted, women in California might have had to wait another nine years to have their voices heard. To the women in California in 1911, a handful of votes were essential in advancing civil rights for thousands, proving that your vote truly does matter.
Check out the collection here: https://calisphere.org/collections/11601/
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 20, 2018
Zoe Nicholson to perform Tea with Alice and Me in her own town.
Beverly O’Neill Theater, 300 E Ocean Blvd, Long Beach CA
Hosted by Second District Councilwoman, Jeannine Pearce
Friday, March 30, 2018
One of the places that the suffrage movement helped to open to women—we always had a little tearoom always at our headquarters where most newspaper people used to come. The people that were doing the press for us were headed by Mrs. Florence Boeckel. They formed this Women’s Press Club, which now exists. It was formed there in our little tea house.
Miss Alice Paul
Wild West Women takes Tea with Alice and Me to Long Beach, CA; to one of the most prestigious and lovely theaters in Southern California, The Beverly O”Neill. Located in the Long Beach Convention complex, this intimate theather is celebrated with plays and operas. Hosted by Councilwoman, Jeannine Pearce, in celebration of Women’s History Month.
This multi-media one-woman stage presentation features Alice Paul scholar, Zoe Nicholson. With a backdrop of hundreds of photographs and newspaper clippings, Zoe tells the story of the great teacher of Nonviolent Direct Action and the incendiary thread of tea in the American Women’s Revolution; Seneca Falls: 1848 to Washington DC 2018. Zoe will dramatically and accessibly reveal the Alice Paul few know about, and share Paul’s tools for activism and how Zoe herself was ignited into activism.
Suffragist Miss Alice Paul was the first to bring non-violent, direct action to America, ten years before Gandhi and decades before Martin Luther King. She was the first to organize a march to the White House, leader of the activist branch of women’s suffrage movement, a picket who was forced fed. Author of the Era, and worker for Women’s Rights until her death at age 92! Her tactics, philosophy and experiences give us tools today for our own activism, righteous indignation, and passion to build a torch, light it, and carry it for Equality.
Suffragist, Activist, ALICE PAUL’S life and work presented in solo performance
With Zoe Nicholson, writer, scholar, for one day only, January 7, 2018
Alice Paul inspired “women not to give up, making them share her conviction that the political equality of women “is worth sacrificing everything for, leisure, money, reputation, and even our lives” (Jeremy McCarter, Young Radicals)
TEA WITH ALICE AND ME premieres on Sunday, January 7, 2018, 2 pm in the West Hollywood City Council Chambers, 625 N. San Vicente, West Hollywood, CA 90069. Begin the New Year with the experiences of one who was un-daunted by challenges and defeats–to winning Women suffrage, 1920, and beyond.
Suffragist ALICE PAUL was the first to bring non-violent, direct action to America, 10 years before Gandhi and MLK; leader of the activist branch of women’s suffrage movement, a picket who was forced fed, to win the vote in 1920. Author of the Era, and worker for Women’s Rights until her death at age 92! Her tactics, philosophy and experiences give us tools today for our own activism, righteous indignation, and passion to build a torch, light it, and carry it for Equality.
This multi-media one-woman stage presentation features Alice Paul scholar, Zoe Nicholson. With a backdrop of hundreds of photographs and newspaper clippings, Zoe tells the story of the great teacher of Nonviolent Direct Action and the incendiary thread of tea in the American Women’s Revolution; Seneca Falls: 1848 to Washington DC 2018. Zoe will dramatically and accessibly reveal the Alice Paul few know about, and share Paul’s tools for activism and how Zoe herself was ignited into activism.
*Co-Sponsored by the City of West Hollywood,
*The performance includes a Q and A and a tea reception.
*Parking is free with validation at the site.
*Tickets: Eventbrite
