Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
Among the means employed to draw attention were huge "Votes for
Women" kites, voiceless speeches (a series of placards held up to view
in a store window or other public place), distribution of literature
in the baseball parks; a suffrage automobile or a section in the
parades on Labor Day, Columbus Day, etc.; a pilgrimage to Worcester on
the anniversary of the First National Woman's Rights Convention, led
by Miss Florence Luscomb in old-fashioned costume, in Lucy Stone's
carriage; the running of propaganda films in the moving pictures and
the placing of 100,000 brightly painted tin Blue Birds in conspicuous
places throughout the State, each bird bearing the words "Votes for
Women, Nov. 2, 1919." There were speakers and debates at men's clubs,
church organizations, labor unions, in factories, granges, at cattle
shows and at conventions of all sorts.
Large indoor meetings were held, addressed by distinguished visitors
to the State, among them Philip Snowden and Mrs. Snowden, Senator
Helen Ring Robinson of Colorado, U. S. Senators Clapp of Minnesota,
Kenyon of Iowa and Thomas of Colorado. Mrs. Pankhurst and her daughter
Sylvia spoke in Boston and Cambridge with great success. Louis D.
Brandeis, afterwards Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, came out for
woman suffrage. In Boston, under the direction of Miss Mabel Caldwell
Willard, innumerable street meetings were held for a year before the
vote, with mass meetings every Sunday in the Tremont Theater and on
the historic Common.
Press material was supplied to city and country papers. The newspapers
as a whole grew more favorable as time went by but their editorial
pages were much more friendly than the news columns, which frequently
carried stories that were unfair or wholly untrue. The Boston _Sunday
Herald_ printed regular suffrage notes for some months before the vote
and once the daily edition gave the suffragists a full page. The
Boston _American_ let them issue a special supplement, in charge of
Mrs. Jennette A. S. Jeffrey and Mrs. Leonard, and this example was
followed by other papers in the State. As always, the _Woman's
Journal_ did much to hold together, encourage and stimulate the
workers. A special committee distributed more than 100,000 copies of
suffrage speeches made in Congress and more than 300,000 pieces of
other literature within the last few months before the election.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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