Imagery and Propaganda

Throughout the American Suffrage Movement two major color themes were used.  Gold, like on this sash, was first used by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony while campaigning for suffrage in Kansas.  The women adopted the Kansas state symbol, the sunflower, to represent their cause.  Gold pins, ribbons, sashes, and yellow roses were worn to show support for suffrage.  The other color theme, more common with the British Suffrage Movement, was purple, white, and green.  Oftentimes in the United States the green was replaced with gold.  Supporters also worn buttons, ribbons, and sashes in these colors to show their support.  

A political cartoon from Puck that shows a woman unable to fit into the polling booth.

Library of Congress

This political cartoon, published in Puck, shows the mascot of suffrage.

Library of Congress 

BY “ROSE O’NEILL, 1915.

Suffragists from the National Woman’s Party made smaller versions of the banner used on the 1913 parade’s first float. These "Great Demand" banners were used in demonstrations and rallies and at suffrage headquarters. Marie Gilmer Louthan carried this one in suffrage parades.

National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center

Photo taken in front of the Treasury Building at the Woman Suffrage parade held in Washington, D.C., March 3, 1913.

Library of Congress

A suffragist holds a banner quoting one of President Wilson's speeches: "We Shall Fight for the Things We Have Always Carried Nearest Our Hearts, For Democracy. For The Right of Those Who Submit To Authority To Have A Voice In Their Own Governments."
Artist Nina Allender was the official cartoonist for the National Woman's Party.

National Women's Party

Luciille Angiel Calmes received this Jailed for Freedom pin, a small silver prison door with a heart-shaped lock, after she was arrested and sentenced to five days in a District of Columbia jail for participating in a watch fire demonstration on January 13, 1919.
The watch fires of freedom marked a return of woman suffrage pickets to the White House. They burned copies of President Woodrow Wilson's speeches in small cauldrons, calling attention to the hypocrisy of his touting democratic principles abroad while he refusing secure the Senate votes needed to pass the woman suffrage amendment.

National Museum of American History

The Suffragist, June 14, 1919 by Nina Allender, National Women's Party's official cartoonist

Button worn by supporters of woman suffrage. “Votes for Women” was one of the most popular and recognizable slogans used by members of the woman’s suffrage movement.

National Museum of American History

Button worn by supporters of woman suffrage.
This button displays two symbols of the suffrage movement: the colors purple, white and green and the popular slogan “Votes for Women."

his is the flag of the National Woman’s Suffrage Congressional Union.
In 1914 Alice Paul split from the more conservative National American Woman Suffrage Association, eventually founding the National Woman’s Party. It replaced British suffragettes’ green with yellow as the new American suffrage color.
Alice Paul and Lucy Burns felt that more should be being done to lobby Congress directly and that American suffragists could adapt the tactics of spectacle and political pressure employed by the British "suffragettes." Their new National Woman’s Party (NWP) used parades, petitions, protests, and eventually pickets in an ambitious campaign for a woman suffrage amendment.

National Museum of American History