DAY 230

SOCIAL & POLITICAL COMMENTARY

The Female Vote

SHATTERING THE CULT OF DOMESTICITY

Now forgotten by many, the fight launched by the suffrage movement in the late 19th and early 20^th century was well-documented by camera. Begun in earnest in the early 1800s, the movement sought to remove the stereotypical roles of women and what would later be termed “The Cult of Domesticity,” and give women the right to vote and have a political voice. The first women’s rights convention was held in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York.¹

Gaining the vote of the female population was an issue made for photography. Reviewing photographs from this era, the struggle shows political power being tipped in a new direction. Earliest photographs (daguerreotypes) are portraits of the women behind the revolutionary movement—Sojourner Truth, Lucy Stone, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Later photographs reveal parades, picketing, and opponents of women’s rights.

The female vote was obtained in 1920 in the United States. The photographs of the not-so-long-ago struggle serve as a powerful visual reminder of the right to speak our minds, demonstrate, and interject new ideas into society. The female vote continues to hold political power in the voting booth. —MLR

Help us to win the vote, 1914. Courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.