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Today in Herstory: Large Suffrage Parade Takes New York City

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

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May 4, 1912: What a great day this has been for “Votes for Women” advocates!

There has never been a suffrage parade to compare to the one this afternoon and in the opinion of some observers, New York City has never seen a spectacle equal to this one on any occasion. Not even the crowds that greeted Teddy Roosevelt upon his homecoming two years ago approached the number of those on hand today.

But it wasn’t just the size of the crowd or the number of official marchers that was enough to impress some of even the most cynical of suffrage skeptics. Those who represented woman suffrage today clearly did not just casually show up in response to one of the many leaflets and posters that have been distributed around the city. All participants were carefully and colorfully outfitted and came to march as part of a specific contingent with which they shared some characteristic. They walked behind elaborate banners emblematic of their group to show just how far pro-suffrage sentiment has penetrated into all segments of society.

There were teachers, students, doctors, lawyers, homemakers, nurses, musicians, industrial workers, clerks, stenographers and every other imaginable occupation represented. They were led by 52 women riders on horseback and accompanied by numerous marching bands.

The age spectrum was so wide that not all participants could march. Infants were carried, or pushed along in strollers, while carriages transported Reverend Antoinette Brown Blackwell and a few others among the eldest of the suffragists. Those pioneers can remember being criticized by some who thought it excessively bold for a woman to speak on a political issue to even a small indoor audience. But today these veteran suffragists were a conspicuous part of the 15,000 who took over Fifth Avenue for several hours to promote the cause.

There was also a delegation of several hundred men. Some of them had gray hair, some wore silk hats, but many more were college students marching behind banners denoting prestigious schools such as Yale, Harvard, Columbia and Princeton. Despite some provocations from certain hooligans on the sidewalk, no one in this group lost his dignity or temper.10996053_10204622467105171_6702945715518279237_n

From the parade’s beginning at the Washington Arch at 5:00 p.m., until the parade ended in torchlight at Carnegie Hall, suffrage supporters owned the street. Even the weather cooperated. It was one of those warm May Saturdays with plenty of late afternoon sunshine and a cool breeze when needed.

Just four years ago it was considered highly controversial when 23 members of the Progressive Woman Suffrage Union boldly – and illegally – marched down Broadway. Two years ago 400 women, led by Harriot Stanton Blatch of the Equality League of Self-Supporting Women, marched along Fifth Avenue, despite being warned by a number of fellow suffragists that such a spectacle “would set suffrage back 50 years.” But the parade was such a success that it became an annual event, with the new route used ever since. Last year 3,000 marched, with floats and bands included for the first time.

Impressive as it was, last year’s parade pales in comparison to this year’s and it seems clear that some new level of respect and recognition has finally been reached by the suffrage movement. Certainly the victory in California on October 10th, in which the Golden State became the sixth to enact equal suffrage and nearly doubled the number of women voters in the country overnight, has played a part in generating renewed momentum nationwide.

But it is Harriot Stanton Blatch and her renamed Women’s Political Union that deserve most of the credit for putting together this landmark event and enabling such a powerful message to be sent. Marchers gave notice to the State Legislature – whose failure to put a suffrage referendum on the ballot was a primary focus of this year’s march – that “Votes for Women” is an issue that needs to be addressed by the electorate in a Statewide referendum. They also told the journalistic community that woman suffrage advocates are no longer to be ridiculed or ignored, but should be covered in a style befitting a large and growing movement.

One banner, carried by supporters of Wisconsin Republican Senator Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette, spoke to the “antis” and seemed to sum up the confidence felt by all today: “WOMAN SUFFRAGE HAS PASSED THE STAGE OF ARGUMENT. YOU COULD NOT STOP IT IF YOU WOULD, AND IN A FEW YEARS YOU WILL BE ASHAMED THAT YOU EVER OPPOSED IT.”

But the main message sent today was to those who instinctively feel that woman suffrage is right, but who have not yet acted to bring it about. They were reminded that the denial of the vote to half the population is not simply unjust, but is a waste of ability and wisdom the country can ill afford as it confronts the new challenges of the 20th Century. So now is the time to join the battle and help bring us one step closer to full equality, economic and social justice and true democracy for all.

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