Reading tea leaves during National Hot Tea Month

Let’s have some fun. Marie Knight is a guest blogger who’s sharing her reading of tea leaves for Suffrage Wagon during our celebration of National Hot Tea Month. Here’s what the tea leaves said:

“Before I even began your tea leaf reading, I kept getting a message that February will be a big month for you.  I have a very strong feeling One Billion Rising can be significant. Then I did your reading, and it confirmed this for me. I saw a flock of birds flying towards the handle. This is a sign that good fortune is coming your way, but in a manner that affects groups of people. Get involved with One Billion Rising or host your own local event which was also in the cup. (See the SWNC link.)

“A book is the second symbol that shows strongly in your reading. Have you been thinking about writing a book? Perhaps you should. As for the subject, I believe this has to do with the third symbol –a hand-held mirror. Your book should take a look into your own family for the subject, perhaps a view of the world today from Grandmother Edna’s perspective or a historical view of her own life.

“My sister Lynn is a better channeler than I am. Together we spoke to your grandmother. She said that young women are still under the same societal pressures to conform. Look at the role models they are given and these girls believe they are imperfect because of them. Unreasonable goals to be thin, to be ‘loose acting,’ and to be dim witted. Someone has to be there to show them the way. “Something else that came to my sister was an overwhelming sense of pride that Edna’s own family is continuing in her path.  The sensation was so strong that my sister Lynn was overwhelmed and brought to tears. Your grandmother is so proud of you for continuing the work.”

Thank you, Marie. She can be contacted directly for readings: LINK. January is National Hot Tea Month. Celebrate with special features on Suffrage Wagon News Channel.

NEXT TIME: Part II of Ken Florey’s article on suffrage tea memorabilia.

A hot cup of tea with your suffrage history lesson: Part I

by Kenneth Florey

That there was more than a casual connection between tea and suffrage activism is undeniable.  Suffragists organized tea parties to promote their cause and to raise money, as evidenced by many of the state reports that appear in Volume VI of The History of Woman Suffrage, a work that was originally conceived by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. 

Further references to suffrage tea parties are scattered throughout the pages of the Woman’s Journal, where they are sometimes held up as models to advance “votes for women.” The Woman’s Journal, the most popular and longest lasting of all suffrage publications in America, was for a time the official organ of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and the main periodic source for all things suffrage related.

SPECIAL BRAND OF TEA FOR SUFFRAGE EVENTS AND FUNDRAISING

But there was also a manufacturing component involved, and “suffrage tea,” along with its ancillary products, was sold to the general public and proved to be a successful fundraiser.  During the California campaign of 1911, for example, the Oakland Amendment League had a suffrage booth at the Cherry Festival at San Leandro where they dispensed, among other items, “Equality Tea.”  This tea was a special brand for the campaign manufactured for the Woman Suffrage Party that was also sold by other organizations to raise money at their events.

The Pennsylvania Woman Suffrage Association advertised their own “Suffrage Tea in a Special Box” for fifty cents. In England, the Women’s Social and Political Union began selling in 1910 “Votes for Women Tea” in half pound and one pound packets.  When WWI began, the English movement, which produced a greater variety of suffrage memorabilia than did its counterpart in America, placed a semi-halt on the sale of artifacts, perhaps considering novelty items to be inappropriate during darker times.

Suffrage tea was an exception and continued to be offered through suffrage periodicals.  It is unfortunate that given its ephemeral nature, no tea, or even its attendant packaging, appears to have survived from the period, although one hopes that some examples may as yet emerge.

SUFFRAGE TEA CUPS AND TEA SETS, MOSTLY ENGLISH

There are a number of suffrage tea cups and tea sets known, but most of them are English.  The National American Woman Suffrage Association did offer for sale in its 1915 catalog a demitasse cup and saucer for fifty cents each that were embellished with the words “Votes for Women” on a small, elegant gold rim.  The setting was made for them by Hutschenreuther Selb Bavaria and imported by the Art China New York Import Company. Alva Belmont, Newport socialite and founder of the Political Equality Association, sold a small creamer for twenty-five cents that was inscribed “Votes for Women” in cobalt blue at the suffrage shop that was connected to both her headquarters and the Association’s lunchroom in New York City.

The Women’s Political and Social Union sold the most famous of the English sets at their huge bazaar at the Prince’s Skating Rink in Knightsbridge, London, held from May 13 to 26, 1909.  Manufactured by the firm of Williamsons of Longton, Staffordshire, various distinct pieces included teacups and saucers, small cake plates, a teapot with lid, a small milk jug, and a sugar basin or bowl.

In 1911, the WSPU remade the set in a slightly larger size, expanded the number of items in it from 13 to 22, and sold it for ten shillings, six pence to the general public.  All pieces featured an imprint with a design by Sylvia Pankhurst, daughter of WSPU founder Emmeline Pankhurst, of an angel facing left, blowing a curved horn.  In the background are prison bars and the initials of the WSPU.  Above the angel is a banner upon which the word “Freedom” is inscribed.

COMING SOON: The second part of the special feature by Ken Florey about suffrage movement tea memorabilia.” Ken’s new book on suffrage memorabilia will be published in the Spring/Summer of 2013. See article. The author’s web site. Photos above are from the author’s suffrage memorabilia collection.

Have a cup of tea with your suffrage scone!

It’s National Hot Tea Month. SWNC special features help celebrate the ways in which tea played an important part in the suffrage movement. Today we only have a vague idea of the tea culture which played such an important part of the lives of our ancestors. If Downton Abbey is your passion, it’s difficult to get past an episode without afternoon tea playing a central role. The English suffrage movement is referred to only briefly in Downton Abbey. Considering that the series addresses shifting gender and class issues, I would have liked to have seen the suffrage movement have more of a place in the overall period drama of Downton Abbey.

Upcoming in January 2013: a two-part series about suffrage tea memorabilia by Ken Florey, author of Women’s Suffrage Memorabilia; a feature on Alice Paul’s tea house, a tea leaf reading by Marie Knight, and more.

Videos on tea can set the mood:

LINK to tea resources.

If you like these upcoming features, make sure you don’t miss them. Subscribe. Also, don’t forget the special tribute to Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, and Doris Stevens. LINK.

Photo by Jeremy Keith.

Thanksgiving letter from Edna Buckman Kearns to her childhood friend Bessie

Thanksgiving 1904

Dear Bessie,  Remember the promise we made to each other before my June wedding about the two of us getting together at the Russian tea place over the Christmas holidays? Wilmer and I might come down to Philadelphia. And Mama and Papa are thinking about traveling up to New York, but no decision yet. If we make it home, I’ll be so happy to see you.

Being a married woman is so different than I ever imagined. A long train trip with Wilmer all the way to St. Louis for our honeymoon was exhausting enough, and I could barely concentrate on the exhibits and crowds at the world’s fair. We came back earlier than expected. Being in New York City makes me realize what a country girl I’ve been when it comes to becoming a woman and growing up overnight. I’ll get used to it, I suppose.

The two of us I must talk over tea. My mother’s generation is so much in the attic when it comes to things of this world. So New York is the best thing that’s happened to me. People speak languages I didn’t know existed, even though I studied geography and was convinced I knew it all.

The men Wilmer works with at the accounting firm had dinner at a restaurant downtown and took their wives along. One of them, who grew up in New Jersey, talked all through the meal about awful it is that women are allowed to vote in Wyoming and how nobody knows anymore whether a woman’s visit to a neighbor is to solicit votes or get support to run for political office.

I laughed, but only to myself. Have been taking the bus now and then for meetings about women voting. Getting used to New York and being married is plenty for now because I tire easily. My fingers are crossed for the two of us having tea over the holidays.

Thy loving friend, Edna

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What is suffrage angel cake and why would you want to make it?

Lots of eggs and not much flour!  This recipe is from a 1915 suffrage cook book, and it sure is fun dragging out these old recipes to bring us just a little closer to the tastes and rituals of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers. Only 11 eggs, flour, sugar, cream of tartar, vanilla and salt. Great for the Susan B. Anthony birthday party you’ve been considering throwing in mid-February. Or how about high tea during Women’s History Month in March? A cake from scratch will be a treat any weekend. You can tell friends and family that this cake is from the kitchen of a real suffragist, Eliza Kennedy Smith, who used the cake for Votes for Women fundraising. And the women really went to town with the ingredients!

Suffrage protestor . . .

Suffrage leader Harriot Stanton Blatch cracks the whip

and tells activists “no more pink teas.”

A bad reputation for tea parties . . .

Tea receptions had a distinct function during the suffrage movement –of bringing women together, to raise funds and rally for the cause. In March of 1915, Harriot Stanton Blatch and her Women’s Political Union called upon activists to end their suffrage frills: “No more pink teas,” Mrs. Blatch said. “But direct work with the men.” Mrs. Blatch’s reaction suggests that women might have been loving their tea parties a little too much and put organizing for the suffrage general election on the back burner. Which is another reason to use the occasion of High Tea events to combine education, pleasure and discussion about the world and how we can make a special contribution in these times.