Suffragists picked up their soapboxes and went to town!

Not only did the suffragists march in huge parades, but in some events they even carried portable soapboxes (such as in the photo below) in the event an opportunity arose for them to stand up on a street corner and speak. It was a novelty for women to speak in public back then as Susan B. Anthony knew well. And it was equally daring to climb up on a soap box and speak for as long as a crowd gathered to listen. This took considerable courage. The suffragists had to duck water thrown on them and smile in the face of insults and worse. The men who marched in suffrage parades also faced jeers and insults. Critics accused them of tagging after the “girls.” One man anonymously wrote a book entitled How it feels to be the husband of a suffragette. It’s not only funny, but you get the point. And it’s free for the download.

Perplexed about a holiday gift for someone special?

Campaigning for Votes for Women in 1913

I’m hearing a lot about downsizing consumption this holiday season. This suggests a suffrage-themed gift could be in order. Yvonne Crumlish, whose grandmother Addie’s Votes for Women pennant was featured on “History Detectives” in September, tells me that she saw the HBO special “Iron Jawed Angels” for the first time this year. This could mean that “Iron Jawed Angels” is a potential gift idea for those becoming familiar with suffrage history, even though the HBO film has been around for a while.

Jennifer Hinton  has suffrage theme gifts you can assemble yourself. Start with the upcoming holidays, a young woman’s 18th birthday, her 21st birthday, special occasions for someone of any age. And while you’re at it, plan a party around a suffrage theme during Women’s History Month.

Jennifer’s suggestions are clever, such as the “Forward into Light Gift Kit,” “Tea Time at the Pankhursts,” “Sojourner Truth Tub Soak” and more.

Lucretia Mott adored oolong tea. Elizabeth Cady Stanton made a point of mentioning this in her memoir, Eighty Years and More. So oolong tea is a special gift idea, especially when there’s great organic oolong tea available online.

How about a book about Lucretia Mott and a package of oolong tea to accompany it? The National Women’s History Project has a wide variety of books and gift items. The Susan B. Anthony House’s online gift shop features Alva Belmont’s reproduction tea set. Mrs. Belmont, an active supporter of the National Woman’s Party, built a tea house and held suffrage events there.

Planning a trip to Oregon in 2012? The state is celebrating 100 years of women voting and there’s a full program of activities and exhibits receiving considerable web attention.

Splits in suffrage movement didn’t deter working relationships

Mrs. Raymond Brown took over after Harriett May Mills as president of New York’s state suffrage organization. A rare recording of Mrs. Brown speaking is a valuable look at the period, as well as a reference in one of Grandmother Edna Kearns’ newspaper columns that she wasn’t all that pleased with Mrs. Brown being selected as state president. Despite her personal opinion, Kearns and Brown worked closely together on suffrage organizing of Long Island. Photo: Library of Congress.

Plan holiday meals using the Woman Suffrage Cookbook

This suffrage cookbook available free online tells a great deal about the women of the movement, their perspectives, and the special place of cooking in family life. When you’re planning a meal or special event, find a recipe to make and share the process and results with us at Suffrage Wagon. Holidays are giving us an opportunity to try out some suffrage recipes. To those of you following along, read through the cookbook’s section on suffrage and let us know what you think! And then, get in touch: suffragewagon at gmail dot com

Support Oregon women and their Votes for Women centennial!

Oregon suffragists visit New York, 1912, from the Library of Congress collection. These women very much wanted to be seen, just as Oregon women today are gearing up for their anniversary of women voting in 2012. You can Twitter their events: Oregon Women Vote @CenturyofAction.

Grandmother Edna Kearns had her fingers in many suffrage pies

Edna knew that the women of New York were making history. And when a pageant was held at the Armory in New York City involving 500 performers and broad, vast and innovative subject matter, she made sure the news was spread through her writing.

Both Edna Buckman Kearns and daughter Serena Kearns were featured in the New York Herald’s April 1914 coverage of the event. Serena played a child, and Edna, a nurse. The production, “The American Woman: Six Periods of American Life” by Hazel MacKaye was not only ambitious, but it was considered a milestone in the suffrage movement’s production of pageants with significant social commentary. Inez Milholland played the woman of the future. Susan B. Anthony would have been proud.

This blog post is yet another episode of “The Adventures of Edna Buckman Kearns,” the news about her suffrage campaign wagon (now in the collection of the NYS Museum), and another example of how my grandmother dedicated her life to bring about Votes for Women. Stay tuned!

“Just show up,” say Votes for Women activists out in force at Mineola Fair

“Just show up.” That’s the advice for us today in all aspects of our lives. It was the motto of the suffragists who used community events such as the county fair to show up and use the occasion to advocate for human rights.

Check out the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 22, 1915. What’s Edna Buckman Kearns up to now? She’s making her presence known at the Mineola Fair, and here’s what the Brooklyn paper had to say about it.

Telling the story, one clipping at a time

I’ve been working through grandmother Edna’s archive of letters, news clippings, photos, and memorabilia of the New York State suffrage movement and have barely scratched the surface. The next step is to weave these snippets into an overall story that highlights what it took to win the vote on the local level. There’s a digital storytelling movement underway nationwide, and it seems timely to move these tales into a chronology and then choose a core story around which to organize the material. Blogs are a way to document the process when the world around us changes so quickly. I like to keep inching forward with this project. Even the TV fall lineup for 2011 is into storytelling, which I believe reflects a basic instinct to listen to, enjoy, and pass on story. We think and dream and live story. I’ll be sharing more of Edna’s stories as the focus on her life grows tighter.