ANTI-SUFFRAGE PUBLICITY

The Suffragist movement was one of the most important movements in the woman’s History. To get their rights they used mainly two ways:  newspapers and publicity.

It was a way of calling the attention of all the citizens. They used the influence that the newspapers were exercising on the people to be made know and to attract to more supporters. In addition, they used also postcards as part of the campaign for the women’s rights to vote. The postcards got the messages of the movement across in short, clear, and often humours ways.

Many of this publicity was clear in some newspapers managed by women suffragist, as the Woman’s Journal, an American weekly suffragist periodical by Lucy Stone and her husband devoted to the interests of woman (her educational, industrial, legal and political equality)

But it was not enough to have supporters. In fact, it was a way to get enemies. There were a lot of them that thought that women were a danger for the society and they were acting against the nature. For this raison, those opposed to women’s suffrage also used postcards to get their message out to the public, showing the figures of the women in a humourist way.

We can find a lot of this postcards in the Palczewski Postcard Archive at the University of Northern Iow who has a number of great examples that illustrate the frames used to present women’s full political participation as threatening.

Postcards issued by other groups reflect these same themes. The clear message is that giving women the right to vote threatens men, the family, and the entire natural order of things

   

From an actual point of view ,we have found these postcards so interesting. They show an other different world totally unimaginable  for the mentality of that epoch but a way of life totally adapted in ours. In that world we find families without fathers, only with the figure of the women as authority; fathers participating in childcare and in the housework; women being the sustenance to the family; women being leaders in politic or taking jobs reserved only for men.

 Some postcards show women expressing opinions and wearing trousers (the "Pantalette Suffragette") in ways that are threatening men's face and social order. If these images were presented without context, a modern viewer might assume that they must be "pro" women's suffrage images, because they represent things that are compatible with mainstream values today.  

This collection of postcards essentially shows us the world that we live in. We can say  they predicted that Women's Suffrage would lead the new style-life, even if men were against it.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: 

- https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/11/08/vintage-anti-suffrage-postcards/

- http://global.britannica.com/topic/Womans-Journal

The rise of the women’s suffrage in America and Spain

United States

At the end of the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth century, American feminists began an active campaign for the achievement of suffrage.

They were led by Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and framed since 1890 in the National American Woman Suffrage Association. They directed their efforts to get out the vote in various states and forced a change in the US constitution.

Susan B. Anthony, Elisabeth C. Stanton and other American suffragists.

The women's vote was being approved by referenda in various states: Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Idaho, Washington, California, Oregon, Arizona, Kansas, Nevada and Montana.

In 1916, the first woman was elected to the US Congress in Montana, Jeanette Rankin.Finally, in 1919, President Wilson, from the Democratic Party, personally announced his support for women's suffrage.

In 1920, it was approved the 19^th Amendment to the Constitution granting the right to vote to women.

"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex." - president Wilson. 

Thomas Woodrow Wilson, known as Woodrow Wilson was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th President of the United States from 1913 to 1921.

Wilson worked as a professor and scholar at various institutions before being chosen as President of Princeton University. In the election of 1910, he was the gubernatorial candidate of New Jersey's Democratic Party, and was elected the 34th Governor of New Jersey, serving from 1911 to 1913. He was the first Southerner elected as president since 1848,and Wilson was a leading force in the Progressive Movement, bolstered by his Democratic Party's winning control of both the White House and Congress in 1912.

Spain

In 1931, many people of Parliament feared that women, who were accused of lack of critical thinking, endangered the Republic. But, on October 1, it was approved one Article of the Constitution that established the female right to vote for the first time in Spanish History.

In these courts, there were only three women and, two of them, Clara Campoamor and Victoria Kent, were responsible for the conflicting positions.

Clara Campoamor was a politician in the Spanish Republic who fought for the rights and equality of women. She was one of the main proponents of women's suffrage in Spain, which was achieved in 1931, just 84 years ago.

Victoria Kent Siano was a Spanish lawyer and Republican politics. She was the first woman to join the Madrid Bar Association in 1925, during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera and the first woman in the world who practiced law before a military tribunal.

Suffragist proposal was achieved with 161 votes in favor and 121 votes against after hearing the debate between Victoria Kent and Clara Campoamor, in which the winner was Clara. As a result, women could vote in the next elections in 1933.

However, just three years later, after the elections of 1936, the Franco’s dictatorship in 1939, the democratic illusions were completed not only for women but for all Spaniards. with the fall of the dictatorial regime illusion of women's suffrage was again a reality in the democratic elections of 1977.

As we can see behind the women's suffrage there have been many women who have fought very hard to get it.

A curiosity: table of countries with women's suffrage