Introduction
Although many people were in support of women’s suffrage, there were many people opposed to it. Many were putting out statements against suffrage, while others were creating art and propaganda. Sometimes the most effective ways for these people to oppose propaganda was to create an overly dramatic version of what would happen if women won the vote. They tried to scare men about women’s suffrage by claiming that men would start staying at home and doing chores rather than going to work. They also tried to scare women into thinking that once they won the vote, they would be lonely and horrible things would happen to them. They did this through posters, petitions, public art, and even films and songs.
This is one of the anti-suffrage postcards that was printed in 1909. In this picture, there is a man who’s crying and holding his children as his wife glances back at him with a look of disappointment. The text on the bottom says “Election Day!”, and there is also a framed message that says “Votes for Women.” It seems to be showing the men who see this that they will have to take care of their own children when women left for just one day to go vote. At this time, it seems to have been almost unheard of that a man would take any responsibility whatsoever for his household or family, so this could have frightened many men into voting against suffrage.
This is a pamphlet that was published to try and convince women to not fight for suffrage. It says things like “You do not need a ballot to clean out your sink spout. A handful of potash and some boiling water is quicker and easier.” This seems to try to remind women what their place in society was supposed to be. It was written by the National Association Opposed to Women's Suffrage, and it was written to catch the attention of women by having bold words saying “Household Hints” and “Housewives!” so that women would be compelled to pick it up.
In this picture, there is a man who is crying along with his 6 children, who are hugging him and playing. On the top, it reads “Have so many little things to attend to”. At this time, women would be attending to things like this, and much more. Instead of showing that women weren’t fit to vote, many pieces of propaganda showed men not being able to deal with even a portion of the thing women did on a daily basis. The goal was, again, to show how terrible life would be for men if women got the vote and were treated equally.
This poster is composed of stairs, children, plants, words, and a woman. There are stairs that a woman is climbing that lead up to a big pot that is marked “FAME.” On the way up to this pot, there are words on every stair. This is the order of the words from the bottom to the top: love, marriage, children, home, ambition, social achievement, admiration, career, artistic success. As they continue, these words get less comforting, maybe even depressing: professional triumph, flattery, disappointment, suffrage, strike, anxiety and lastly, loneliness. This propaganda poster makes it seem very unappealing to climb the stairs of fame, because it illustrates everything getting worse as the woman walks up the stairs. The stairs start to crumble, the plants that are there start to die, the whole sky is dark, and the woman is hunched over and has a bitter face because no one wants to go through that agony. As was mentioned before, there is a stair on this poster that simply reads, “suffrage”. This stair is also near the top surrounded by other words like anxiety and loneliness. This implies that it is hard to get to suffrage and once you are there, your life is horrible and so hard.
This propaganda poster shows a husband doing laundry and watching the baby. At the bottom of the poster, there is text that says, “ I want to vote but my wife won’t let me.” By putting this on the poster, it’s trying to convince men to vote anti-suffrage by trying to show them that this is what they would be doing if women win the vote: staying at home and washing dishes and clothes. Most men believed that their wives should be doing all the housework, and this shouldn’t change. Moving on towards the top left side of the poster, there is more text that says, “Everybody works but mother: she's a suffragette!” This text seems to be from the point of view of a child talking to his dad about his mother. Overall, this poster is symbolizing why men should vote for anti - suffrage.
As World War I was going on, many people opposed the suffrage amendment. One group of people who did this was the Women Voters Anti - Suffrage Party Of New York. This group decided to make a petition. They call out Carrie Chapman Catt by saying that this country is in an hour of peril and suffragists need to stop taking advantage of this time to fight for suffrage. The people who signed the petition made sure to say they were from a governmental agency, like the Red Cross as if they were highlighting their patriotism.