This poster, featured in the Oregon Blue Book, depicts a young girl pulling overalls on over her frilly, pink dress. Below her, there is a sentence stating “Nobody loves me- guess I’ll be a suffragette.” The text assumes that nobody loves suffragettes and that everything they are doing is just for love and attention. In the background there is a broken doll and a dead or injured looking dog. This seems to assume that all suffragettes are crazy, and unruly. This poster is also comparing suffragists who were grown women to whiny, crying children. They most likely compared women to babies because they wanted to imply that women and babies are equally incapable of taking on political responsibility.
This poster was published by Dunston-Weiler Lithograph Co. in 1912. The image depicts two people. One appears to be a suffragette who is forcibly kissing an astonished bystander. There is a message at the bottom that says “Suffragette vote-getting the easiest way.” This seems to be opposition to suffrage because they appear to be implying that suffragettes are unruly and will do anything for their cause... even if it means resorting to extreme strategies.
This pamphlet was distributed by the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage. It contains many reasons why women should not get the right to vote, including the claim that “you do not need a ballot to wash a sink.” This assumes (and therefore attempts to convince other people) that all women are only good for cleaning and doing household chores. The National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage attempted to get women to buy the pamphlet by tilting it “Household Hints''. According to The National Women's History Museum, while many women hated this pamphlet, others were convinced not to fight for the vote because one of the Household Hints was to not “waste time, energy, and money on voting”.
This petition was sent to the United States Senate in 1917 and includes the names of many women who were opposed to women’s suffrage. Their reason as for why women should not vote is because “this country is engaged in the greatest war in history”, and people should put their time and energy into war efforts, and not the right to vote. They had two resolutions, the first was that our country “should be spared the harassing of its public men and the distracting of its people from the war.” The second resolution asks the congress not to pass something that would cause “such a radical change in our government”. They continue by saying that we should be “concentrated on the all important task of winning the war.” This petition seems to suggest that people can not be patriotic if they support the right to vote over winning the war.
This excerpt was taken from The Ladies Battle written by Molly Elliot Seawell in 1911. She mentions that no women have any practical knowledge of any subjects of high importance; she also says “there seems to be a close relationship between suffrage and divorce.” This is opposition to suffrage because she seems to be saying that women are incompetent and because they have no knowledge they should not be permitted to vote. When she says that suffrage and divorce are directly correlated, she may be attempting to scare away any women that are interested in becoming suffragettes because they may end up getting divorced.
In this poster, there is a man falling, with suffragists behind him with outstretched legs, and many propaganda posters for women's suffrage. On the bottom, there is text under the person being kicked over that says "GIRLS I DIDN'T MARRY," and to the right of that it under the suffragists a caption reads "THE SUFFRAGETTE." It seems like the women have kicked him over, and are yelling and being violent towards him. Also, it looks like the text suggests that the women who have not been married have become crazy, and are insane. The women's faces have beady eyes, red faces, one tooth, arched eyebrows. That unconsciously makes us think that they are insane.
This poster is titled "Anti-Suffrage Parade", and has a lot of people chained together who are holding anti-suffrage propaganda. It looks like this poster is a pro-suffrage poster, because it is making fun of the anti-suffragists, portraying them as weird and crazy. For example, the second person on the top right looks like they are really sad and old, portrayed in a way to make fun of them. Also, the person to the right of them seems to be portrayed as a clown from the pants that they are wearing, their hat, and their facial expressions. This shows that the suffragists decided to make fun of the anti-suffragist movement using the same tactics of caricature and propaganda.
In this poster, there is simply the text "What Will Men Wear When Women Wear," and then a picture of pants. This seems to be anti-suffrage because this poster is trying to make the viewer think that you will have 'nothing' to wear if women can wear pants, because there aren't enough pants for everyone, or that men will have to wear skirts and dresses. This use of pants could also be a metaphor for, "What will happen when women have the same power as men?" This poster seems to be attempting to drive fear into the viewer, and vote against women's suffrage.
This image depicts a man washing clothing whilst a small child sits on the floor looking at a cat. There is a message saying “I want to vote but my wife won’t let me” at the bottom of the poster. In the time that this was most likely published, there were very strict gender norms that everyone was expected to follow, that men work all day and make money and women stay at home to cook, clean, and take care of the children. This is opposition to suffrage because it seems that many men would be mortified at the idea of completely flipping the roles that they play in society.
Bibliography
MentalFloss: "12 Cruel Anti-Suffragette Cartoons"
National Women's History Museum: "Primary Sources"
Stanford History Education Group: "Anti-Suffragists Lesson Plan"