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  "VOTES FOR WOMEN" PENNANT WITH AN IMAGE OF A 1911 STATUETTE CALLED "SUFFRAGIST" BY ELLA BUCHANAN, MADE FOR CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT'S "WOMAN SUFFRAGE PARTY" OF NEW YORK CITY, CA 1912-20

Available: Sold
Frame Size (H x L): 23" x 45.75"
Flag Size (H x L): 13.75" x 34.25" (38" with ties)
Description....:
This exceptional, triangular, felt, suffragette pennant features a printed illustration of a statuette designed by a woman named Ella Buchanan, entitled the "The Suffragist Arousing Her Sisters". The image displays the suffragist blowing her clarion over the figures of degradation, vanity, conventionality, and wage earner. Next to it the name “Woman Suffrage Party” appears in small letters. Beyond the statuette, in a large and somewhat whimsical Roman characters, are the words "Votes for Women." There is a black felt binding along the hoist and two sets of yellow felt ties. American suffrage items were generally yellow with black text, though there was a myriad of organizations and some distinguished themselves through the use of different colors.

There are many types of Suffragette pennants, all of which are very desirable. Among them, this is a standout. Two similar versions of it were distributed by Carrie Chapman Catt's "Woman Suffrage Party" of New York City. One is illustrated in a journal entitled the "Keynoter" (Summer/Fall/Winter 2008, Vol. 2008, No. 2-4), p. 42. Compiled and written by Kenneth Florey, this is the best reference on Suffrage memorabilia. Another appears in "Women's Suffrage Memorabilia," by Kenneth Florey (2013, McFarland & Co., North Carolina), on page B1. And a third appears in "Threads of History" by Herbert Ridgeway Collins (1979, Smithsonian Press), as item 991 on page 391. A similar example, though without the party name and with a different version of the statuette illustration, showing only 3 of the 4 figures and set upon a black register along the hoist end, is illustrated on page 42 of the same journal referenced above.

Founded in 1909 as the "Woman's Party," and changing its name soon thereafter, the WSP was a New York organization formed by Carrie Chapman Catt at something called the "Convention of Disfranchised Women." Held at Carnegie Hall, the event, sponsored by Catt's Interurban Suffrage Council, brought together a host of local suffrage groups, organizing them into a new political machine.

The following record of the initial meeting of the WSP was recorded in The News-Palladium under the heading: "Suffragists Party a Reality, Born at First Political Convention of Disfranchised": New York, Oct. 30. [1909]--The woman's party is no longer a theory but a reality, and Mrs. Carrie Chapman-Catt is its chairman. It was born at the first political convention of disfranchised women last night in Carnegie Hall, with all the prestige that could be imparted by the brains, wealth, and beauty of the movement to obtain the ballot for women.

  The whole tone of the rally, under the auspices of the Interurban Suffrage Council, was kept within conservative limits as a tacit protest against the Pankhurst meeting and the militant methods involved. It is understood that so fixed was the determination of Mrs. Clarence Mackay, chairwoman of the platform committee, to keep the demands reasonable and dignified that she refused to permit the insertion of two planks which verged on sensationalism or suggested partisanship.

It was on this score that the "white slave" question was untouched and that the platform, which Mrs. Mackay read, asked such action as concerns women's position as a civic and national factor. With the help of Mary Garrett Hay, Catt organized the WSP like the Democratic Party, with representatives from each assembly district. Organizers in many other states and cities soon followed, organizing on a local level so that every election district was covered. 804 delegates were sent to the original meeting, and by 1915, when the suffrage issue came to a vote for the first time in New York State, WSP membership was 100,000 strong. The vote was lost in that year, but passed just two years later, in 1917, and New York became the first eastern state to give women the right to vote.

Mounting: The textile was mounted and framed within our own conservation department, which is led by expert staff. We take great care in the mounting and preservation of flags and relate textiles and have framed thousands of examples.

The background is 100% cotton twill, black in color. The black fabric was treated to reduce and set the dye. The two-part frame consists of a scooped profile molding that is very dark brown in color, nearly black, with red undertones and highlights, to which a black-painted and gilded, Italian molding was added as a cap. Spacers keep the textile away from the glazing, which is U.V. protective glass.
Collector Level: Advanced Collectors and the Person with Everything
Flag Type:
Star Count:
Earliest Date of Origin: 1912
Latest Date of Origin: 1920
State/Affiliation: New York
War Association:
Price: SOLD
 

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