1919 - Victory Map - 1919

New York City: National Woman Suffrage Publishing Company, Inc, 1919. Very good. 6¾" x 4¾". Handbill. Very good: 2" stain to lower corner; lightly toned.

This is a rare handbill, illustrated with a map showing the status of women's suffrage throughout the United States.

In "Make the Map All White: The Meaning of Maps in the Prohibition and Suffrage Campaigns" (University of Colorado Law Review, Volume 92, 2021), author Susan Schulten wrote that a breakthrough in the women's suffrage movement came with a map created by journalist Bertha Knobe for Appleton's magazine in 1907. Rather than show only which states had full suffrage and which did not, Knobe's map used shading to indicate states that had made at least some progress. Schulten argued that the map "caught on for its ability to reframe a period of relative failure as a story of success, which in turn became a call to action. Across the country, suffragists quickly began to create and distribute similar maps to advance state campaigns for voting rights."

The map on offer here works off of Knobe's design, showing how many and which states were currently enjoying full suffrage (15), primary suffrage (2), and the right to vote for the President of the United States (29). The general pattern is of full suffrage in the western states, primary voting rights in the Midwest and upper New England, and nothing whatsoever in the southeast region. The handbill urged, "Make the Whole Map White by Quick Ratification of the Federal Suffrage Amendment."

A simple but impactful handbill. Not located in OCLC.