US // Woman's Suffrage Pennant / Wash. DC - 1913

US // Woman's Suffrage Pennant / Wash. DC - 1913

This cotton gauze pennant with a decorative imprint was created
for the Woman Suffrage Parade held on 3 March 1913, one day prior to the
inauguration of President Woodrow Wilson. The suffragette Alice Paul and
the National American Woman Suffrage Association organized a march down
Washington DC's Pennsylvania Avenue. The parade was huge for its day, with
over 5,000 participants that included four mounted units, nine bands, and over
twenty floats. Among the marchers were such luminaries as Inez Milholland,
Helen Keller, and Nellie Bly.

This important march attracted much attention for both the cause, suffrage
for women, and the mistreatment of the marchers by both onlookers and the
police. This attention did much to further the cause of woman suffrage in the
United States as the journalist Elizabeth Jane Cochran writing under her pen
name, Nellie Bly, championed the suffragette cause in her article "Suffragists are
Men's Superiors."

Decorative pennants like this are extremely rare since they were seldom
preserved. This pennant was imprinted on gauze with a stylized capitol dome, a
stylized American eagle, "1913", the location, Washington D.C., and the slogan
"Votes for Women."

ZFC Important Flag
Item is Framed

Deaccessed Heritage Auctions - 13 November 2023 - Auction 6276