CREATING A FEMALE POLITICAL CULTURE AND IMAGERY

	A version of the Suffrage Herald on a sheet music cover of the suffrage song, "Marching on to Victory. "The use of the sunburst and stars in the color red, not gold, is quite unusual.

Creating a powerful political imagery was crucial to establishing a political presence in the American public consciousness and in bringing about the acceptance of voting rights for women. As political parties developed in the 19th century, and politicians and their supporters vied for the votes of an expanding popular electorate, male politicians created potent images of the soldier-statesman, the log cabin common man, the rough-and-ready frontiersman, and the political sage, which they manipulated to achieve popular political support. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as women expanded their roles outside the domestic sphere into the public arena, they found in the mainstream political culture no images that spoke to women's experiences or conveyed women's political objectives. It was essential that women create a political culture of their own, including an imagery of suffrage that would form a vital and instantly recognizable means of political communication in a pre-television age.

SUFFRAGE’S TWO FACES: MAINSTREAM AND MILITANT

Out of the two philosophically and strategically divergent suffrage organizations in the early 20^th century–the mainstream National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and the militant National Woman’s Party (NWP)–two separate suffrage imageries evolved. One set of images was aimed at moderate, mainstream women, emphasizing motherhood and social service. The other was directed toward more radical feminists and stressed equality, individual freedom, and personal empowerment. This powerful new political culture promoted women's inclusion in the public life of the nation, and proved a significant tactic that successfully propelled suffrage to final passage by Congress and ratification by the states.