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A
variation of the Herald figure, classically robed, carrying
an American flag. The background of the graphics is suffused
with a gold color. |
HERALD/ANGEL AS SYMBOL
In addition to color imagery, both the NAWSA
and the NWP used an allegorical figure, the Herald/Angel. This
symbol, a female figure, sometimes shown with wings, sometimes
blowing a trumpet, was based on an angelic figure created by
Sylvia Pankhurst for the British movement. The Herald appeared
in various forms in the United States, with sword or trumpet,
used primarily by organizations in the New York area influenced
by Blatch and her Women's Political Union. It was also used
by the National Woman's Party. Both these groups had especially
close ties with the British movement. [11]
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Suffrage
pin with a Herald figure using the colors purple, white,
and gold. The colors indicate that it was probably produced
for the National Woman's Party. The lettering on the button
now appears to be pink, but has faded from the original
purple color.
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To general American audiences, probably
not specifically familiar with the Pankhurst origins, these
Herald figures appeared as angelic reminiscences in the long
tradition of idealized Goddesses of Liberty and Justice, of
the figures America and Columbia. Such images were visually
familiar in this country since the early Republic in both formal
prints and works of art, widely circulated political cartoons
and broadsides, and in folk tradition. The Herald/Angel was
incorporated by American mainstream suffrage in a direct line
of development from the 18th-and-19th century American tradition
of the Goddess or archetypal woman in classically draped form
to represent abstract civic virtues, and the personification
of countries and political parties.
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Woman
suffrage playing cards using the Herald figure blowing a
trumpet as well as the traditional American Goddess of Justice,
blindfolded, holding the scales of Justice. Another symbol
employed on these cards is the suffrage color gold. |
In the United States, these Herald/Angel figures
were frequently backed by, or displayed with, rays of sun, or
sunbursts (the use of gold). The symbolic meaning of this merging
of the figure with the color gold was heralding the dawn of a
new day. In the U.S., particularly in NAWSA, the herald figure
often blended with a woman carrying a torch, again the color gold.
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Mrs.
David O'Neil as the Goddess of Liberty, holding a torch
of enlightenment. |
One example of this American tradition appeared
in a tableau staged along "The Golden Lane" at the 1916 Democratic
political convention in St. Louis. "Midway on the Lane was the
St. Louis Fine Arts Building and here a symbolic tableau was
posed on the flight of steps leading to the entrance, the chief
figure of which was the Goddess of Liberty (in white, flowing,
classical garb, carrying a torch), impersonated by Mrs. David
O'Neill of St. Louis." [12]
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