An amusing mainstream postcard basing women's right to vote on the motherhood claim. Note the use of the color yellow.

THE USE OF HUMOR AND CHILDREN

Despite the sometimes heavily laden, often moralistic imagery, the suffrage movement was not without humor. To make explicit their claim to the vote on the basis of motherhood, American mainstream suffragists also circulated a wide variety of comic postcards and cartoons depicting children. The children were appealing and, as juveniles, inoffensive. Children could get away with expressing impertinent and assertive messages in a way that was not permitted their mothers. They could "demand" what would otherwise have been unacceptable for an adult woman. In a series of pro-suffrage postcards, the female children appeared assertive, positive, and cooperative. The postcards employed culturally acceptable images such as Uncle Sam and valentines to press their point. One such postcard depicted a little boy trying to steal a kiss from a little girl who is holding him at arm's length and saying, "Suffrage First!" Another postcard featured a forlorn child who appeared to be the proverbial "Babe in the Woods" carrying a placard reading, "I Wish Mother Could Vote."

	Postcard with a baby dressed in yellow in a familiar appeal for the vote based on motherhood and protection of the family.

The approach, unlike many British circulars, was not biting or vindictive. The tone was lighthearted and jovial; the postcards appealed to men's sense of fair play. Mainstream suffragists also used children as an appeal to the larger audience of mothers as yet uncommitted to suffrage in an attempt to secure a favorable climate for their cause.