Monday, January 31, 2011

I heart Suffragette Valentines

I am a big collector of all sorts of things. Useful things, like used milk caps

I also like to collect old postcards. They arrive to my (and my husbands!) delight neatly boxed-up from eBay on a regular basis. Sometimes, I purchase postcards directly from among the decaying remains of a lifetime in a house sale or more macabrely, from an estate sale.

Some of my favorite postcards are the ones that are both pro and con women's suffrage. For those of you who like a little history lesson with your blog reading, the women's suffrage movement in the United States was active in the early twentieth century, until voting rights were finally secured in 1920 after a long and contentious battle.

The US suffragettes were a clever group, as were the equally fascinating anti-suffragettes. The arguments from both sides are still alive today in the slogans of the many postcards used to promote each side's position. Today, these same goals are accomplished with emails and witty tweets.

I have an endlessly amusing collection of postcards from both sides of the debate, and only recently realized a few of them are Valentines Day related.  I'm not sure why the holiday-tie-in, but I'm off now to see if the Internet can enlighten me.

While I search, I leave you with one of my most favorite Valentines Day anti-suffrage cards. 


If she was alive today, I just know she'd have a blog.

For more vintage and suffragette Valentines, click here.

2 comments:

Elizabeth-FlourishInProgress said...

yes, i would be a devoted reader. i'm all about staying home and cooking and cleaning and living for my family's happiness. ;)

Kate Eschbach said...

I LOVE postcards! They make me so very happy!

{Keep Reading}

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...