The National Women’s History Project has reprinted Bertha Boye’s beautiful “Votes for Women” poster to honor the 100th anniversary of women winning the right to vote in California. On October 10, 1911, California became the sixth state where women could vote equally with men, nine years before the 19th Amendment enfranchised women nationally.
Created by artist Bertha Margaret Boye for the 1911 California campaign, this is probably the most popular poster produced during the American suffrage movement. Boye’s design, featuring a draped western suffragist posed against the Golden Gate as the sun sets behind her, won first place in a contest sponsored by the College Equal Suffrage League in San Francisco. The image was later reproduced on cards, fliers and publicity stamps.
The poster’s vibrant colors and evocative imagery helped draw attention to the suffrage measure, which was one of 23 propositions on the ballot. For an entire week in August, stores in San Francisco featured the colorful poster in their windows, often accompanied by festive decorations in suffrage yellow, which supporters referred to as “the color of success.”
[A Brief History of the 1911 Campaign]
After waiting a REALLY long time, I finally had this poster tattooed on my inner arm. I love it. Jesse Buman of the Drawing Room in Lawrenceville is responsible for its awesomeness.
