Circulated in Staunton, Virginia, the broadside dates to sometime between 1900 and 1919. In it, the women of Staunton asked the men in their community to vote in favor of prohibition or the legal elimination of alcohol consumption and sale. The…
For a significant portion of American history, women were not allowed to vote. Although they were considered citizens with rights equal to men, voting was considered a privilege and not a right and thus not extended to women. In the 1910s, women…
Richmond native Lila Meade Valentine was born in 1865 and devoted much of her life to advocating education, health-care reform, and woman suffrage. She played an important role in creating organizations which focused on health care and public schools…
After the Civil War, the temperance movement swept the nation. Starting with Maine in 1851, states and localities around the country held referendums to let its citizens vote whether or not to ban alcohol. In 1886, Virginia adopted the “Local…
The broadside image is that of Equal Suffrage League of Virginia (ESL) which was founded in 1909 in Richmond. The ESL became one of the most influential suffrage organizations in the country. Among the twenty founding women, co-founder, women’s…
On April 2, 1917, after pledging to keep the country out of the European conflict, President Woodrow Wilson stood before Congress and issued a declaration of war against Germany. "The world must be made safe for democracy," he stated, framing the war…
At the turn of the twentieth century, the call for the prohibition of alcohol had become a national issue, advocated by many politicians and pushed by several strong organizations. The American Temperance Society, started in 1826, acted as a support…
As Americans prepared to send soldiers overseas during the First World War, the government reorganized the economy to better supply and equip its troops. Peacetime industries shifted towards producing needed military goods (like uniforms and…
In 1919, at the National American Woman Suffrage Association’s (NAWSA) convention, President Carrie Chapman Catt proposed in her address the creation of a “league of women voters to finish the fight and aid in the reconstruction of the nation.” In…
The Richmond Planet was first published in 1882, seventeen years after the end of the Civil War. The thirteen founders (including James H. Hayes, James H. Johnston, E.R. Carter, Walter Fitzhugh, Henry Hucles, Albert V. Norrell, Benjamin A. Graves,…