“Votes for Women”, Bertha M. Boye, 1911

Lacking in protest art, the California suffrage campaign borrowed an idea from the English suffrage movement and organized poster competitions to source new designs. This print won Bertha M. Boye $50 as a prize for best poster and was used for San Francisco College’s Equal Suffragette League postcards and placards.

The print’s slogan, write with an elegant hand, doesn’t appear as an argument or threatening battle cry, instead, it reads as a reliable, unassailable truth. While many 19th century feminists had taken a revolutionary stance against society and its institutions, the suffragettes of the early 20th century suggested that the women’s vote would strengthen rather than destroy the existing culture. Its artwork, steeped in tradition, reflected that line of thought.

With a symmetrical design that reinforces the sense of tranquillity emanating from the stoic figure at its centre, Boye’s classic suffragette poster also makes use of symbolic colors and classical imagery to emphasize stability.