INDUSTRIALIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS 175Among the most commonly reproduced maps in
American history is this depiction of the progress
toward universal women’s suffrage. First designed
a decade before the Nineteenth Amendment, it
appeared in multiple forms and styles, and was
constantly updated to mark the expansion of voting
rights in individual states. Its widespread use mirrors
the ongoing local, state, and national activism that
was necessary for women to win the right to vote.
The American movement for woman suffrage
debuted at the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848.
Among the supporters was Frederick Douglass, who
also pressed for the guarantee of black male suffrage
through the Fifteenth Amendment after the Civil War.
That victory proved ephemeral, however, when the
end of Reconstruction brought sustained and violent
segregation. Through poll taxes, literacy clauses,
voter intimidation, and other means, black men lost
the right to vote in every Southern state by the turn of
the century, and would not regain it until the Voting
Rights Act of 1965.
As black men lost the vote in the South, white
women began to win it out West. Wyoming,
Colorado, Utah, and Idaho all passed female suffrage
by 1896, but thereafter the movement stalled. In
response, suffragists began to adopt new techniques
to amplify their message. In 1907 Appleton’s Magazine
published a simple black-and-white map reporting
the status of suffrage laws around the country.
Suffrage groups continuously adapted, updated, and
reprinted the map to reflect changing state laws.
Through its incremental changes, the map chronicled
the rising tide of support for suffrage. This 1914
edition used white to denote the states where women
had full voting rights, and shaded those with limited
rights. Recent victories in Illinois, New York, and
Pennsylvania brought the issue to a tipping point,
BEFORE THE NINETEENTH AMENDMENT
National American Woman Suffrage
Association, “Votes for Women a
Success: The Map Proves It,” circa 1914
leaving a minority of states still resisting the change.
The key to the map’s enduring power was its
simple and straightforward design, which enabled
activists around the country to adapt it to local
conditions and purposes. From 1907 until the
ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1919,
various iterations of the map appeared across the
country on billboards, and in marches and parades.
Suffragists also took a cue from the emerging
profession of advertising by printing the map in
baseball programs and college yearbooks, and
on paper fans, drinking glasses, and calendars.
Through their efforts, the map became ubiquitous
and familiar, a constant reminder of the movement’s
progress. Here was a message of reform tailored
to the advertising age: bold, engaging, and with
a clear message.
With its stark geopolitical message, the suffrage
map recalls those produced in the 1850s to warn
against the westward expansion of slavery
(page 140). In both, the map wields a political
message by showing the potential for change. In
the earlier map, geography is a source of dread
that marks the growing threat of slavery, while here
geography is a source of optimism. As this broadside
boasted, “Would any of these States have adopted
equal suffrage if it had been a failure just across the
Border?” The progress toward equality seemed to be
marching from west to east, inverting assumptions
about the westward march of civilization.
Ironically, however, opponents of women’s
suffrage used the same map to point out that the vast
majority of Americans lived in states that had yet to
extend the vote to women. Furthermore, they argued
that the map showed that states with equal suffrage
laws were geographical outliers, located not in the
densely settled and established East but in the wild
(and perhaps less civilized) West. A map adjusted for
population, they pointed out, would have actually
demonstrated how unpopular female suffrage really
was. Both opponents and supporters of women’s
suffrage used persuasive maps to advance their
cause, and in the process demonstrated the power
of cartography itself.