Women's Suffrage Parade, 1917

Allyn Cox
Oil on Canvas
1973-1974
Great Experiment Hall
Cox Corridors

For decades after America won its independence from Great Britain, many of its people still lacked basic rights. The drive for woman suffrage was formalized at the 1848 women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York, but not until 1920 (with the ratification of the nineteenth amendment to the Constitution) did women have the right to vote. This mural depicts a 1917 suffrage parade in New York. Anna Howard Shaw, in cap and gown, leads the parade in New York, and at the right is Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

Left: Jeanette Rankin of Montana, the first woman elected to the House of Representatives, is depicted.

Right: Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina, the first African American elected to the House of Representatives, is shown.

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