Today in Herstory: Seven Suffragists Invade Manhattan’s Financial District (10 july 1908)

[niyad]

Today in Herstory: Seven Suffragists Invade Manhattan’s Financial District


July 10, 1908: Harriot Stanton Blatch and six young suffragists invaded Manhattan’s financial district earlier today, and had much better success with its inhabitants than they did with the police.


Harriot Stanton Blatch on the left, with Rose Schneiderman on the right.



Before even arriving at the first stop, the one-vehicle automobile procession down Broadway attracted a good deal of attention as a small crowd of newsboys, messenger boys and brokers’ clerks followed along behind the suffrage-yellow “Equality League of Self-Supporting Women” banner, held up by two of the machine’s passengers, attorneys Madeleine Zabriskie Doty and Helen Hoy. When they reached Bowling Green Park, Blatch decided this was the perfect place to begin looking for converts. Telling the chauffeur to park along the curb, then standing up is her seat, she said: “You will not come to our meetings, so we have decided to come to you. All we ask is your attention while we tell you what it is we want, and why we should have it.”

But a police officer then rode up on his horse and asked for Blatch’s permit to hold a meeting. She told him she didn’t think she needed one, as she had a right to free speech. The officer disagreed with the first, and to him, the most relevant part of her statement. Since her missionary zeal compelled a thorough exploration of this previously unpreached territory anyway, Blatch agreed to move on, still accompanied by newsboys, messengers and clerks, plus a number of adults from the crowd.

Going even farther south, the suffragists eventually stopped in an alley near State and Pearl Streets, which soon became packed with listeners. This time it was 26-year-old Rose Schneiderman – in a pink dress, which the crowd definitely liked – who was chosen to do the speaking. Blatch kept an eye out for the law, and Florence Bradley distributed literature while Adelma Burd held up banners saying “COME, LET US REASON TOGETHER” and “VOTES FOR WOMEN.”

After receiving a number of greetings from members of the audience, such as “Hello, Pinkie!” Schneiderman addressed the crowd, as well as the many brokers in neighboring buildings who poked their heads out of windows to listen. She began by saying:
You say that men are far above women … (shouts of ‘Hurrah! Hurrah!’ from the crowd) … but we say that one is just as bad – I mean good – as the other, and therefore they should have equal rights in everything. Are the laws enforced in this country? No! You men have made a pretty bad job of it.

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http://feminist.org/blog/index.php/2015/07/10/today-in-herstory-seven-suffragists-invade-manhattans-financial-district/