Today, the Susan B. Anthony One Dollar Coin remembers the cold and windy Suffrage March in New York on October 23, 1915.
From the New York Sun newspaper on the following day:
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Thousands of Others Wait for Places But Are Kept From Marching — Grandmothers Play Prominent Parts — Dr. Shaw Walks.
MAYOR REVIEWS THE STIRRING SPECTACLE
From Washington Square to Fifty-ninth street two solid walls of sympathetic humanity watched the suffragettes march. Twenty-five thousand of them there were — determined women — and a regiment of men who strode up fifth avenue with a magnificent precision that silenced scoffers, The women ruled the day.
It was a three mile argument for equal rights — a dignified, splendid argument — and every vantage point along the gay colored way wan covered with men and women who saw its force. Through the chill of a windy afternoon, though the sun shone on the mighty host, the great army of women passed, the white costumes of many glittering in the sunlight, defying the cold wind that the onlookers felt to their spines as they stood to see it all.
Every type of woman that wants to vote passed by in that blue and yellow pageant. Doctors, lawyers, teachers, artists, scrubwomen, home women, working girls, school girls, their faces set as on their ideal before them, swept through the avenue. And bands played with a military flare that befitted the marchers’ stride.
No one could accurately estimate the number of participants in the great demonstration. For three hours the courageous battalions were on their way. Nothing could stop them and nothing did, except Cupid, and he but for a very short time. He held up his hand for a bride and bridegroom and their attendants to swing through the line, but the suffragists did not mind. They smiled on the bride and the parade went on.
It was bright sunshine when the crowd gathered, but the sun went down, the stars came out, the cold wind which swept down the avenue grew more biting, and still they stuck, with nothing to see but endless lines of marching women each with her little pennant “Votes for women.” It was not a spectacular parade. There were few floats, few fancy costumes, only the hosts of women pressing on and on in the teeth of the cold wind. In that fact lay the impressiveness of the demonstration.
“Jove,” muttered one man as he turned away from below the reviewing stand at Forty-second street after standing there four hours, “I didn’t know there were so many suffragists in the world.”
Mayor Mitchel and his official family — or a large share of it — gave the crowds a good example in staying quality. The Mayor had with him not only his official but his own private family, for Mrs. Mitchel sat in the front row of the seats in the reviewing stand between her husband and Dudley Field Malone. Comptroller Prendergast, Mr. McAneny, President of the Board of Alderman; Borough President Marks and several other members of the Mayor’s cabinet sat from 3 o’clock, when the line was starting from Washington Arch, until nearly half past 6, when the head of the Men’s League division, the last section came into sight.
It wasn’t a nice day for women to march in white dresses such as many of them wore. The sun shone and the air was clear, but the weather man proved that he must have an anti streak by sending a wind that penetrated to the marrow. But not a woman flinched.
Mrs. Leonard Thomas, who lead the parade, carrying the banner of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance , had the hardest time of all. Two women walked, one on each side of her, helping to bear the huge banner, but they weren’t enough, and at Twenty-third street, where a fierce gust threatened to carry it away and Mrs. Thomas with it. Miss Rose Young, one of the guard of honor behind Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, the International president, was forced to appeal to the crowd.
“Will some strong man volunteer to carry the banner?” she cried.
Sad to say the crowd snickered, but a knight rushed back from the Seventh Regiment band, just in front. He didn’t carry the banner, but he broke off the staff so it was easier for Mrs. Thomas to hold it against the wind.
The parade was three hours passing the reviewing stand at Forty-second street. Conservative estimates made the number in the line 28,000, but Mrs. Norman De R. Whitehouse, chairman of the parade committee, declared that 50,000 were on hand ready to march, but didn’t get a chance. At 4:30, shortly after reaching Fifty-ninth street with the head of the parade, she started to rush down to Washington square again.
“Not half the marchers have left the Area,” she said. “The streets are choked with them, I’m told. I’m going down to see what’s happening.”
Later she said that thousands of women had been compelled to drop out before starting. “They had to go home to cook their husbands’ dinners and to nurse their babies,” she said.
Mrs. William Colt, who marched with the Congressional Union, declared she got so tired waiting for a chance to march that she thought of taking a house permanently at Washington Square.
“I thought we could never start,” she said. “Fifteen states that were to march with us had to leave to catch their trains.”
It was a gay and brilliant scene at Washington Square when the parade started to form, albeit a somewhat confused one. First on the ground almost were 1,000 New Jersey women, gay and full of hope as though they hadn’t just been defeated at the polls.
Inspector Schmittberger and Capt. Faulkner, with a number of patrolmen, were there to keep order, but they had an easy time. The only confusion came from the fact that Grand Marshal Ethel Stebbins’s aids didn’t show up until just before starting time. The twenty-eight countries which belong to the International Alliance were represented by 388 women, marching twelve abreast, but until their badges arrived some of them didn’t know whether they were German, French, African or Swedish.
“Will someone please tell me whether I’m an Englishwoman or a Belgian? It’s one of the two, but I can’t think which,” begged Miss Rosalie Jones.
All the same, everything was straightened out and on the stroke of 3 o’clock the parade set out, Lieut. William C. Eagan and eight mounted patrolmen leading the way. Most of the horses, Lieut. Egan said, were suffragettes, having marched in previous parades for the cause. They acted as if they enjoyed it immensely, and pranced to the music of the Seventh Regiment band, which came directly after. On each side of Mrs. Thomas, with her banner, were two women carrying the colors of the Empire State campaign committee, yellow, blue and white, interwoven in a large banner with the shield of New York State on the front. Mrs. Malcolm Duncan and Mrs. Charles Bauer were on the right, Mrs. Jewett Minturn and Mrs. J. A. F. Clark on the left. Mrs. Clark announced proudly that her grandfather, John Bigelow, “came out for women suffrage fifty years ago.”
After Mrs. Thomas marched Mrs. Catt, all alone, and behind her the guard of honor, Miss Rose Young, Miss Grace Gilkins, Mrs. Marie Jenney Howe and Mrs. W. H. Fane. Then came the 338, with their banners held bravely against the unkind wind.
In all the languages of the earth they proclaimed the advance women have made in the various countries in gaining the vote, and scattered through the division were banners asking: “Women vote in Australia, why not in New York?” and “Women vote in twelve Western States, why not in New York?”
One of the prettiest features of the whole line, and one of the few spectacular ones, was the “living flag” representing the twelve enfranchised States. Mrs. Winston Churchill, Mrs. Everett Colby and ten other women, chosen for their height and beauty, marched in a row, each with an arm resting on the should of the next. On their heads were golden helmets, and swinging from their shoulders were long white capes lined with the stars and stripes. Each carried a white plastron with the name of the State she represented. Before them walked Miss Florence Fleming Noyes, dressed to represent Liberty, and carrying a miniature torch just like that of the lady on Bedlow’s Island. After them came another huge banner asking “Women vote in these States, why not in New York?”
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The Susan B. Anthony One Dollar Coin shows with an image from the Suffrage March in New York on October 23, 1915.
