Votes for Women (1912)

Directed by

Hal Reid

Genre

silent film

Country

United States

Runtime

20 min

Rating

8.0 of 10 from 1 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This silent film was made by the National American Woman Suffrage Association. It follows a dramatic story that shows why women should have the right to vote. The movie also includes real footage of a suffrage parade in New York City.

educationalearnestdatedagitationaldocumentary-stylemelodramatichistoricalpropagandistic

What happens

Votes for Women is a 1912 American silent melodrama film directed by Hal Reid. It was produced by Reliance Film Company in partnership with the National American Woman Suffrage Association and was written by suffragists Mary Ware Dennett, Harriet Laidlaw, and Frances Maule Bjorkman. The film starred Edgena De Lespine, and featured cameos by prominent suffragists, including Anna Howard Shaw, Jane Addams, and Inez Milholland, and incorporated documentary footage of a women's suffrage parade in New York City. It was named by historian Kevin Brownlow as “the first important suffrage film.” The film was released just 20 days after the first suffrage movement-produced film, Suffrage and the Man, a romantic comedy centering on a young man who goes from being troubled by his fiancée's interest in women's rights to supportive of her empowerment. As reported by Motion Picture News in 1911, "the suffragettes in this city...[recently] decided that motion picture films should be made showing the suffrage cause in the best light" since "this was the best way in which thousands of people might be instructed who otherwise would never hear of the suffrage cause." Similarly to Suffrage and the Man, Votes for Women features an engaged couple, Senator Herman and Jane Wadsworth, in order to show that "woman suffrage and romance could coexist." (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

• Suffrage and the Man (1912)
• Your Girl and Mine: A Woman Suffrage Play (1914)
• 80 Million Women Want–? (1913)
• Woman: Past and Present (1913)
• A Militant Suffragette (1912)
• The Suffragette (1913)
• When Women Rule (1912)
• A Suffragette in Spite of Himself (1912)