Boston's Great Suffrage Parades

Two of the most effective bits of propaganda of the referendum campaign were the two great parades held in Boston in 1914 and ‘15. [...] Just why seeing women walk down the street in parade should convince men to vote for suffrage is a mystery, but it did so by the thousands. Probably because it gave them visual proof that the women who wanted suffrage were ordinary representative women - homemakers, mothers, daughters, teachers, working women - and not the unsexed freaks the antis declared they were.

The 1914 parade, described in several newspapers as a "Grand Spectacle," brought together 12,000 suffragists from New England suffrage groups, women professionals, and faculty and students from local colleges, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). ³⁰  The Boston Globe coverage and Votes for Women's "Instructions for Marchers " reveal the MIT suffragists—women and men—who marched.

The marchers started at Massachusetts Avenue, progressed to the State House along Beacon Street, and then spiraled right on School Street, Washington Street, Eliot Street, and Tremont Street to finish at Tremont Temple for a rally. The Votes for Women Parade Committee provided detailed instructions and maps for the Parade marchers, distributing dignitaries, floats, bands, and marchers throughout the procession. They even made arrangements for restrooms to be open at the New England Woman's Club (NEWC) at 585 Boylston St. ⁴ 

The parade ended with a "Mass Meeting" at  Tremont Temple , which had been a key gathering place for Boston's abolitionist and suffrage groups since the early 1800s. ³²  Katharine Dexter McCormick spoke to the thousands who gathered:

The first suffrage parade marks an epoch in the life of the individual and in the life of the city. With the individual it marks the moment when she comes face to face with her own spirit and determination. With the people of the city seeing is believing. They cannot look into the faces and see the enthusiasm on those faces and the inspiration without realizing they are face to face with a deep moral issue, and that however slowly it may come its triumph is certain and sure. We and our cause have entered the noble realm of practical politics and who shall say we have not the brains and temper to master that realm and to prove that nothing is foreign to us.

Tremont Temple could not contain all who wanted to participate. One thousand overflow participants, two-thirds men, joined Florence Luscomb and Margaret Foley for an outdoor rally at the Boston Common bandstand.

[Our] parade demonstrated the falsity of the claim that women cannot stand together.

Like the previous year’s event, the Victory Parade began at the corner of Mass. Avenue and Beacon Street, following the same route to the State House. However, instead of spiraling inward, the parade turned down Tremont Street to Huntington Avenue via Saint James Avenue, ending at Mechanics Hall for a pro-suffrage rally.

The press covered the 1915 parade in far less detail, focusing on dignitaries, floats, costumes, and broad categories of marchers. Although the parade plan retained the women's professional career categories, like Architects, Teachers, Writers, etc., local organizations were grouped by county instead of town. College Undergraduates and Graduates were assigned to the same group (75).

Several factors may have contributed to the reduced coverage: Suffrage parades had become more common in cities and towns across the United States, this was Boston's second suffrage parade, and World War I erupted in Europe in November 1914.

Personally invited by  Teresa A. Crowley , a lawyer and one of the MWSA leading speakers, in a speech the day before the parade, MIT students marched on October 16. They joined the 8,000 supporters, with an additional 2000 gathered outside, to attend the post-parade rally at  Mechanics Hall . “[W]hen the Tech boys and the Harvard contingent arrived they would be heard as well as seen and they gave their ‘yells’ which terminated with ‘Suffrage, suffrage, suffrage!’ and everyone stood up and applauded.” ¹⁷  According to the Woman’s Journal, organizers predicted the post-parade rally would be "the greatest rally for equal suffrage ever held in Massachusetts." ³⁴ 

 Lucy Stone's carriage  and Felix (the horse) participated in the 1914 (Group 22) & 1915 (Group 28) Boston Suffrage Parades to honor the first woman suffragists. On October 21, 1915, dressed in vintage clothing from 50 years before, Florence Luscomb drove the carriage from Boston to Worcester to celebrate the anniversary of the first  National Woman's Rights Convention in Worcester .

[Anti suffrage women] do not think it is in woman’s place to argue or to refute statements in the arena of politics.

Especially not in public. Anti-suffragist women framed their response in support of the home and true womanhood. Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women (MAOFESW) members distributed buttons and red roses until the parade started and then withdrew. As a counterpoint to the suffragists' yellow banners, sunflowers, camellias, and daffodils, anti-suffragists decorated the exterior of their homes with red banners and roses. In 1915, "[On Beacon Street] 139 houses along the line of march were thus decorated [compared] to 64 wearing suffrage yellow." ³³  A decorated balcony on Beacon Street offered an ideal seat for both parades. In 1914, MAOFESW officers - including Corresponding Secretary Mary B. Strong (Class of 1897) - gathered on the balcony of 49 Beacon Street to view the parade. ⁵ 

The anti-suffragists released red balloons as the Victory Parade marchers approached Mechanics Hall. "These flaming red symbols of antiism rose into the air from both sides of the avenue, until the sky was dotted with hundreds of them like stars [...]" ²⁶  Earlier that day, there had been a similar red balloon release as marchers approached the State House. However, Boston's prevailing winds favored the suffragists, and the balloons scattered anticlimactically across Boston Common away from the parade.

A few MIT fraternities also displayed red banners in 1914. "A crowd of 'Tech' students, far down Beacon street, near Exeter, had out their window the red flag of anti-suffrage with a huge [grapefruit] hung on a sign and the words beneath it: 'A lemon that had a chance.' But the suffrage parade was far from being a lemon, and everyone who saw it was thrilled and interested by the sight." ²⁰  During the 1913-14 academic year, the only "Tech Men" in that area lived at 16 Exeter Street - MIT's Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity. ^1,10  A similar banner appeared along the parade route at 237 Beacon Street, MIT's Phi Beta Epsilon fraternity. ^33,2 

Although the November 2, 1915, referendum for women's suffrage failed by a 2 to 1 margin, the suffragists' grassroots efforts helped drive Massachusetts voters to the polls. Boston Voter Registrations soared to 114,224 leading up to the referendum, breaking the previous record of 114,217 set in 1904. ²²  Defeated but undeterred, MWSA pivoted to promote the amendment to the US Constitution.

As World War I intensified in Europe and the US, both sides of the women's suffrage debate shifted to support the war effort. Although many suffragists were pacifists, Boston's suffrage organizations publicly supported "the war effort." Suffrage Coffee Houses served the families and soldiers stationed at Fort Devens. Other groups hosted dances for Service Members. Florence Luscomb and Eugenia Brooks Frothingham spoke at "Liberty Loan" rallies.  Dr. Anna Shaw  chaired the Council of National Defense's advisory committee on Women's Defense Work. "The women were appointed as individuals, regardless of any organization with which they associated." ³¹  The committee brought together nationally recognized suffragists like Katharine Dexter McCormick and anti-suffragists like  Ida Tarbell . After the war, both groups returned to their work within the suffrage movement.

The  19th Amendment,  which granted many,  but not all , women the right to vote, was formally certified on August 26, 1920.

1. “16 Exeter (196 Marlborough) | Back Bay Houses.” Back Bay Houses, 27 July 2013, https://backbayhouses.org/16-exeter-196-marlborough/. Accessed 19 Jul. 2024.
2. “237 Beacon | Back Bay Houses.” Back Bay House, 6 July 2013, https://backbayhouses.org/237-beacon/. Accessed 22 Aug. 2024.
3. “A Reason a Day Why Women Should Vote.” The Boston Globe, 4 Mar. 1913.
4. “Annual Meeting in Bay State.” Woman’s Journal, Vol 45, No. 15, 11 Apr. 1914. Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Harvard University, https://nrs.lib.harvard.edu/urn-3:rad.schl:26312858?n=121. Accessed 5 May 2024.
5. “Anti Emblem Sold to Crowds.” The Boston Globe, 3 May 1914.
6. “Anti-Suffrage in Massachusetts (U.S. National Park Service).” NPS.Gov Homepage (U.S. National Park Service), https://www.nps.gov/articles/anti-suffrage-in-massachusetts.htm. Accessed 22 Aug. 2024.
7. “Bay State Men Open Quarters.” Woman’s Journal, Vol. 45, No. 5, 31 Jan. 1914. Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Harvard University. https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:53700400$45i. Accessed 31 May 2024.
8. Cantarow, Ellen, et al. Moving the Mountain. Feminist Press at CUNY, 1980.
9. “Collection: Records of Howe, Manning & Almy, Inc. and the Papers of Lois Lilley Howe, Eleanor Manning O’Connor, and Mary Almy | MIT ArchivesSpace.” MIT ArchivesSpace, https://archivesspace.mit.edu/repositories/2/resources/594. Accessed 22 Aug. 2024.
10. “Course Catalogue of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1913 - 1914.” Dome Home, https://dome.mit.edu/handle/1721.3/82754. Accessed 19 July 2024.
11. “Has Membership of 900.” The Boston Globe, 4 Oct. 1913.
12. Hoyt, Helen. “Visit of Suffrage Bell Will Be Long Remembered in Lycoming.” Williamsport Gazette, 12 Aug. 1915.
13. “In Women’s Interest.” The Boston Globe, 18 Nov. 1903.
14. “Instructions for Marchers.” Suffrage at Simmons. https://beatleyweb.simmons.edu/suffrage/items/show/40. Accessed 30 May 2024.
15. “Justice Bell Story.” Justice Bell Foundation, https://www.justicebell.org/the-justice-bell-story. Accessed 21 Aug. 2024.
16. “Like a Jubilation.” The Boston Globe, 3 May 1914.
17. “Mass Meeting a Huge Affair.” The Boston Globe, 16 Oct. 1915, p. 11.
18. “Meeting on the Common.” The Boston Globe, 3 May 1914.
19. “Miss L.R. Stanwood, Head.” The Boston Globe, 13 Feb. 1914.
20. “More That 10,000 Women March in Boston’s Sts.” The Daily Item, 4 May 1914.
21. “Public Work for Women Advocated.” The Boston Globe, 14 Jan. 1915.
22. “Record Interest Shown in Boston.” Woman’s Journal, Vol. 46, No. 43, 23 Oct. 1915. Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Harvard University, https://nrs.lib.harvard.edu/urn-3:rad.schl:26312859?n=364. Accessed 17 Apr. 2024.
23. “Roster of Parade.” The Boston Globe, 3 May 1915.
24. “Route of the Suffrage Parade, Starting at 2 P.M.” The Boston Globe, 16 Oct. 1915.
25. “Suffrage Address.” The Tech, Volume 35, Issue 28, 15 Oct. 1915. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/mit_the_tech_newspaper-v35-i28/page/n2/mode/1up. Accessed 21 Aug. 2024.
26. “Suffrage Parade Sets a Record.” The Boston Globe, 17 Oct. 1915.
27. “Suffragist Gives Up Walk.” Boston Evening Transcript, 21 Oct. 1915.
28. “Table Gossip.” The Boston Globe, 10 May 1914.
29. “The School Committee: Leaves of Absence Granted.” Boston Evening Transcript, 29 Jan. 1890.
30. “Thousands in the Suffrage Parade.” The Boston Globe, 2 May 1914, p. 1.
31. “To Direct Women’s Assistance in War.” The Boston Globe, 26 Apr. 1917.
32. Tremont Temple, Boston Landmarks Commission [Draft]. Landmarks Commission, Office of Historic Preservation, City of Boston, 2022. https://www.boston.gov/sites/default/files/file/2022/11/Tremont%20Temple%20report%20draft%20posted.pdf. Accessed 22 Aug. 2024.
33. “Women Give Great Parade.” The Boston Globe, 3 May 1914.
34. “Women Watch at Massachusetts Polls.” Woman’s Journal, Vol. 46, No. 39, 29 Sept. 1915. Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Harvard University, https://nrs.lib.harvard.edu/urn-3:rad.schl:26312859?n=314. Accessed 10 Apr. 2024.