---
title: '"Making the Polls Attractive to the Anti-Suffragists" (Puck, 20 February 1915)'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/making-polls-attractive-to-anti-suffragists-puck-1915/
description: Society women play cards and dance at a ballroom table, one casting a ballot into a box at the card table while an unmarked ballot sits on a cushion.
section: Collection
---

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3. "Making the Polls Attractive to the Anti-Suffragists"

[!["Making the Polls Attractive to the Anti-Suffragists", 1915 US cartoon: Society women play cards and dance at a ballroom](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/making-polls-attractive-to-anti-suffragists-puck-1915.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/making-polls-attractive-to-anti-suffragists-puck-1915.jpg)

# "Making the Polls Attractive to the Anti-Suffragists" (Puck, 20 February 1915)

Society women play cards and dance at a ballroom table, one casting a ballot into a box at the card table while an unmarked ballot sits on a cushion. The tell: it answers the anti-suffrage women's position by picturing them as people who would vote only if voting were a party.

Puck Publishing Corporation of New York ran this watercolor by Ralph Barton in its issue of 20 February 1915, as a cartoon for the domestic public on the women's suffrage question. It pictures society women playing cards and dancing around a table, with one dropping a ballot into a box at the card table. The scene suggests that women opposed to suffrage would vote only if the polls were made a social party. That recasts the opponents' position in a lighter and less serious form than they would state it themselves, which is the straw man technique.

## Propaganda techniques used in this cartoon

[Straw man](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/straw-man/)

## Full record

Region, Country, Medium, Issuer type, Regime, Leader, Audience, Purpose, Themes, Event, Source, Rights

[← "The Awakening" (Puck centerfold, 20 February 1915)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/awakening-puck-1915/) [La Libre Belgique, no. 7, front page (clandestine, Brussels, March 1915): "Bulletin de propagande patriotique" →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/la-libre-belgique-no-7-bulletin-de-propagande-patriotique-1915/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal, Ad hominem, Straw man)
- [Political caricature. No. 3, The abolition catastrophe. Or the November smash-up](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/abolition-catastrophe-1864/) (United States · 1864 · Bandwagon, Name-calling, Straw man). Content note: 1864 Democratic print using a racial slur.
- ["A Female Suffrage Fancy" (Puck, 14 July 1880)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/female-suffrage-fancy-puck-1880/) (United States · Jul 14, 1880 · Straw man). Content note: 1880 satire of women voting, built on gender-reversal jokes, shown as published.
- ["A Squelcher for Woman Suffrage" (Puck cover, 6 June 1894)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/squelcher-for-woman-suffrage-puck-1894/) (United States · Jun 6, 1894 · Straw man)
- ["When women vote: what will happen if the polling place is located in a millinery shop" (Puck, 1909)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/when-women-vote-millinery-shop-puck-1909/) (United States · Apr 28, 1909 · Straw man)
- ["Well, Missy! Heah we is!" (Puck, 1913)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/well-missy-heah-we-is-puck-1913/) (United States · Mar 13, 1913 · Name-calling, Straw man). Content note: 1913 cartoon with racial caricature of Black women and dialect, drawn into the suffrage debate, shown as published.