"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
- Date
- February 20, 1915
- Period
- First World War
- Made by
- Puck Publishing Corporation, New York; watercolor by Ralph Barton
Full record
Region, Country, Medium, Issuer type, Regime, Leader, Audience, Purpose, Themes, Event, Source, Rights
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Cartoon
- Issuer type
- Media
- Regime
- Wilson Administration
- Leader
- Woodrow Wilson
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Persuade or win support
- Themes
- Gender and suffrage, Elections and party politics
- Event
- US Woman Suffrage Campaign
- Regime
- Wilson administration
- Leader
- Woodrow Wilson
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, retrieved October 10, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (published 1915, before 1931); LoC: no known restrictions on publication
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LCCN 98502849. "Making the Polls Attractive to the Anti-Suffragists" (Puck, 20 February 1915)
