"When women vote: what will happen if the polling place is located in a millinery shop" (Puck, 1909)
Women crowd a hat shop, trying on hats, with a small inset of women entering the shop door; the title imagines a polling place there. The tell: it argues against women voting by picturing women who would not take the ballot seriously, a claim no suffrage speaker made.
A cartoon published in Puck, New York, on 28 April 1909, with the engraving signed by Gordon Grant, during the American woman suffrage campaign. It is aimed at the domestic public and argues against women voting. The title imagines a polling place in a millinery shop, and women crowd a hat shop trying on hats, with a small inset of women entering at the door. The tagged technique is Straw man: the cartoon pictures women who would not take the ballot seriously, a position it attributes to women voters but which the record of suffrage speakers does not show.
Propaganda techniques used in this cartoon
- Date
- April 28, 1909
- Period
- Pre-1914
- Made by
- Puck (Keppler & Schwarzmann, New York); engraving signed by Gordon Grant
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
- Taft Administration
- Leader
- William Howard Taft
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Persuade or win support
- Themes
- Gender and suffrage, Elections and party politics
- Event
- US Woman Suffrage Campaign
- 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 1909, before 1931); LoC: no known restrictions on publication
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LCCN 2002720349. "When women vote: what will happen if the polling place is located in a millinery shop" (Puck, 1909)
