The Buffalo Express described the parade above in positive terms, "...a long line of white with yellow banners, yellow hats and shunshades glinting in the hot sunshine and here and there in green and violet of other banners to add color to the spendid suffrage demonstration."

The Buffalo Evening News was equally generous: "Today's pageant attracted throngs of people along the route of the march. The suffragists, headed by their guiding spirit in this city and hereabouts, Mrs. Frank J. Shuler, as grand marshal, were given a cordial greeting as they marched along with white and yellow streamers floating out to the populace the message, 'Votes for Women.' ..The pageant was a brilliant spectacle, with the women leaders bearing flags and banners and little girls in dainty and summery attire, and the more aged of the suffrage workers in carriages - it was a fine display creditable to the women."

Two bands accompanied the marchers, prompting some men on the curb to comment that they didn't know women could march so well. In addition to the suffrage marchers, 80 girls and 35 boys marched, as did 28 Camp Fire Girls. There was a men's division, 45 strong, led by Chauncy J. Hamlin, carrying banners that said "the criminal, the insane man, the idiot vote - why not women?'

The prescribed dress of the day was white dressses and three-cornered colonial hats. The parade began at Niagara Square at 2:30 p.m. and marched up Niagara Street to Franklin, to Church, then to Main and North, up Delaware to Virginia, ending at the Elmwood Music Hall where speeches were given. Harriet May Mills represented the New York State Suffrage Assocation.

There were 25,000 enrolled suffragists in Buffalo at that time but the city and its surrounding rural villages were not regarded as overwhelmingly pro-suffrage. It helped that Mrs. Dexter P. Rumsey was a financial supporter and that William J. Connors, publisher of the Buffalo Courier and Enquirer, supported suffrage in his newspapers.

By 1914, 11 states and Alaska had approved suffrage for women, but not New York State. It would be three more years before New York, the birthplace of the women's rights movement in the 19th century and home of women's rights icons Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, would pass legislation for woman's suffrage. In January, 1914, the New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage began in New York City. They employed the same arguments for their cause as the Buffalo Express newspaper had back in 1873 when it stated, "...there are many grave reasons why women should not be enfranchised. Foremost of these, in most minds, is the strong possibilities that enfranchisement would work a great relaxation, if not a practical abrogation of the marriage ties...The ballot is both the symbol and generator of equality. With the gift of the ballot to women the family at once ceases to be under the control of a single hand - the husband and wife become equal partners..."

But the New York Times declared in October, 1915 that the Western New York suffragists had made remarkable progress. Speaking of Buffalo, it said, "The hottest suffrage fight, of course, has been made in this city. The suffragists have been conducting it without let-up for two years. According to statements made at their headquarters, public sentiment here has undergone a remarkable change. Once there was pronounced hostility. By degrees the audiences have become more sympathetic."

And the march of 1914 proved this to be the case. In light of open hostility and physical attacks on suffrage marchers in other cities over the years, Buffalo provided a police escort to lead the march and 150 policemen to walk along the parade route with the marchers. The Express concluded , "But there was respect and admiration only and enthusiasm." One "tired mother" standing at the curb with her three children said to the man beside her, "I think that this is the kind of thing that helps them. If the women get the vote, these parades will do more than anything else, don't you think?" The man nodded in agreement.

In June 1919, the 19th amendent to the Constitution was passed. In August 1920, Tennesee became the 36th (and deciding) state to ratify the amendmen guaranteeing women the right to vote.

Miss Janet Fotheringham, of Buffalo, N.Y. a teacher of physical culture, was arrested on July 14, 1917 while picketing in Washington D.C.

She was a member of the National Women's Party, founded by Alice Paul & Lucy Burns 1915. The NWP adopted the more militant tactics of the British suffrage movement like picketing,"suffrage watch," and chaining themselves to monuments.

Scores of women were arrested in Washington, D.C. beginning in June, 1917 for picketing the White House; their ages ranged from 17 to 73. They were doctors, nurses, teachers, students. They were fined $25 or given the option of going to jail. Miss Fotheringham, like the others, chose jail, and all were sentenced to up to 60 days at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia. The conditions were bad enough, but around 40 guards rampaged through this group one night, beating everyone and sending some to the hospital with severe injuries.

Miss Fotheringham was fortunate that her sentence was reduced to 3 days; by November, 1917, all were released. The resulting publicity in favor of woman's suffrage was priceless.

Image source: Library of Congress