Program

National Votes for Women Trail

Subject

People

Location

423 Main St, Cromwell, CT 06416, USA

Lat/Long

41.60518, -72.648378

Grant Recipient

National Collaborative for Women's History Sites

Emily M. Pierson was a prolific strategist in Connecticut’s suffragist movement. In her capacity as State Organizer for the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association (CWSA), she planned campaign itineraries and disseminated suffragist window cards, signs, and literature. Emily frequently spoke at factories, street rallies, “five-minute talks” before movie showings, and conventions. She also led automobile campaigns throughout the state and the Northeast, often driving her own car.

In the March 7, 1914 edition of the Hartford Courant, Emily described the importance of a suffrage parade as a campaign tool and as a metaphor for women’s roles:

The deep significance of a woman suffrage parade is hardly grasped by the casual observer. Only those who have together marched shoulder to shoulder for a great ideal can realize the spiritual uplift which comes at such a time. To feel yourself part of a great movement is to end forever any self-consciousness. While a parade is passing, all traffic is held up. So with this movement; this parade signifies more than simply the victorious onward march of an idea. It typifies the work of the world, waiting to be done, until women shall have gained the power to do it. At the last woman suffrage parade in New York, a cabman was heard remark, ‘Oh give ‘em the vote, but don’t stop the traffic.’ This is exactly the position we women take.

In 1917, Emily resigned from the CWSA to support more progressive suffrage organizations. After women gained the right to vote, she attended Yale University and graduated with a medical degree in 1924. She opened a medical practice at her home and also served as a school physician and the director of health in Cromwell, CT. Emily remained an active traveler and lecturer in the years leading up to her death in 1971.

As of 2021, the marker commemorating Emily M. Pierson stands outside her family home at 423 Main Street, where her father operated his floral business and where she later established her medical practice.