Program

National Votes for Women Trail

Subject

People, Site

Location

1 National Blvd, Long Beach, NY 11561, USA

Lat/Long

40.584532, -73.666868

Grant Recipient

National Collaborative for Women's History Sites

On July 4, 1913, suffragists, including Edna (Mrs. Wilmer) Kearns, gave speeches from the boardwalk at Long Beach, New York, using their “Spirit of 1776” wagon to draw attention to the suffrage cause. The Fourth of July crowds listened to the speeches from the boardwalk and the beach, and also witnessed a “voiceless speech” given by Kearns from the water. The July 5, 1913 edition of the New York Times gave an account of the event:

The suffragettes were at Long Beach yesterday, and as they saw the sands packed with people, remarked what a splendid crowd had come to see them. A great part of the crowd did listen, as a matter of fact, to their speechmaking on the beach from their little 1776 campaign wagon and on the boardwalk from chairs. Even the beach aristocrats, who sat under big umbrellas all day long, were interested, especially in little Mrs. Wilmer Kearns, as she presented her “voiceless speech” from the ocean itself.

The cards on which this speech was written were displayed on a big yellow tripod, with its feet on the edge of the waves, and Mrs. Kearns, clad in her bathing suit, with “Votes for Women” on a yellow cap on her head, and wearing a yellow sash, stood in the water and turned on the speech.

The New York Times account provided a brief description of the campaign wagon from which the suffragists were handing out suffrage literature on the boardwalk:

The 1776 cart carried a yellow umbrella and was decorated with banners, and the suffragettes themselves were equipped with “Votes for Women” parasols or yellow bags for the suffrage papers.

According to the June 26, 1913 New York Times, the “Yellow Fourth” demonstration on the Long Beach boardwalk was planned by the New York State Woman Suffrage Association, which was led by Harriet May Mills, then president of the state association.

Thanks to decades of activism by suffragists, New York women won the right to vote in 1917, when voters in the state approved a women’s suffrage amendment to the state constitution. Women across the country would finally achieve the right to vote after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920, which stated that the right to vote could not be denied on account of sex.