Listen to a 101-Year-Old Clarion Call for Women's Suffrage Preserved in Shellac

"Do you believe in a democracy? Do you believe taxation without representation is tyranny? Or is it tyranny only for men? Do you want a government of the people, for the people and by the people? And aren't women people?

When Gertrude Foster Brown (1867-1956) recorded these remarks for Pathe' more than a century ago, she was addressing voting aged men. At that point, women could only vote in 12 states and there was a referendum on female suffrage for New York State scheduled for Election Day 1915. But the suffragettes didn't have the votes in the legislature. It wasn't until two years later that New York State became the first Eastern state to adopt fully a women's right to vote in the state constitution. In a letter to the editor of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brown called the vote "a modern weapon that women must have to get at the cause of social evils instead of treating their symptoms."[1] And as she embraced the emerging media technology of the day, she was confident that women would soon be armed.

"Women's suffrage is coming; everybody knows that. President Wilson and his cabinet, Theodore Roosevelt, W.J. Bryan, Governor Whitman and Mayor Mitchell of New York City are in favor of it. Gentlemen, women have been working for 75 years for a share in your democracy. Won't you give your wives and daughters, sisters and mothers, the rights you enjoy of enfranchised American citizenship?"

Gertrude Foster Brown began her adult life as a music teacher and concert pianist before becoming a women's rights activist. Following the national passage of women's suffrage in 1920, she wrote Your Vote and How to Use It, published by Harper's the next year.

Impressed with her work and activism, women's movement leader Carrie Chapman Catt asked Brown to take over The Women's Journal, founded in 1870 by Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell. She remained there until the magazine's closing in 1931. Brown was also active in the League of Women Voters and the New York Women's City Club. She spoke out forcefully for the League of Nations, and during World War II, was a representative of the Women's Action Committee for Victory and Lasting Peace at the founding United Nations conference in San Francisco, in 1945.

Gertrude Foster Brown, President of the New York State Suffrage Association circa 1913.

(Library of Congress)

[1] Brown, Gertrude Foster, "Want Suffrage First," The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 14, 1914, pg. 8. 

[2] You may have noticed that Brown's speech is on side "B". Side "A" was given to a man, Rabbi Stephen Wise, also speaking in favor of women's suffrage.

[3] Thanks to Danny Sbardella for the digital transfer and signal processing.

You can read a full transcript of Gertrude Foster Brown's recorded remarks below:

The most important question before the country today is that of women's suffrage. It is not only votes for women but the entire question of democracy that is at stake.  Ever since our government was founded, men have been proclaiming a government that should not be for the benefit of any man or class of men, but that everybody should have equal representation, where those who obey the law should have a voice in making that law. Gentlemen, that is the real question in votes for women. Do you believe in Democracy? Do you believe taxation without representation is tyranny? Or is it tyranny only for men? Do you want a government of the people, for the people, and by the people? And aren't women people?

Women vote already in twelve states, one-half of the total area of the United States. The women of Chicago, of San Francisco, of Los Angeles, Denver, Portland, and Seattle are going to vote for the next President. Aren't the women of this state as intelligent as the women of Chicago? Or, are eastern men less generous than men of the west? 

Millions of women taxpayers are asking for the vote so that they may have representation. Millions of women housekeepers are asking for the vote so that may help men with public housekeeping. Millions of mothers are asking for the vote so that they may stop child labor and help men protect the children and give them a better chance. Millions of working women are asking for the vote so that they may have the same power to protect themselves that men have. Women should have the vote because it would draw husbands and wives, fathers and daughters, brothers, and sisters closer together, giving them an equal share and interest in important public questions. Women should have the vote because it would compel men in public office to think more of the welfare of women, of the children, of decency and morality. Women should have the vote because it is unjust, shameful, and cowardly for men to deprive women of that which they demand for themselves.

The home is the bulwark of our nation. Give the home two votes instead of one. Give the mother a vote as well as the father. If the Almighty can trust women to bear children, cannot men trust them to use their vote for the welfare of those children?

Women's suffrage is coming; everybody knows that. President Wilson and his cabinet, Theodore Roosevelt, W.J. Bryan, Governor Whitman, and Mayor Mitchell of New York City are in favor of it. Gentlemen, women have been working for 75 years for a share in your democracy. Won't you give your wives and daughters, sisters and mothers, the rights you enjoy of enfranchised American citizenship?