The period of the suffrage movement’s intense fight for voting rights in the United States coincided with the golden age of postcards. Given that the primary goal of commercial suffrage-themed postcards wasn’t pro-suffrage or anti-suffrage propaganda, but to sell as many of them as possible, they offer an interesting starting point for exploring public opinion of the suffrage movement and the social roles of men and women. The postcards with their portrayals of men and women show the apparent incompatibility of the voting rights as a masculine concept and the society’s definition of women. In this thesis I analyze postcards with the most common suffrage themes and compare them with anti-suffrage verbal arguments. The postcards I analyze fall between 1905, which is the start of the public usage of postcards, and 1920, the year the suffrage movement in the United States ended.
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