Program

National Votes for Women Trail

Subject

Event

Location

117 S Flagler Dr, West Palm Beach, FL 33401, USA

Lat/Long

26.71275, -80.04926

Grant Recipient

National Collaborative for Women's History Sites

On March 8, 1917, the Palm Beach County Equal Suffrage League marched in a parade to rally support for women’s right to vote as part the Flagler Day festivities in West Palm Beach, Florida. Approximately 300 women suffrage supporters from across the country took part in the parade, and the Palm Beach Post estimated that 25,000 people total attended the day’s festivities. The Palm Beach County Equal Suffrage League was formed the previous year by Lydia D. Hampton Cowling, who was president of the league at the time of the parade.

The March 9, 1917 edition of the Miami Herald described the West Palm Beach suffrage parade:

Over three hundred women, gay with sashes with the ‘Votes for Women’ slogan and bearing yellow banners, marched four abreast as the climax and conclusion of the day’s parade. And from the waves of applause and cheering which greeted them all along their course the sentiment of the people of Florida is strongly in favor of the ballots for both.

After the long procession of floats had passed came the band, which played particularly for the suffragists. There followed on a huge white horse Mrs. Gibson, of Indiana, wearing the silver armor and helmet of Jeanne D’Arc. Mrs. Herbert S. Carpenter, of New York, marched after, carrying a huge gold fringed American flag, making, in her severe white frock, a most stunning figure.

The Miami Herald also noted how, “A large number of men marched in a body after the women, also bearing the suffrage colors.”

After years of suffrage activism, on June 4, 1919, the United States Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment which states, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” After this, Florida suffragists lobbied for the state’s ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. Despite their efforts, the state did not vote on the amendment. However, by August 1920, 36 states had ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, securing women’s right to vote across the United States, including in Florida.