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Representing the Prohibition candidate, Carolyn Sewall ‘10 is campaigning for a mock presidential election by making a speech on the back of a wagon to a crowd of enthralled listeners. Drawn by two horses, the wagon carries an oversized liquor…

Participants of the Mount Holyoke Debate Society agreed that the subject of equal suffrage was relevant for their annual inter-society debate. An unknown observer left penciled comments on the program summarizing each argument. The affirmative…

Distributed by the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1916, these flyers, originally sized 5” x 7”, were created to spread awareness for the cause in a convenient handheld size. They contained information about the main tenets of…

This flyer produced by the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association was handed out on Mount Holyoke’s campus during Suffrage Day on April 24. The progressive message of the flyer demonstrates the changing opinion regarding suffrage among students.…

Actor-playwright Ossie Davis is shown speaking at the Civil Rights Conference in Mount Holyoke’s Chapin Auditorium. Political activists Malcolm X and Michael Harrington were scheduled to speak but did not arrive in time due to travel issues.…

Florence Tuttle ‘16 (left), Dorothy Phelps ‘18 (center), and Helen McConkey ‘18 (right) formed a band of trumpets and drums on Suffrage Day May 9th, 1916. The three students wear ‘Votes for Women’ sashes, one of which is featured in this…

Before Mount Holyoke’s mock national election, where the student representatives from each state would meet to vote, the students held a mock state convention. In a letter at the time, a student explains that at this mock convention, students were…

A group of Mount Holyoke and Amherst students went to Washington D.C. to lobby for the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill. In this photo, they are shown with Senator Keating, a member of the House of Representatives. Keating was influential in…

During the 1912 mock election at Mount Holyoke, presidential candidates Roosevelt, Taft, and Debs received the highest number of votes while almost no students voted for Wilson. The student who owned this particular ballot voted for Taft. An opponent…

Mock ballots were used by Mount Holyoke students to vote in campus-wide elections every four years. Just as in the real national election, Roosevelt won the mock election at Mount Holyoke. Unlike Taft and Wilson, Roosevelt was a long-time advocate of…

Matilda mentions the school-wide suffrage vote in three of her letters home in the fall of 1895. In the letter dated October 21, she announces that she will lead the pro-suffrage faction and gauges her family’s opinion by asking, “what does papa…

President of the National College Equal Suffrage League as a senior, Louise Dunbar ‘16 often appeared with a sign bearing the text: “SHOW YOUR FAITH IN THE WOMEN OF MASSACHUSETTS: VOTE YES ON THE AMENDMENT ENABLING WOMEN TO VOTE.” Although the…

This list shows the names of the 29 students from Mount Holyoke who went to the March on Washington in August of 1963. Over 250,000 people marched to protest the inequalities faced by African Americans. The march was influential in the passing of…