Enid Yandell by Juilee Decker

Author:Juilee Decker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2019-03-16T16:00:00+00:00

Photograph of Enid participating in a suffrage parade in New York City around 1915, marching alongside two other women. Leading a group of women dressed in white, the trio wear “Votes for Women” sashes and together carry a banner identifying their profession as “Sculptors.” Enid is on the left, alongside fellow sculptor Janet Scudder, in the middle of the group. This photograph was taken by Jessie Tarbox Beals (1870–1942), who is among the first female photojournalists to have their work published. (RISD Museum, Providence, RI.)

Given this photograph’s recent discovery and the lack of information about the number of times this “Sculptors” suffrage banner was employed, it is impossible to say just when the photograph was taken. One of the largest parades was on May 6, 1911, when 3,000 people marched from Fifty-Ninth Street and Central Park South to Union Square, where they met up with a crowd of 10,000 others. Enid, however, was not identified as a suffragist in 1914, in that year’s edition of Woman’s Who’s Who of America, thus pointing more toward her years of involvement being 1915–1917. Given the fact that the women of New York state won the right to vote on November 6, 1917, we can surmise that, even though the need for activism was still present nationally after that time, as a New Yorker Enid likely would have been less motivated to engage politically in the movement, especially as she was by then committed to other causes.25

Enid’s activism may have come when it was needed most. Several states had granted women the right to vote prior to 1912, though to gain agency in principal, populated areas suffragists targeted New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts in 1915 to add these four states to the movement. This push would have been front and center in Enid’s mind, as two of these states—New York and Massachusetts—were her home base after 1908, when she spent winters in New York and summers in Edgartown (aside from her trips to France). We may also assume that Enid’s political engagement conjoined with advocacy and activism upon her witnessing the horrors of war firsthand after 1914. In short, this photograph, and Enid’s participation in at least one suffrage parade, likely dates from between 1915 and November 1917; the specific date may well have been October 23, 1915, when a parade for woman suffrage took place down Fifth Avenue with more than 45,000 supporters.26

Consider the last time Enid was known to have participated in a parade of any kind. In 1890, she reigned as queen of a festival intended to promote Louisville’s growing material prosperity. At that point she had completed her formal education in art school and had traveled abroad. She had begun exhibiting her work and had gained some experience decorating a number of buildings in Louisville but had not yet left home to gain employment as an artist. Now, twenty-five years later, she could exploit the perspective that she had gained professionally and personally as a result of her work.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.