Why They Marched by Susan Ware

Author:Susan Ware
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harvard University Press

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Mountaineering for Suffrage

IN 1909, the Washington Equal Suffrage Association (WESA) published a cookbook with this credo on the frontispiece: “Give us a vote and we will cook the better for a wide outlook.” The cookbook was the brainchild of WESA president Emma Smith Devoe, who had three thousand copies printed and made sure it was advertised widely in the Woman’s Journal. When critics suggested the cookbook was just a political ploy for the upcoming 1910 Washington state referendum, Devoe demurred, although she did add playfully, “Not that I say that the book hasn’t made us friends among the men.” How could it not, when its preface presented this appealing picture: “Home, a smiling woman, and a good dinner—does not the heart of man yearn toward this trio at evening time? In the best interests of all concerned, we offer you this little book.”1

The Washington Women’s Cook Book was one of a number of cookbooks produced over the course of the suffrage campaign, all designed to promote some combination of “good cooking and sure voting.” Modeled on the popular genre of charity cookbooks, their format followed familiar forms: recipes and menus for ordinary meals and special occasions, as well as a range of practical advice on matters such as housekeeping and beauty, with quotes and anecdotes designed to advance the cause of votes for women interspersed throughout. The cookbooks were designed primarily as fundraisers, but they also proved quite helpful in building good will for the cause. Cookbooks reinforced the key suffrage argument that voting would not strip women of their domestic skills—or, as the cover of the Washington Women’s Cook Book put it: “Votes for Women / Good Things to Eat.”2 But alongside that paean to women’s traditional roles was intriguing evidence that suffragists no longer confined themselves to hearth and home: a recipe “To Cook Trout in the Forest,” which begins, “First catch your trout.”

The recipe was part of a chapter contributed by a group of women climbers affiliated with the Mountaineers, a Seattle-based outdoor recreation club. Dr. Cora Smith Eaton, a well-respected physician and officer of the Washington Equal Suffrage Association, was one of its members. In addition to a list of recipes suitable for cooking while camping, the chapter included a three-page list of the supplies and equipment a woman would need for mountaineering, including a sleeping bag, a tramping suit featuring bloomers or knickerbockers, a mosquito head net, three pairs of cotton hose, light and heavy undersuits, toilet articles, a jackknife and a needle and thread. Just months later, to prove the point that mountaineering and woman suffrage went hand in hand, Cora Smith Eaton planted a “Votes for Women” banner on the summit of Columbia Crest on Mount Rainier.

Cover of the Washington Women’s Cook Book (1909). Courtesy of Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.

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