“How can you vote if the fashions are wide and the voting booths are narrow?”

The 19th Amendment (6/4/1919) gave American women the right to vote, and with that, a kind of political power they had never had before.

On this Election Day 2012, if you’re an American, please vote. If you’re an American woman, thank the women who organized parades, tableaux and demonstrations to force the passage of the 19th Amendment.

Some of the images look almost silly now, but scanning the images at the Library of Congress (search term=woman suffrage) gives you a sense of the size of the demonstrations that they staged. This was massive, street theatre, direct action, unabashed politicking. In heels and hats, and even furs. Vote, and thank the women who came before us.