Celebrate the Vote & Save the Date for A Centennial Celebration of the Golden Lane

In 1916, over 3000 suffragists converged on Saint Louis, Missouri in the sweltering heat for the Democratic National Convention to demand that a plank be included in the party platform in support of women's suffrage. The women wore white dresses and golden sashes that said “Votes for Women” and lined Locust Street where the delegates would walk from the Jefferson Hotel to the convention center. Their “walkless talkless parade” would become known as “The Golden Lane” and they accomplished their objective, as this was included in the 1916 Democratic platform (from p. 21 of the National Democratic Party's Democratic Text Book - 1916):

“We recommend the extension of the franchise

to the women of the country

by the States upon the same terms as to men.”

The League of Women Voters of Metro St. Louis is hosting a centennial celebration at Central Library on Saturday, September 3:

10:00         Music

10:30         Join the parade! Wear white like the 1916 suffragists. Or, just be yourself - which is part of what the suffragists were fighting for.

11:00         Speakers

11:30-2      Food, Shopping, Voter Registration, Music, Movies, and More

In anticipation of the celebration, we have gathered some books from our shelves about the struggle for the vote and the accomplishments women have achieved since the 19th Amendment passed. One treasure we found in the stacks is Women are People! by Alice Duer Miller, a slim 1917 volume of verse and essays, many of which were published in the New York Tribune.


Here is one of the poems, from the section "Our Friend the Enemy" - and some pictures of our book display. Hope you come visit us if you come to the celebration - or any time you are downtown.

Her Representative

"I represent my wife," he said;
"I really cannot see
How she would profit by the vote;
I vote for her and me.
And men consider - Time has shown -
Their wives' opinions like their own.


"If my wife voted she would vote
For many silly measures,
Which do not add in any way
To profits or to pleasures;
Like Widows' Pensions, Equal Pay,
More schools, and an eight-hour day.


"On Woman Suffrage I vote no;
Perhaps you had not heard
My wife believes in that as well;
How wicked and absurd!
Oh let us save domestic strife,
And let me represent my wife!"