Votes for Women

Named by historian Kevin Brownlow as “the first important suffrage film”, this melodrama follows suffragist May Fillmore in her fight to sway Senator Herman, whose vote could pass a key reform bill. After exposing him and his fiancée Jane Wadsworth to the dire living conditions of a motherless tenement family—unsanitary housing, child labor, and workplace exploitation—Jane turns against her negligent fiancé and joins the suffrage cause. Ultimately, both Herman and Jane’s father are persuaded to support reform, and the film ends with the characters proudly taking part in a suffrage parade. (Note: This silent narrative film is distinct from Edison’s Votes for Women (1913), a Kinetophone short that recorded real suffragist leaders delivering speeches.)

Cast

Edgena De Lespine Jane Wadsworth

Gertrude Robinson Sue Balfour

Pearl Egan

Gladys Egan

Charles Herman

Edward P. Sullivan

J.W. Backus

Jane Addams Self

Frances Maule Bjorkman Self

Florence Maule Cooley Self

Mary Ware Dennett Self

Metadata from the source database.