Wednesday 8 July 2015

Anti-Suffragette Attitudes
EXPOSED

Opposition Against The Suffragette Movement

September, 25th 1920


Approximately one hundred years ago woman on both sides of the Atlantic fought for the right to vote.

Opposition against the Suffragette movement was widespread and is well documented.

The Woman Patriot was a weekly tabloid published in the United States from April 27, 1918 to December 1932. The paper was published by the Woman’s Anti-Suffrage Association and it claimed to be Dedicated to the Defence of The Family and the State and Against Feminism and Socialism. Margaret C. Robinson and Mary Kilbreth were the editors.

Mrs. H. Riordan

Please Click On The Above Image To Open Details From The Library of Congress:




On finding that many of the Suffragettes in America had links to New York I decide to investigate further, with the idea of possibly posting information in one of my Blogs dedicated to artwork that depicts New York.

I was able to find a number of interesting photographs of the leading American Suffragettes, including a very good image of Mrs. H. Riordan, taken in New York that belonged to the George Grantham Bain Collection, which was acquired by the Library of Congress in 1948.

The photograph was taken in 1911 and shows Mrs. H. Riordan while distributing "The American Suffragette" that was produced by the National Progressive Woman Suffrage Union.





See Larger Image

Please Click The Image To See A Larger Version:




The photograph can be found for sale in a number of places on the internet and can also be found in a number of other Web pages and Blogs.

All examples of the image that I have found include the damaged area that can be seen on the right of the image, which I find to be a distraction that draws the eye away from the main point of interest.

As the image has no known restrictions on publication I thought I would attempt to see how it would look without the damaged area.





I have an HND in documentary photography and have studied Electronic Media Design at university, I have been restoring photographs and changing them to make them look funny for many years and so I find the process a lot of fun.

Once while working on an image I uncovered a subliminal message.



A Restored Example

I stated by removing all the spots, scratches and blemishes, before moving on to the main damaged area.

Most of the work on the main damaged area was produced while working at full magnification, starting with the door, then the step before moving on to the figure on the extreme right of the image.

I then worked on the man's hand cleaning the side of the shop entrance and finally began to work on the area that looks a little like a shopping bag that looks to be in the left hand of the man cleaning the side of the shop entrance.

It was while working on the final area of the photograph in full magnification that I became aware of being able to see the man's penis.



The Exposure

I believe the original photograph would have looked very close to the way the above image looks.

It is likely that the damage to the original glass negative was not accidental and that it was an attempt to cover the area in order to make sales of the photograph to newspapers and magazines that otherwise would not accept the original image.