Votes for Women

The feature that has the support of every suffrage organization in the country.

Votes for Women — Plot

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.)

• Release date
• June 25, 1912
• Runtime
• 20 min
• Director
• Hal Reid

Votes for Women — Cast

E

Edgena De Lespine Jane Wadsworth Gertrude Robinson

S

Sue Balfour

P

Pearl Egan Gladys Egan

C

Charles Herman Edward P. Sullivan

J

J.W. Backus