Woman Suffrage Petition with Petition Drive Instructions

Working-class women joined the women's suffrage movement in significant numbers during the 1910s. Experience in the workplace made working women acutely aware of their vulnerability to discrimination and exploitation, which motivated their passionate support for women’s voting rights.

The movement not only gained unprecedented numbers of supporters, but also leaders with deep experience of labor organizing. Working-class suffragists deployed new tactics—taken from their experience as labor organizers—to agitate for the vote. They were also pivotal in winning the active support of working-class men and male-dominated trade unions for women’s enfranchisement.

The instruction page attached to this 1911 woman suffrage petition from Chicago shows that suffragists adopted labor union tactics to build working-class support for woman suffrage.