Remembering the 1915 Women’s March for Suffrage

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One hundred and four years ago today, 25,000 women hit the pavement of New York City’s Fifth Avenue and demanded the radical concept of equality. Armed with painted signs and cloaked in suffragette white, the massive crowd was fighting for women’s right to vote, a battle that began 65 years earlier and wouldn’t end for another five years. Although not immediately successful in its goal, the five-mile march was a catalyst for the suffrage movement—women were seen, heard, and taken seriously in the political consciousness for the first time.

The largest and most recognized march in the suffrage movement actually took years of careful planning. The first unofficial suffragette parade took the streets of New York City in 1908, despite being denied a permit and facing police intervention. Throughout the controversy, this march put local suffragettes on the map, and blossomed a routine of weekly meetings, strikes, and marches. Over nearly a decade of steady growth and strategic organization, the suffrage movement gained enough publicity and membership to give their cause a proper platform.

In the midst of Fifth Avenue’s bustle, the thousands of women marching for equality formed a breathtaking spotlight thanks to a cloak of suffragette white. A symbol of purity and virtue, white became the signature shade of suffragettes early in their organization. In 1908, white, along with purple and gold, became an official color of the Women’s Social and Political Union. By appropriating the color white as their uniform, suffragettes built a unified front that was easily accessible to all.

Although suffragettes were some of the most progressively radical people of the century, their wardrobes were anything but—and intentionally so. While the “resistant” woman was often portrayed as masculine and unfashionable by male-dominated media, suffragettes took to the streets in classically feminine, on-trend styles. Feminist leaders of the 19th century quickly noted that a socially unacceptable sign demanding the vote became slightly more palatable when held inches above the season’s hottest Victorian dress. Suffragettes in the 20th century kept to this strategy of hiding in plain sight, as it was effective in not only bashing the stigma of an unfeminine political woman, but in drawing droves of new members who saw the movement as something approachable, even chic, while quietly getting feminist work done.

Over one hundred years later, the 1915 march for suffrage continues to vibrate through the bones of fourth-wave feminists. Generation after generation of women have channeled the innovative strides of suffragettes, from political bravado to aesthetic strategies and everything in between. Suffragette white continues to be a source of strength and solidarity for women in politics, from Hillary Clinton’s pantsuits to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s swearing-in ceremony. Feminist messages weave throughout runways, from Missoni pussyhats to Prabal Gurung running his victory lap in a “This is What a Feminist Looks Like” t-shirt. In a stark contrast to the suffragettes’ quiet suffering in constricting dresses for the cause, fourth-wave feminism makes no effort to hide.

Until gender equality is a true reality, the boundary-breaking leaders of feminism will continue to evolve—with a century of history, fashion, and badass women on their side.

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