Selling Suffrage: Consumer Culture and Votes for Women

Margaret Finnegan

"In this innovative, original, and exciting study, Finnegan adds immeasurably to our understanding of the culture of politics and the politics of culture. Linking the struggle for women's suffrage to the culture of consumer capitalism in the Progressive Era, Selling Suffrage shows how politics is not just a struggle for power but also for social space and moral authority." — George Lipsitz, author of Rainbow at Midnight: Labor and Culture in the 1940s

"Selling Suffrage explores the fascinating topic of how the suffrage movement in the United States, with great savvy though not without some qualms along the way, marshalled the tactics of design and display from consumer culture to the cause of gaining women the vote. Finnegan's astute and nuanced analysis of a range of artifacts--posters, sanwich boards, hats, badges--raises intriguing questions about the roles of women: as political agitators, as consumers, and as marketeers." — Cecile Whiting, author of A Taste for Pop: Pop Art, Gender, and Consumer Culture

Series

• Popular Cultures, Everyday Lives

About the Author

Margaret Finnegan received a Ph.D. in history from UCLA. She has taught at various universities, and lives and writes in Los Angeles.

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