Mapping Social Movements and Exploiting Regional Rhetoric: The U.S. Woman Suffrage Map, 1907-1920

• In Event: ICA Interactive Paper/Poster Session III
  In Interactive Poster Session: Visual Communication Studies Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

This essay examines maps as a tool for social protest and policy advocacy. I analyze the use of the US woman suffrage map to show how social movements can exploit the rhetoric of place through maps and regional rhetoric. I argue that by visualizing US women's voting rights geographically, the suffrage map legitimized woman suffrage, projected the movement's power, and signaled that their success nation-wide was inevitable. Mapping women’s voting rights gave the suffrage movement legitimacy by exaggerating the influence of the movement on national politics and depicting women’s voting rights as spreading across the nation. The black and white coloring of the map envisioned the equal suffrage states in the US West as more civilized and moral than the nonsuffrage states in the East, which challenged traditional meanings of the West. The map invoked regional rhetoric to suggest that suffrage was destined to expand across the continent.

Author

• Tiffany Lewis, Baruch College - CUNY