In addition to film, more Americans were reading than ever before. Census records indicate that American literacy rates rose steadily throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.[1] Suffragists took advantage of high literacy by creating their own newspapers. The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) produced and disseminated The Woman’s Journal (Later renamed The Woman Citizen) while the National Woman’s Party created The Suffragist beginning in 1913. Further, suffragists used mass market magazines like Puck, Judge, Good Housekeeping, Life, and even locally produced newspapers as platforms for their political cartoons.

A number of women emerged as significant illustrators for the suffrage cause including: Nina Allender, the official cartoonist for The Suffragist, Rose O’Neill, an illustrator for Puck and other freelance magazines, and Lou Rogers, a feminist illustrator for Judge. These suffrage cartoonists helped develop a recognizable set of icons by which the public identified suffrage. Nina Allender developed the quintessential suffrage girl, who borrowed from Gibson and Christy, American standards of beauty, but imparted the suffrage message and spirit for reform. Rose O’Neill created the Kewpies, a Cherub-like figure whose chubby cheeks charmed the public. Lou Rogers played more into the vision of new womanhood; she presented suffragists as classical figures who sought to leave behind the notion that politics had no place for women.