In addition to these popular publications, a fair amount of suffrage paraphernalia was produced outside of the
official movement. For instance, the cause enlisted the hugely popular images of Kewpies -- an army of cherub-like babies whose dimples and diapers endeared the American public. Created by Rose O’Neill, the Kewpies were a huge commercial success through poetry published in national magazines, mass-produced bisque dolls and charming postcards. O'Neill lent her famed Cupids to the suffrage cause, as she was a supporter of woman's enfranchisement. 

            Kewpies, an affectionate nickname for cupid-like cherubs, launched into popular culture in 1909 when they first appeared in an issue of the Ladies’ Home Journal. The characters were created by Rose O’Neill, a cartoonist from Pennsylvania. In 1914 Good Housekeeping published a series of poems about the mischievous, but helpful creatures, entitled “The Kewpies Arrive.” O’Neill illustrated and wrote the poem:

            They’re Kewpies -- short for Cupid; thus, you see,

                        They’re shorter than that famous “cuss,” you see,

            Their little tummies are more dumpy, too.

                        Their general aspect much more plumpy, too.

            They look on ordinary Cupids, though,

            For they are always working double-while

                        To get poor people into trouble, while

            The Kewpies’ one idea is: “Let ‘em out!

                        By hook or crook, or crowbar, get ‘em out!”^[1]

           They became wildly popular as they were produced as paper dolls and more elaborate German porcelain dolls. Rose O’Neill lent the image of her famous cherubs to the suffrage cause as she was an avid supporter of votes for women. She created a series of postcards and cartoons that presented the Kewpies promoting the cause. The Kewpies are indicative of the consumerism that really guided the way in which suffragists presented themselves to the general public. Margaret Finnegan wrote in Selling Suffrage that the commodities produced by and for the woman’s suffrage movement in the 1910s “became signifiers of cultural legitimacy in a consumer-capitalist society. They suggested that non-radical suffragists were fully in tune with modern consumer values, including the celebration of material abundance and commodity-centered selfhood.”^[2]

           O'Neill and other illustrators additionally suggested that children demanded the votes on behalf of their mothers who needed the vote to help regulate all things concerning childcare. Female suffragists also thought that the use of girls in their images helped to frame woman's suffrage, not only as an issue concerning adults, but the lives and futures of female children.