1919 Women vote suffrage paper window banner GR, Mich

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A WOMAN LIVING HERE HAS REGISTERED TO VOTE THEREBY ASSUMING RESPONSIBILITY OF CITIZENSHIP Women's Suffrage paper poster or banner. Measures approx. 10.5" X 5.5". Top margin reads: "Hang one of these in your window for each woman registered. Leave it there until March 1st. Cut this off before displaying. Americanization Society, 318 Shepard Building, Citizens 8315 - Bell 40, Grand Rapids, Mich." These posters where originally created by the Americanization Society of Grand Rapids, MI for their January 1st through February 15, 1919 campaign to get women registered to vote in the March 1919 primary election. Scroll down the page for more on the Americanization Society and their 1919 campaign. Since these posters were made to hang in the windows of registered women voters, very few of them exist today, making them a very valuable piece of American History. The original posters (if you can find one) sell from $500 in fair condition, up to as much as $1,500 in excellent condition. The poster for sale here is an exact reproduction of the original item, down to the smallest detail. We have taken the time to hand-age this poster so as to have the look and feel of the original item. We use a very effective aging process to get the desired results. The age spots, creasing and other effects ARE NOT just printed on the poster, they are actually on the paper. It is almost impossible to tell this fine reproduction from the original, even when they are sitting side by side! This poster would make a superb gift and display nicely in a frame. Own a unique piece of American and Grand Rapids, Michigan history at a fraction of the cost of an original. ****** A RECORD OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GRAND RAPIDS AMERICANIZATION SOCIETY'S PLAN OF CITIZENSHIP TRAINING THROUGH THE BALLOT By Frank L. Dykema Grand Rapids The plan now carried out in Grand Rapids for the development of citizenship was not formulated in detail at the time the work was initiated. Our present methods are the net result of many experiments, but our conception of the necessity for this work coincides with our initial motive. This necessity, as we see it, rises out of the lack of any sense of obligation on the part of the average citizen, to know about, or participate in, the affairs of the community, state and nation. Matters of common concern provoke no sense of responsibility, and the apathy, inertia, or indifference of men and women is the outward sign of a low citizenship morality. This is the real malady afflicting America today. The light vote, the alien, and the radical problems are considered as causes, whereas, they are really effects, directly traceable to the untrained and unconscious citizen. Specifically, if every citizen, man and woman, had a true conception of the sacredness of the ballot, a conception sufficiently alive to compel him to vote every election day, politics as a business would be eliminated, because politics as a business exists only through the "light vote," and because of the citizens' lack of in formation about community affairs, the latter would also be cured if he felt the obligation to vote, since a recognized obligation to perform a duty includes the securing of the necessary information to perform it properly. If, in addition to voting, and keeping informed about community affairs, men and women in contact with foreign-born people in industry or socially, felt a personal responsibility to invite the foreigner to join America, helped him through the naturalization process, and put a spirit of welcome into the relation, the greatest obstacle in the way of the absorption of the alien would cease to exist. Radical propaganda will be counteracted only when every American understands our Constitution and talks for it as assiduously as the radical talks against it. People are like phonographs. They play the record that is given them. If we let the radical furnish all of the records, we must expect the conversational output of... read more

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