"I’ll just put down my belief in the woman’s vote here in black and white:" John Sloan's Support of Suffrage

1977-229.jpg

John and Dolly Sloan, July 10
John Butler Yeats (1839–1922)
Graphite on paper
18 11/16 × 14 5/16 in. (47.5 × 36.4 cm)
Delaware Art Museum, Gift of Helen Farr Sloan, 1977

image00010.jpg

John Sloan's first wife, Dolly, was an ardent suffrage advocate, and the couple was active in radical socialist and leftist politics in the first two decades of the twentieth century. In a diary entry dated December 6, 1908, Sloan wrote: "I feel that it would be well to give them votes," and on November 15, 1909, he noted: "I'll just put down my belief in the woman’s vote here in black and white." 

You can click on Sloan's diary page to see his words in full.

Dolly can be seen at the far right of the photograph wearing a hat and white collar.

Dolly_Sloan_at_a_Socialist_Party_rally_New_York_c1911.jpg

Dolly Sloan at a Socialist Party rally, New York, c. 1911
Unknown photographer
Delaware Art Museum, Helen Farr Sloan Library and Archives, John Sloan Manuscript Collection