Titanic Implications

    This April 27, 1912 Woman's Journal cartoon makes a dramatic and timely argument for woman suffrage. According to the text, "When women cannot vote the ship of state is like the steamship 'Titanic' with only half enough life boats." The Titanic had sunk only 15 days before this cartoon first appeared.

    In the cartoon itself, a beacon of light ("Votes for Women") is coming to help the "ship of state" as it approaches an iceberg labeled "saloons." In the water are sea monsters with a variety of labels, including "impure food," "fire traps," "sweat shops," "diptheria," "white slavery," "saloons," "poverty," "graft," "gambling," "consumption," "small pox," "scarlet fever," and "child labor."

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