CHAPTER NINE

Claiborne Catlin’s Suffrage Pilgrimage

PROBABLY THE MOST iconic image of the American woman suffrage movement is Inez Milholland astride a white horse. Born into a privileged New York family, Milholland, a graduate of Vassar (1908) and the New York University School of Law (1912), led many of the early suffrage parades, including the 1913 counter-inauguration procession in Washington, DC pictured here. Newspapers were fascinated by her: “No suffrage parade was complete without Inez Milholland,” concluded the New York Sun, “for with her tall figure and free step, her rich brown hair, blue eyes, fair skin and well cut features, she was an ideal figure of the typical American woman.” And yet her horse, whose name was Gray Dawn, rarely received any attention at all. This is a surprising omission, because horses are everywhere in the suffrage campaign.¹

In 1910, there were twenty-four million horses in the United States, approximately one for every 3.8 Americans. Offering cheap and efficient short-term transport for goods and people, horses functioned as “living machines,” literally providing “horsepower” in a variety of contexts, including agriculture, public transportation, and conspicuous consumption (for instance, liveried chauffeurs ferrying the upper classes around town in fancy horse-drawn carriages). Horses also added to the public health hazards of modern urban life by the copious amounts of manure and urine they deposited on city streets.

By the 1910s, the popularity of electric and internal combustion automobiles was challenging the preponderance of horses in cities and on farms. While it seems a foregone conclusion in retrospect that cars would and should replace horses, for several decades, they coexisted fairly well. But as the number of automobiles on the road increased dramatically—from 459,000 in 1910 to 1.7 million just four years later—the balance began to shift.

These are precisely the years when the suffrage movement took to the streets with its suffrage parades and other pageants. While automobiles were often featured as novelties, horses were ubiquitous, pulling floats and serving as trusty mounts for parade marshals and other dignitaries. When Inez Milholland was surrounded by hostile bystanders in Washington in 1913, she simply spurred her horse (she was an expert equestrian) and rode straight in to the rowdy crowd, which was eventually subdued by the arrival of the US Cavalry—on horseback, of course.

Suffrage spectacles bore more than a passing resemblance to military parades, so women confidently riding horses like military leaders made a powerful political statement. Harriot Stanton Blatch deemed such iconography far superior to the take-away from automobile-driven suffragists. “Riding in a car did not demonstrate courage,” she complained, and “it did not show discipline.” Turning the tables, when President Wilson wanted to slip past the suffragists picketing the White House, a car—not a horse-drawn carriage—was his preferred mode of escape.²

Inez Milholland leads the 1913 suffrage parade in Washington, DC. Courtesy of Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.

Occasionally, horses moved beyond supporting roles to become leading characters in their own right. That certainly applies to the horses Claiborne Catlin rode on her suffrage pilgrimage across Massachusetts in 1914.

CLAIBORNE CATLIN was at her wit’s end. “The General”—Susan Fitzgerald of the Massachusetts Political Equality Union—had put her in charge of advertising an upcoming meeting featuring the noted national suffragist Anna Howard Shaw at Boston’s Tremont Temple in the spring of 1914. After several weeks of ceaseless effort, she had been unable to get a shred of free publicity, a necessity for the cash-strapped movement. So worn out that she had literally collapsed on a table at suffrage headquarters, she suddenly had an inspiration. “I had remembered how Inez Milholland had ridden horseback for suffrage in New York—not so long ago. I could ride. Why not try that.” She borrowed a horse, adorned it with two placards advertising the event, and with some trepidation set out down Washington Street on a rainy day. “Then something happened. I found myself telling those crowds of umbrellas which pressed against both stirrups why I was there. And as I did it, I began to realize that they were listening to me, who had hardly raised her voice on the subject before, as if I were Anna Shaw herself.”³

For three days, the crowds and reporters faithfully followed Catlin around as she rode up and down the streets of Newspaper Row. Local merchants offered her food and drinks. More importantly, she garnered gobs of free publicity for the upcoming event, which went on to be a sold-out success. “And that is how I got the idea of campaigning on horseback for suffrage that summer.”⁴

In the 1910s, after decades of steady, plodding work that had produced very little concrete success, suffrage organizations throughout the country were stirring to life, and the Massachusetts movement was no different. The suffrage parade held in downtown Boston on Beacon Street in 1913 was symptomatic of this new infusion of energy and ideas as women literally took to the streets to press their cause. A state referendum on the issue was scheduled for 1915, further energizing suffragists’ efforts. Eastern states with strong political machines, active Catholic churches, and many recent immigrant voters were among the most challenging turfs for suffragists, but Massachusetts women were undaunted. They believed in their cause, and they believed its time had come. Claiborne Catlin was one of those legions of women.⁵

What kind of a woman would embark on such a quixotic and, for a woman traveling alone, potentially dangerous journey as riding a horse across Massachusetts for suffrage? Little is known about Claiborne Catlin’s background and upbringing. She was born Mary Augustine Claiborne Grasty in Baltimore, Maryland in 1881, although her ancestors hailed from Virginia. At a fairly young age—too young, she later realized—she married Joseph Albert Catlin. Four years later, he was dead of typhoid, and his childless widow set off for New York City, where she enrolled in the New York School of Philanthropy. Her coursework exposed her to the horrors of slum life, and she became a suffragist in order to challenge the status quo: “Voting now seemed the most important thing in the world to me.” She worked for a time doing settlement work in New York, studied eugenics with Dr. Charles Davenport at Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island, and was a staff member at a psychological clinic at the University of Pennsylvania. By 1914, she had landed in Boston, where she plunged into the local suffrage movement and hatched her plan to tour the state on horseback to win converts to the cause.⁶

At first, she thought she would have to raise a substantial chunk of money to cover her expenses, but after talking with a potential supporter she dramatically changed her plans. “I came out completely convinced that money was not necessary; indeed, to go without money was the only way I really should, or could do it.” This meant that she would rely on the kindness and generosity of strangers, mainly sympathetic women but occasionally men, not all of whom considered themselves suffragists, to cover all expenses for lodging and food for her and her horse, for an estimated four months. “Woman to Urge Cause in Saddle—Mrs. Catlin, Suffragist, Will Tour State on Horseback—Starts Penniless” read the headline in the Boston Herald on June 30, 1914.⁷

Claiborne Catlin packed light. Everything she needed for her four-month suffrage pilgrimage had to fit in these brown canvas saddlebags. Courtesy of Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.

Not only was she penniless, but she also traveled light. Her traveling clothes consisted of a khaki jacket and divided skirt donated by Filene’s department store, supplemented by a matching khaki hat, brown riding gloves, one seersucker waist, a change of underwear, a yellow slicker for protection against the rain, plus toiletries, a fountain pen, and a road map. (Needless to say, she became quite adept at washing out her laundry, something she had always left to servants in the past.) She carried a riding crop and a small bag to pass around for collections when she spoke. All her personal effects, as well as a parcel of leaflets and a horse blanket, had to fit into a pair of saddlebags fashioned by a Marshfield suffragist. The final touch was a shoulder strap of three ribbons in the suffrage colors of white, green, and gold, which said “Votes for Women.”

While the Boston papers hailed her as “very gay about her trip, and very enthusiastic,” astute reporters noted an undercurrent of doubt. “Tell me,” Catlin said to one, “you don’t think I shall starve, do you?” Or as she confided later in her memoir of the journey, “they shoot dogs that are gun-shy. Someone ought to shoot me.”⁸

True to her “no money” pledge, Catlin first had to raise enough money for a train ticket to pick up her first horse, a black mare named Trixie. (She would ride six in all.) She accomplished this by organizing a spontaneous suffrage meeting under the Lincoln statue at Park Square in downtown Boston, which netted $1.98 in collections, enough to pay her fare to nearby Mansfield. She left there with a flotilla of suffragists, reporters, and photographers, taking comfort in the parting words of the groom who had helped her get to know her mount: “I don’t mind telling yuh, that for a gurl your size, yore all right!” Then she headed south toward Cape Cod, where she would spend most of the summer taking advantage of the crowds of tourists and vacationers.⁹

Two weeks later she had an encounter with a benefactor that literally changed the course of her adventure. A well-dressed woman identified only as Mrs. Lilian Snow came by in a fancy motor car—a clear sign of affluence and female independence in 1914—called out, “You’re a great looking suffragette,” and invited her home.¹⁰ Not only did she pamper her guest with a warm bath and clean linens, she lent her a fresh horse, the incomparable Diana whom Catlin rode for the next six weeks as she traversed the Cape. Ironically, Snow was a confirmed “anti” who was not the least bit interested in woman suffrage. But she was quite captivated by Catlin (“I do believe in you, little lady”), admiring both her attractive personality and her novel mode of disseminating propaganda.¹¹

Catlin soon settled into a routine. She would give as many as three talks a day, usually at town squares or outside postoffices—anyplace a crowd might be drawn on short notice by a traveling suffragist on a horse. She would talk for a half hour or so, take up a collection, and ride on to her next destination. When she was ready to stop, she would seek out a farmhouse with a stable so that Diana could be fed and bedded down for the night; when passing through towns, she often sought out a blacksmith to cobble her horse. Very often, the smiths did this for free, and she rarely had to pay for lodging, usually staying in private homes rather than inns. Only once was she forced to camp out for the night in the rain. Luckily, she had oats for Diana, but she herself went hungry that night. It was the only meal she missed her entire trip.

Often bedraggled after a day on the road, Catlin must have been quite a sight when she went around to the kitchen door to ask for lodgings. As she recounted one encounter with a woman reputed to be a suffrage supporter, “I found myself wondering quite sympathetically, as I watched her embarrassment, what I should have done, in her place, if without warning, I had been asked to take into my castle, a female tramp, who, in the name of suffrage, had dropped at my door and cheerfully demanded food and shelter.” That night she was directed to a nearby boarding house.¹²

Catlin’s stump speech offered three main arguments for suffrage. First, it was a matter of justice. Women were taxed without representation—shouldn’t they have a say in how their tax money was spent? Second, women needed the vote for protection—of their homes, their families, and their womanly values. The vote was especially important to women industrial workers to regulate the conditions under which they labored. And thirdly, for development: how could women develop into responsible public citizens if they remained voteless? Her overarching goal was to encourage “the responsibility of public housekeeping.” Women knew a great deal about human life because they produced it, and men knew a great deal about matters of property and business. “We want laws to which both contribute what they know for the welfare of their country.”¹³

As much as pushing specific arguments, Catlin hoped that her willingness to take risks and make sacrifices for the cause would win support and respect from male voters, as well as their wives, who were often the ones who went out of their way to help her. “When the men see that we are willing to give up comfort and pleasure for the vote they will become interested in the matter themselves. Gameness always counts.”¹⁴

Even though local newspaper coverage praised Catlin for her effective speaking voice and arguments, reporters were absolutely fixated by the appearance of the “horseback suffragette.” Words like pretty and vivacious dot the stories. Confounding many people’s expectations of what a suffragist would look like, the thirty-two-year-old Catlin was quite slight, and her youth and vigor made a dramatic impression on her audiences. Her appearance also won over some doubting conservatives, who initially judged her horseback proselytizing a stunt and called her an “adventuress.” When shown her picture, one naysayer changed her mind: “Why, she’s a little thing. I thought she must be an Amazon.”¹⁵

Even more than her arguments or pleasing personality, the powerful novelty of seeing an expert female rider enter town astride a horse—no side saddle for her—won converts for the cause. A description of a West Dennis suffrage meeting in July attended by about a hundred people captures this well: “Presently, in the most dramatic way, Mrs. Catlin came riding up the street from under the shade of trees—a brave young figure—on a spirited horse, sitting like a Calvary figure. She reined up in front of the people, faced up and began.” She talked for half an hour “in her beautiful voice” giving a “good straight suffrage argument.… Truly, she was thrilling. She looked like a Jeanne d’Arc. I think everyone was fascinated, moved by her girlish fervor.” Then when she had finished, she wheeled her horse around “and rode swiftly away into the night.” The observer concluded, “I cannot tell you what a unique, captivating incident it was!”¹⁶

Claiming public space was often a problem for a single woman and her horse stumping for suffrage. When she took over a venue like a town square or a bandstand, her speech was occasionally—and sometimes deliberately—drowned out by brass bands who thought they had a stronger claim to public spaces. Once, she and Diana were pelted by apples thrown from a speeding car. The horse probably appreciated the apples, but the rider definitely did not.

Luckily, her benefactors far outnumbered her adversaries. She would never forget small kindnesses like a “knight in overalls” who took Diana off to a stable and sent her to a restaurant, where she was instructed to eat as much as she wanted on his coin, or the woman who had spent time on the road herself and knew how hard it was for a woman alone, who offered her a place to come back to if she became sick. The kindnesses extended to her horses were likewise indelible, as when a reporter in Weymouth left a dollar and this note: “Buy Diana another oat.”¹⁷

Her suffrage pilgrimage afforded her intimate glimpses of women’s lives in their homes. One woman was so cowed by her overbearing husband that she did not offer her guest dinner, causing Catlin to collapse “in starvation rage.” (She snacked on an emergency stash of malted milk tablets that night.) But the suffragist knew the intimidated wife was on her side when she whispered, “God bless you for trying to help us women.” Another benefactor challenged her houseguest to interact more with the host families, no matter how tired she was. “Why, you’re just like a circus come to town, you know, and we all want to know all about you.” Tell us more about your family, she pressured, and where you came from: “ ‘Tell ’em this kind of thing and you’ll never need to say a word about suffrage. The women’ll get interested in you and’ll make the men vote for it.” Catlin admitted this was sound advice.¹⁸

Danger could be much more sinister for a young, attractive woman traveling in strange areas by herself, and often out at night after her evening meetings. Only once did she find herself in a dicey situation. When a Mr. Buffer picked her up in a horse-drawn carriage to look at a replacement horse, she found him moderately offensive and possibly inebriated, but “still it, like all the other trials of this trip must be endured—with humor. So I fixed my mind on other things and tried to forget him.” But when he took an unexplained detour from the main road and “with a swinish runt, he flopped one jellyfish arm around my shoulder,” she knew she had to act. They locked eyes and “for a moment he met them insolently; then he wavered, his arm sagged, and he moved uneasily away from me.” Having faced him down, she got safely back to town, where she later learned he had tricked her into checking out the horse in the first place. Her two-word comment: “The cur!”¹⁹

By August, the physical and emotional strain was beginning to get to her. In Woods Hole, she confided to her diary, “I’m so tired I wish I had never been born.” All she wanted was a little peace and quiet. “Must I be questioned, interviewed, for the rest of my life? Was I to hear nothing but suffrage, talk nothing but suffrage, dream, sleep, live nothing but suffrage? Was I becoming a creature with a ‘fixed idea’?” On more than one occasion, she had to stay put for several days while she regained her emotional equilibrium.²⁰

Once September turned and the Cape emptied of tourists, Catlin focused on getting back for the major suffrage rally on September nineteenth on the Boston Common. She had planned to swap out Diana for Trixie when she went through Woods Hole, but her antisuffrage angel encouraged her to keep Diana for a bit longer. The night before the Boston rally, she stayed in Susan Fitzgerald’s attic in Jamaica Plain, where she had started her journey, buoyed by “the General’s” praise that the effort so far had been “splendid” and that she had been “an inspiration to us all.” The Boston rally was a big success, and Catlin was once again a star attraction, riding on a borrowed horse while Diana nursed a sore foot.²¹

At this point, Catlin had organized fifty-nine meetings in seventy-nine days, averaging daily attendance at her events of around two hundred. She had covered 530 miles and visited thirty-seven cities and towns. Then she hit a snag: Diana was still hobbled, and she had trouble finding a replacement. She could have halted her trip, but instead, she pushed on: “I said I would ride four months—and I will.” Once again, her “anti” fairy godmother came to her rescue, providing her with a magnificent new stead named David. “A regular show piece he is,” she bragged, “and doesn’t he know it.” She headed to the western part of the state, adopting Worcester as her home base.²²

After canvassing and speaking for a week, she was down to her last eight days, planning to ride from Worcester towards Boston for a final election-day rally on Boston Common on November 4. She admitted to conflicted feelings as her journey neared its end. She had grown so close to her final horse companion that she confessed, “That is the one bit of bitter in my cup of joy—joy that this trip is almost over. But I so hate to give up David.”²³

Then, just four days before her final goal, tragedy struck. David was used to cars in town, but he had always been skittish when he met them singly on country roads. Spooked by an electric car speeding towards them, he jumped upward and back, then folded to the ground as Catlin was thrown free. He somehow managed to get up on three legs, but his fourth was “hanging like the broken limb of a tree.” A local vet summoned to the scene said the horse must be shot at once. Catlin held his head and fed him sugar cubes, and then left before the sad end, unable to bear it. “Mrs. Catlin Weeps as if Heart Would Break when Bullet Ends Life of David, Her Companion on Suffrage Crusade,” read the headline in the Worcester Daily Telegram.²⁴

Only later did she realize how much worse it could have been. She could have been severely hurt, or the accident might have happened in a remote area without quick access to help. And if it had happened earlier, it would have ended the trip. Even so, the blow cast a pall over her heroic journey. “I loved my horses almost as much as I loved the cause for which I was riding, and it took a long time to recover from David’s loss.” The Boston suffrage headquarters arranged another horse for her to finish the trip, but although Catlin had gamely soldiered on for almost four months, she simply could not continue.²⁵

Claiborne Catlin dropped out of public view after her daring suffrage ride. She worked as a social worker and school administrator in the Boston area, and she married (and lost) a second husband. She did take the time to write up her notes from her adventure as a memoir titled “Stirrup Cups,” in honor of the cup of wine or other drink offered a person on horseback about to depart on a journey. She then made sure her manuscript and newspaper clippings were safely deposited at the Schlesinger Library, along with her saddle bags and the gold, green, and white suffrage sash she wore.

Claiborne Catlin’s “Stirrup Cups” saga shows how ordinary women were moved to do extraordinary things for the cause of suffrage. Like many of her peers, she was willing to “risk [her] livelihood for the thing called woman’s suffrage.” As she observed just past the midpoint of her journey, “It has been worth every speck of tiredness, every minute of loneliness, every throb of fright.”²⁶

In a postscript titled “A Long Time Afterward,” she looked back on the experience, assessing not only the political and social impact of suffrage but also its larger context: “At long last I am clear, and I have had plenty of opportunity in the meantime to see what the Suffrage has meant. Only too well do I realize now that it will never do what I had so fondly and childishly dreamed possible. But what I do recognize is, that what I was really struggling for all along that lonely road, was the removal of one more barrier from the upward journey of half the human race. And so I trust that this diary may serve as a bit of encouragement to any who may be standing alone for something they believe will be of service to all of us.”²⁷ Through dedicated foot soldiers like Claiborne Catlin, on horseback or with their feet firmly on the ground, suffrage cut a wide swath, both before and after the vote was won.