In 2020 America celebrates the 100^th Anniversary of the ratification of the 19^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, granting women the right to vote. That landmark moment in civil rights history was the result of decades of efforts undertaken by communities of women across the country – including the women of the traveling circus.

On March 31, 1912 a meeting of the Barnum & Bailey Circus Women’s Equal Rights Society was held inside the circus’ temporary home at Madison Square Garden. Reporting a membership of more than 800 women, the group’s newly elected President, equestrian performer Josie DeMott, reminded her colleagues of their unique position as working women, saying “You earn salaries. Some of you have property. You have a right to say what shall be done with it.”

A photograph taken at that meeting shows us the faces of this extraordinary group of women. They were committed to using the same intense dedication and passion that they focused on their performance on the goal of achieving equality beyond the confines of the circus ring.

A week after the meeting of the Barnum & Bailey Suffrage group, on April 7, 1912, fifteen of its members were invited to tea at the headquarters of the WPU. Over discussions about the potential contributions of the circus women to spread the Suffrage message across the nation, WPU leaders acknowledged that “there is no class of women who show better that they have a right to vote than the circus women, who twice a day prove that they have the courage and endurance of men.”

Strobridge Lithograph Co.
Barnum & Bailey: The Great Florenz Troupe, 1904
Ink on paper
1 sheet (H): 28 3/4 x 37 1/2 in. (73 x 95.3 cm)
Tibbals Circus Collection
ht2000266