The Roosevelt House in Manhattan is showcasing rarely seen relics from the women's suffrage movement. NY1's Cheryl got a first look at an exhibit that tells an amazing story about the fight for women's voting rights and filed the following report.
Posters can speak volumes, including ones that haven't been seen for more than a century.
They're not exactly 140 characters or less but they packed quite a punch for women activists back in 1912 who were determined to be seen and heard.
Noted historian Harold Holzer is the new director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute. He says the special exhibit called "Women Take the Lead" is a gem of a find for history buffs.
"We call them sort of the Twitter posts of their day," Holzer said. "They're very opportunistic, they're very specific - they seem to be issued in series of messages telling men they better get with the program and start supporting their mothers, sisters, their wives."
The 22 posters are on display at the Upper East Side home that FDR and his wife Eleanor, who was a women's rights activist. They are on loan from the Dobkin Family Collection of Feminist History.
"These posters are in such good condition because they have been in storage for a long time and that is the only way you can maintain very fragile paper and these were printed in very fragile newsprint kind of paper," Holzer noted. "These are absolutely originals with the original union bugs - you can't print a progressive poster without getting it done by union labor in 1912."
It's a safe bet that these posters were on full display during New York City parades like this one where some 4000 women dressed in white and marched peacefully for voting rights.
By 1920 the fight was over as the 19th amendment granted the ballot to women but the struggle for equality was just beginning.
The "Women Take The Lead" exhibit will be on display at The Roosevelt House through April.