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A Woman Speaking on Women: The Political Art of Nina Allender:
"Political cartooning gives you a sense of power that nothing else does."
-- Nina Allender
She was a feminist, a suffragist, and an artist. She had a shrewd sense of humor and an innovative perspective on women. Her drawings changed the course of one of the most important civil rights movements in the history of the United States. Her name was Nina Allender.
Born Nina Evans in Auburn, Kansas in 1872, Allender spent her early years in Washington studying painting at the Corcoran School of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. In early 1913, Allender received a visit from Alice Paul, founder of the National Woman's Party, asking her to contribute money and time to the suffrage cause.
From 1914 until her final cartoon appeared in 1927, Nina Allender contributed over 150 cartoons to the woman's suffrage campaign. The drawings were primarily created for The Suffragist, the weekly publication of the National Woman's Party from 1913 until 1921, and later its successor, Equal Rights, published from 1923 until 1954. The National Woman's Party was the only suffrage organization to boast an "official cartoonist."
Allender's work altered public opinion. Her drawings presented the suffragists as political, powerful, and in control -- an innovative approach to drawing women. Women were shown with their hands on their hips, standing proudly above the crowd, unafraid of the repercussions of their new public persona, or finally being attacked while steadfastly holding their banners high. Allender cartoons reflected the new spirit of the suffrage movement -- suffrage first and now. These were women who would not back down from their end goal: the right to vote. Her cartoons were "quick, vivid headlines" that captured the news of the week and the spirit of the cause.
This exhibit of Allender's work offers a glimpse at the political perspective of one of the women's most important artists. Today she is considered one of the most influential artists of the era, capturing the spirited struggle for women's rights as it happened and providing a unique window into this intense chapter in women's history. |