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Chronicling America is a searchable digital collection of historic newspaper pages through 1963 sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.
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Also, see the Directory of U.S. Newspapers in American Libraries, a searchable index to newspapers published in the United States since 1690, which helps researchers identify what titles exist for a specific place and time, and how to access them.
On April 6, 1916, Nell Richardson and Alice Burke set out from New York to cross the United States stumping for the women’s right to vote. Traveling in the Golden Flyer, a yellow two-seater, the suffragettes embarked on a five month cross-continent trip across many dirt and gravel roads. Armed with a fireless cooker, hand sewing machine, typewriter, and a cat named Saxon, the women spoke tirelessly across the country to garner support and encourage women to attend parades at the 1916 Republican and Democratic National Conventions in Chicago and St. Louis. Read more about it!
The information in this guide focuses on primary source materials found in the digitized historic newspapers from the digital collection Chronicling America.
The timeline below highlights important dates related to this topic and a section of this guide provides some suggested search strategies for further research in the collection.
| 1890 | Wyoming enters the union with its suffrage laws intact, becoming the first state to allow women to vote. |
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| April 6, 1916 | Nell Richardson and Alice Burke leave New York City in the Golden Flyer with the goal of crossing the country to promote women’s suffrage. |
| April 26, 1916 | Nell Richardson and Alice Burke receive a black kitten as a gift which travels with them the remainder of the way. |
| May 1916 | The suffragettes report on the possibility of “Mexican raids” in border town visits in Texas. |
| June 1916 | The Republican and Democratic National Conventions are held in Chicago and St. Louis respectively. |
| July 14, 1916 | Suffragettes arrive in Seattle, Washington, completing half of their coast-to-coast journey. September, 1916. Nell Richardson, Alice Burke, and the cat return with the Golden Flyer to New York, completing the tour. |
| 1919 | The Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which gives women the right to vote, is adopted by a joint resolution in Congress. |
| August 26, 1920 | After Tennessee becomes the thirty-sixth state to ratify the 19th Amendment, the Amendment is officially adopted and women are given the right to vote. |
