25th State to Ratify | Oregon | Davida Fernandez, Artist
Her Flag Artist, Davida Fernandez
42 years! That was the first thing that struck me when researching the history of women’s right to vote in Oregon; It was a long and dedicated fight for equality.
You’ll see a series of 42 vertical bars along the length of the piece marking each year from 1870, when the movement was born, to 1912, when women’s right to vote was ratified in Oregon. The letters making up O-R-E-G-O-N occur at each point in the timeline when the question of voting rights for women was placed on the ballot - six times in 1884, 1900, 1906, 1908, 1910, 1912. Abigail Scott Duniway, the controversial mother of the movement, observes from each end of the timeline. Interspersed are my portraits of the prominent suffragettes who worked tirelessly through the many years: Hattie Redmond, Louise Bryant, Esther Clayson Pohl Lovejoy, Sara Bard Field, and Mari Equi.