Summary on "The Male Madonna and the Feminine Uncle Sam"

Palczewski in The Male Madonna and the Feminine Uncle Sam speaks about the adversities in the women's suffrage movement during the early 1900s. Palczewski informs his audience about the difficulties women went through in order to simply feel important in the country, in terms of voting.


Palczewski studied the many, various postcards from Dunston-Weiler Lithograph Company of New York. Dunston-Weiler had their very own Suffrage Series that would not only insult men and women, but pressured men to feel insulted through the work "woman" (Man being a very essential part if the word). These postcards included women smoking, men taking care of children, and women trying to take part in masculine positions. The point of these postcards was to almost instill fear into people about the "chaos" that would happen if women were really given the right to vote. 


The line of the collection that exposed visual arguments was the "Uncle Sam Suffrage" postcard. The postcard consisted of Uncle Sam (Uncle Sam being the representation of the United States and everything the country stands far) with his beard cut short, wearing heels, standing in a feminine way with women's curves. The line that was merely visual consisted of a man sitting in a rocky chair with children and with a frame behind him that said "What is home without a father." This phrase was obviously sarcasm, but in a sense could instill fear into men about what their lives would be everyday with a simple voting right given to women.


Palczewski states that the type of women that would be likely to vote would be bad women. He states this by referring to prostitutes that would be called "public woman" at the time of the suffrage movement. By letting women vote, people were defeminizing women from what the normative perspective. This also connects with the idea that men will not be as masculine, leaving them no choice but to stay at home. Palczewski explains this situation by referring back to the postcards of Dunston-Weiler, in particular the "Suffragette Madonna" postcard really embodies the male's position after women receive the freedom of voting. This postcard is a man feeding a baby at home. This is further explained by handing out the idea of women becoming too powerful in politics; meaning them not settling for just voting, but wanting more. The visual aspect of this postcard really captured the attention of many people because it showed the epitome of emasculation.  Instead of women being in "their place" men would take control over it. 


I believe that verbal and visual arguments are very important when trying to persuade someone to agree with their point. These postcards most likely scared men into believing things that aren't necessarily true nowadays; this can be supported through the idea of this collection being made in the early 1900s, but women's right to vote wasn't established until the late 1900s. A picture itself is just enough to instill emotions in people, which brings to the point of images being vital. 




Bibliography

Palczewski, C. H. (2005). The male madonna and the feminine uncle sam: Visual argument, icons, and ideographs in 1909 anti-woman suffrage postcards. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 91(4), 365-394.