Women’s suffrage-themed group to represent county in parade
Women’s suffrage will be the theme that a Scottdale group will use when they represent Fayette County at the Centennial Celebration Parade on Sept. 30 in Harrisburg. Fayette County Commissioner Chairman Angela M. Zimmerlink said she supports the Scottdale American Women and said she nominated them to the Centennial Celebration Parade committee, also known as the Capitol Centennial Commission.
“I was pleased to learn that the Centennial Commission selected our nomination,” said Zimmerlink. “I have seen the Scottdale American Women participate in parades throughout Fayette County and we are proud to have them represent Fayette County in the (state) Capitol Centennial Celebration.”
The group will represent Fayette County by carrying a banner that reads “Fayette County Women’s Suffrage 1848-1920.”
Scottdale American Women Director Jayne Canose said the women’s suffrage movement gave women the right to vote in political elections and represented the first stage in the demand for political equality.
“Individual women demanded suffrage for themselves as early at the 1600s,” said Canose. “An organized movement on behalf of women suffrage, led by women but open to men, first emerged in the United States in 1848. Women suffragists were often met hostility and sometimes violence.”
Canose said in 1893 New Zealand became the first country to grant women the right to vote in national elections. Most adult women throughout the world today can vote.
“Women’s organizations in many countries made the fight for suffrage their most fundamental demand because they saw it as the defining feature of full citizenship,” she continued.
According to the Internet, the philosophy underlying women’s suffrage was the belief in natural rights. Women’s suffrage gave women the right to govern themselves and choose their own representatives.
It also declared that women should enjoy individual rights of self-government, rather than relying on indirect civic participation as the mothers, sisters or daughters of male voters.
The right to vote took many decades to achieve because women had to persuade their male counterparts to grant them the vote. Many men, and some women, believed that women were not suited by circumstance or temperament for the vote.
Canose said the Scottdale group walks for a cause.
“I came up with the women’s suffrage theme last year for Fort Ligonier Days because it fit in with their history theme,” said Canose. “I made all of the skirts and we decided to wear all white Oxford cloth shirts, black ties, sashes with a white background and gold overlay and a blue button on the hip to represent our state and natural straw hats.”
Canose said one of the members explored the Internet and found and copied the signs that were carried during the suffrage era.
Other costumes used by the Scottdale American Women all come from the Victorian era.
“We don’t vary from the Victorian era,” said Canose. “We sometimes march in ball gowns and other times we march in suits.”
Members of the Scottdale American Women come from Fayette, Westmoreland and Allegheny counties. Canose said the group has marched in parades in Dawson, Scottdale, Mount Pleasant, Perryopolis and Ligonier. Canose and two other people make all of the costumes for the group.
Members range in age from 20 to 73. Two third-grade girls also march with the group. The group has won many prizes and awards over the past two years and has donated $900 to the Scottdale Food Bank, $250 to the Connellsville Food Bank and $150 to the Scottdale Walk for a Cause.
Other officers of the group are Becky Brush, vice president, and Carol Hixson, secretary/treasurer. Other members are Mary Pfiefer, Althea Couean, Sandy Williams, Heather Persetic, Donna Cartia, Doris Stoner, Bobbie Welty, Tiffany Lentz, Darlene Alcorn, Pat Santmyer, Lori Maruschak and Beth Seighman.
The women will charter a bus to go to Harrisburg.