These costumes broadcast supposed metaphorical similarities between “the Cause” and the celebrated goals of Joan of Arc and other medieval champions, while maintaining a veneer of acceptable femininity. While not overtly feminine (Joan was a warrior cross-dresser, after all), the medievalist presentation was not perceived as aggressive by its audiences, or at least not more aggressive than the suffrage movement in general. The medieval ensemble implied a welcoming sense of playfulness and theatricality. Such a uniform belonged to the realm of the masculine. These women benefited from the chronological distance provided by popular notions about the Middle Ages: a woman in a medieval “costume,” even one wearing armor, did not provoke the same reaction as would a woman in a “costume” that looked like a 1913 military uniform, complete with a gun and steel helmet. The May 1, 1915, Philadelphia suffrage parade also featured “a Joan of Arc” at its head, portrayed by a 16-year-old, wearing a short cape and a vaguely medieval-looking helmet, riding on a white horse. The Boston suffrage parade of included at least three marchers costumed as medieval women, representing Joan of Arc, Isabella of Spain, and a non-specific “medieval lady.” Both Joan of Arc and Isabella of Spain rode astride in Boston. The New York City suffrage parade of featured Marie Stewart in armor as Joan of Arc. In short, they ascribed their own motives to her. For the suffrage paraders, Joan represented a pure, beautiful, young woman fighting for goodness and virtue against men who sought to oppress her. As I noted in my 2017 book Public Medievalists, Racism, and Suffrage in the American Women’s College, the symbolism focused on Joan as a triumphant female figure of inspiration, purity, and righteousness, ignoring her eventual torture and execution for her religious and political beliefs. In many of these pageants, a marcher specifically designated as Joan of Arc embodied that military idea. Joan of Arc represented a pure, beautiful, young woman fighting for goodness and virtue against men who sought to oppress her. Madsen, in her analysis of the 1913 parade, quotes a contemporary reference to the “crusade of women.” Like many newspapers of the era, the Philadelphia Inquirer, in its coverage of the 1915 Philadelphia parade, also used military diction, referring to a “suffragist army.” In her role as the herald of the suffrage parade, Milholland played with conventional medievalist tropes she saw herself as a crusader or champion for the cause, invoking medieval military language. While a student at Vassar college, Milholland had studied medieval history for two semesters (she graduated in 1909) and drew on her academic knowledge in fashioning her costume. She rode confidently astride her herald’s horse, not in the more demure side-saddle posture. Her reputation as the most beautiful of the American suffragists only enhanced that glamour. With her crown, sweeping white cape, flowing hair, white horse, and riding gloves shaped like armored gauntlets, Milholland provided a medievalist representation of the glamour of the suffrage movement. The most famous example of the medievalist impulse in the suffrage movement is Inez Milholland, who dressed as a medieval herald as she led the Women’s Suffrage pageant through Washington DC on March 3, 1913. These medievalist pageant performances allowed suffrage advocates to embody a quasi-military activism that was chronologically distant enough to be perceived as unthreatening to contemporary gender roles. Medieval costume became a standard feature of the American suffrage parade throughout the decade, with one participant often designated specifically as Joan of Arc. In the 1910s, US suffragists emulated and expanded on the British women’s movement’s interest in medieval costume as part of their parades (or “pageants,” their preferred term). This year, the United States will celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of their success and the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment.
The suffragists themselves also used clothing and costume in their fight for their political rights more than a hundred years ago. In the past four years, American women have dressed as Atwoodian handmaids to protest abortion restrictions and the nomination of Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh the “pussy hat” was the accessory of choice at the 2017 Women’s March (and subsequent women’s marches) many women wore white to the polls on election day 2016 to honor the suffragists.
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