Mediating Political Mobility as Stunt-Girl Entertainment: Newspaper Coverage of New York’s Suffrage Hike to Albany

Abstract

In December 1912, a group of women calling themselves suffrage pilgrims left New York City on foot and hiked 170 miles to Albany to urge the Governor-elect William Sulzer to pass a woman suffrage amendment. At a time when women’s mobility was restricted and transgressive, their hike sparked public condemnation and the media’s fascination. This research examines the newspaper coverage of their hike and argues that reporters tamed and ordered the threat of the suffragists’ political mobility by featuring their protest as entertainment that conformed to the popular genre of stunt-girl serials in the 1910s. Journalists domesticated the transgressive protest by serializing the political pilgrimage through episodic coverage that captured the hikers at moments of stasis and made the hike more legible for potentially threatened readers. The numerous articles depoliticized the hike and constructed the women’s feat as palatable entertainment and an impressive stunt that merited a just reward.