Gertrude Foster Brown

Gertrude Foster Brown (Mrs. Arthur Raymond Brown,

July 29, 1867 March 1, 1956) was a concert pianist,
teacher, and suragette. Following the passage of women
surage in New York State in 1917, and pending passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States
Constitution,[1] Brown wrote Your Vote and How to Use
It, published in 1918.[2][3] She was Director-General of
the Womens Overseas Hospitals in France, founded by
suragists, in 1918. In addition to her work in the New
York surage movement, she helped to found the National League of Women Voters. She was the Managing
Director of the Womans Journal from 1921-1931.[4]

part of Carrie Chapman Catt's Woman Surage Party.

Brown attended the National American Woman Surage
Association (NAWSA) convention in 1910.[4] She was
elected president of the New York State Woman Surage
Association in 1913.[10] Among her activities were the organization of surage parades in New York City.[11] How
It Feels to Be the Husband of a Suragette, which was published anonymously in 1915,[12] has been attributed to her
husband.[8][13]
Brown was active in campaigning in New York for the
passage of womens surage.[14][15] Victory there on
November 6, 1917 was an important step towards the
passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United
States Constitution.[10][16][17][18] Following the passage
of women surage in New York State in 1917, and
pending passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, Brown
wrote Your Vote and How to Use It.[19][1] It was published in February 1918 by Harper & Brothers,[2][3]:verso
and was endorsed by the New York State Women Suffrage Party.[3]:vi In it she encouraged New York women
to be good citizens and exercise their new ability to
vote.[14][20][21] Dealing with civics from the standpoint
of the woman voter, women were encouraged to regard
their vote as a trust to be used not to advance partisan
politics, but to further human welfare.[20]

Early years

Gertrude Foster was born on July 29, 1867 in Morrison,

Illinois, to William Charles Foster and Lydia Anne
Drake.[5]
Foster studied piano at the New England Conservatory
of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. She nished a fouryear course in two years, graduating in August 1885. After teaching for a year in Dayton, Ohio she went to Europe, studying with Xaver Scharwenka in Berlin and lieMiriam Delaborde in Paris[4] between 1886 and 1889.[5]

Your Vote and How to Use It was one of a number of citizenship manuals educating women in their new rights
and responsibilities and encouraging them to take their
2 Performing career
new obligations seriously.[22][14] Some of its materials
were also used as the basis of a correspondence course for
On January 25, 1889 Foster made her professional debut women voters, distributed by the New York State Women
as a pianist with the Philharmonic Orchestra in Berlin.[4] Surage Party.[21] The book itself was listed as suggested
By July 1889, she had returned to the United States,[6] civics reading for Girl Guides who wanted to earn a Citjoining the Chicago Conservatory of Music, where she izens Badge, in the 1920 guides handbook Scouting for
taught and performed until 1896.[7]
Girls.[23]
In August 1893 Gertrude Foster married Arthur Ray- In 1918, when the surage movement organized the
mond Brown (1865-1944), an artist and advertising exec- Womens Overseas Hospitals in France, Gertrude Fosutive who worked for the Chicago Evening Post. In 1896, ter Brown became Director-General,[4][24] serving in
they moved to New York City where Raymond Brown France.[25] Seventy-four women sta were sent over from
worked for the Hawley Advertising Company.[5] He was the United States to the hospital.[10]
known as an illustrator, author and art editor.[8] Gertrude
Foster Brown continued to play and performed lecture Brown helped to found the National League of Women
Voters, serving as chairperson of the group that drafted its
recitals on Richard Wagner and his operas.[5]
organizational plan. Simple, direct, workable, it blazed
a wide trail free of diculties.[26][10] Brown was commended enthusiastically for her eorts.[26]

Surage career

She also was involved in the New York Womans City

Club.[4] From 1921 to 1931, Brown was general manager
Gertrude Foster Brown organized a Woman Surage
of The Womans Journal, renamed The Woman Citizen.
Study Club in New York in 1909,[9] which later became
1

Founded in 1870 by Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell,

the journal was published until 1931 and the Great Depression.[4]
The Browns traveled in Europe and North Africa during
the 1930s.[4] Gertrude Foster Brown became a vocal supporter of the League of Nations.[27] During World War
II, she was active in the Womens Action Committee for
Victory and Lasting Peace. In 1945, she represented the
committee at the founding United Nations Conference
on International Organization in San Francisco, California.[28]
Among her papers is an autobiographical account of her
life, Surage and Music: My First Eighty Years.[4]

Later life

REFERENCES

[6] Miss Foster returns from Europe. The Musical Courier

(493). July 31, 1889. Retrieved 1 November 2016.
[7] Brown, Gertrude Foster. Whos who in New York.
Whos who publications, Incorporated. 7: 134. 1918.
Retrieved 31 October 2016.
[8] The 1883 Imperial Flats -- Nos. 55-57 East 76th Street.
Daytonian in Manhattan. Retrieved April 2, 2016.
[9] Woman Surage Study Club. Harvard Library. Retrieved 1 November 2016.
[10] Hannan, Caryn; Herman, Jennifer L. (2008). Illinois
biographical dictionary (2008-2009 ed.). Hamburg,
MI: State History Publications. pp. 9596. ISBN
1878592602. Retrieved 1 November 2016.
[11] Marching in the parade. The Woman Voter. 8 (5): 24.
May 1917.

The Browns had no children.[4] Raymond Brown died on [12] How it feels to be the husband of a suragette. Friends
April 30, 1944 at their New York apartment at 1883 ImIntelligencer. 72: 622. September 25, 1915. Retrieved 2
November 2016.
perial FlatsNos. 55-57 East 76th Street.[8] He had been
nursed during his illness by his wife.[4] Gertrude continued to live in the apartment, and organized a chamber [13] Chapman, Mary; Mills, Angela (2011). Treacherous texts
: U.S. surage literature, 1846-1946. New Brunswick,
music group that played there.[8] Gertrude died on March
N.J.: Rutgers University Press. p. 231. ISBN 9781, 1956 in Westport, Connecticut.[29]
0813549590.

See also
History of feminism
List of suragists and suragettes

References

[1] Brown, Gertrude Foster (1918). Your vote and how to use
it. New York: Harper & Brothers. p. 78. Retrieved 2
November 2016. The National Amendment for Woman
Surage: An amendment to the Federal Constitution is
pending which provides that the right to vote shall not be
denied on account of sex. While New York State has given
the vote to its women, this permission does not extend beyond its borders.
[2] Catalog of Copyright Entries. U.S. Government Printing
Oce. 1918. p. 262.
[3] Brown, Gertrude Foster (1918). Your vote and how to use
it. New York: Harper & Brothers. p. verso. Retrieved 2
November 2016.
[4] Brown, Gertrude Foster, 1867-1956. Papers of Gertrude
Foster Brown, 1822-1978 (inclusive), 1910-1949 (bulk):
A Finding Aid, Radclie Institute for Advanced Study,
Harvard University
[5] Brown, Gertrude Foster, 1867-1956. Additional papers
of Gertrude Foster Brown, 1732-1956 (inclusive), 18151956 (bulk): A Finding Aid, Radclie Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University

[14] ""Your Vote and How to Use It"". The Oregon Daily Journal. Portland, Oregon. March 17, 1918. p. 52. Your Vote
and How to Use It is the title of the book by Mrs. Raymond
Brown, published by the Harpers. Your Vote and How to
Use It answers all the questions which women who are to
use the vote for the rst time are asking. Mrs. Raymond
Brown is one of the most active and important woman
surage leaders and is chairman of organisation of state
forces of the New York state Woman Surage party.
[15] Fine lecture at surage meeting. Scarsdale Inquirer
(11). 2-3. 14 March 1917. Retrieved 7 November 2016.
[16] Goodier, Susan (2013). No Votes for Women : The New
York State Anti-Surage Movement. Urbana: University
of Illinois Press. pp. 7172, 113116. ISBN 9780252078989. Retrieved 1 November 2016.
[17] Harvey, Anna L. (1998). Votes without leverage : women
in American electoral politics, 1920-1970 (1st ed.). Cambridge, MA.: Cambridge Univ. Press. pp. 7577. ISBN
0521597439. Retrieved 1 November 2016.
[18] Women Win the Right to Vote in New York State. New
York Rediscovered. Retrieved 7 November 2016.
[19] Blackwell, Alice Stone, ed. (May 24, 1919). Your vote
and how to use it. The Woman Citizen. 3. p. 1135.
Retrieved 7 November 2016.
[20] Brown, Gertrude Foster (1918). Preface. Your vote and
how to use it. New York: Harper & Brothers. p. xix.
Retrieved 2 November 2016.
[21] Lima, Agnes de (July 13, 1918). Book Reviews. The
Survey. 40: 428. Retrieved 7 November 2016.

[22] Brown, Kathryn (2010). The Education of the Woman Citizen, 1917-1918. Bowling Green, Ohio: State University,
Ohio LINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center.
pp. 24, 4349. Retrieved 2 November 2016.
[23] Girl Scouts and the Womens Movement. Girl Scouts
University. Retrieved 7 November 2016.
[24] The Contributors Column. The Bookman. 55. Dodd,
Mead and Company. 1922. p. 719. Retrieved 31 October
2016.
[25] CHEERFUL TO LAST WRITES THE SURGEON OF
WINIFRED FAIRFAX WARDER. Comforting Letters
Received by Parents Wrote Them Day Before She Died..
Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. 12: 101
103. April 1919. Retrieved 31 October 2016.
[26] Board of the National League of Women Voters. The
Woman Citizen. 4 (32). February 28, 1920. p. 919, 925.
Retrieved 7 November 2016.
[27] Brown, Gertrude Foster (July 30, 1921). A letter to the
President. The Woman Citizen (6). pp. 1213. Retrieved
31 October 2016.
[28] Lanset, Andy (March 8, 2016). Listen to a 101-Year-Old
Clarion Call for Womens Surage Preserved in Shellac.
NYPR Archives and Preservation. Retrieved 31 October
2016.
[29] GERTRUDE BROWN, SUFFRAGIST, DIES; A
Founder of Women Voters Unit Was Concert Pianist,
Teacher and Editor Impetus to Eorts Studied Music in
Europe. The New York Times. March 3, 1956. p. 19.
Retrieved 31 October 2016.

External links
Brown, Gertrude Foster, 1867-1956. Papers of
Gertrude Foster Brown, 1822-1978 (inclusive),
1910-1949 (bulk): A Finding Aid, Radclie Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University
Brown, Gertrude Foster, 1867-1956. Additional papers of Gertrude Foster Brown, 1732-1956 (inclusive), 1815-1956 (bulk): A Finding Aid, Radclie
Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University
Surage Collection, 1851-2009, Sophia Smith
Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts

8 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

8.1

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Gertrude Foster Brown Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Foster_Brown?oldid=748425111 Contributors: Yoninah, RFD,

Mary Mark Ockerbloom, Yobot and Sleeping is fun

8.2

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8.3

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