This “BWC” ribbon, in the colors of the women’s suffrage movement, was most likely worn by a member of the Business Women’s Club. Many women became politically engaged through their involvement in women’s clubs. This ribbon was probably worn at one of the BWC’s suffrage meetings: perhaps in 1901 when leader Laura Clay visited the club or in the 1910s when voting rights for women became a popular (and divisive) cause.
Madeline McDowell Breckinridge (1872–1920), a great-granddaughter of Henry Clay and sister-in-law of Sophonisba Breckinridge, served as president of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association from 1912 to 1915 and from 1919 to 1920.
Page from the papers of Melville Otter Briney of Louisville, Kentucky. On this page is pasted a streamer that reads "Votes for Women," accompanied by a note: "I was a page at Mrs. Snowden's lecture." Otter is referring to the November 1915 lecture given by British feminist Ethel Snowden at the Masonic Theater in Louisville.
