page_title: Lou Rogers
section_title: Suffragist, feminist, socialist in Greenwich Village
hierarchical_section_title: Lou Rogers / Suffragist, feminist, socialist in Greenwich Village
caption_attribution_description: English: Cover of Birth Control Review July 1919 Captions: "How shall we change the law?", "Must She Always Plead in Vain? "You are a nurse - can you tell me? For the children's sake - help me!"
context_page_description: Lou Rogers was a cartoonist, illustrator, writer, storyteller, public speaker, radio host, and political activist.
context_section_description: In the atmosphere of Greenwich Village, Lou Rogers was attracted to the woman suffrage movement  and to socialism,  perceiving both movements as worthy causes to be promoted through her cartoons. Today her reputation is largely as a cartoonist for woman suffrage. She was passionate in her beliefs and prolific in her output, as her work began appearing in the New York Call, Judge, and the Woman's Journal, a propaganda newspaper for the National American Woman Suffrage Association.  She was invited to join Heterodoxy, a private club for radical, freethinking professional women, that met twice a month, for lunch and serious discussions.  She formed a close friendship with Heterodoxy member Elizabeth C. Watson,  a Maryland woman active in prison and labor reform. Both women were passengers on Henry Ford's "Peace Ship,"  which carried 102 peace delegates and 46 journalists to Europe in December 1915.  Rogers began appearing in Times Square, street corners, fairs, and  other locations dressed in her artist's smock, as she drew oversized cartoons in the tradition of chalk talks. She was considered a soapbox orator for her suffrage talks, and her activities were documented in newspapers across the region.
  Rogers's endorsement of socialism paralleled  her support of women  and reflected a philosophy of human liberation.
  If the cartoon has never appealed to women workers, isn't it because it has never covered a class of interests with direct bearing on them?  Then it seems to me of great moment that national and municipal issues should be handled from the woman's standpoint as well as the man's.
  She published cartoons in the socialist paper, The New York Call as early as 1911, and by 1919  was a regular contributor to the Call with a featured cartoon series on Woman's Sphere.  When American women finally achieved the vote, Lou Rogers continued her activism by contributing cartoons to the New Yorker Volkzeitung and the Birth Control Review.
caption: "Must She Always Plead in Vain?" Cartoon by Lou Rogers, July 1919 for Birth Control Review.
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