A Lesson from Buffalo Bill, Pawnee Bill and the New York Suffragists

Time to rethink today’s love affair with tribalism

Print/Poster Pawnee Bill’s Historic Wild West. Beautiful Daring Western Girls & Mexican Senoritas…/Library of Congress/https://lccn.loc.gov/2002719103

Skirts aswirl, fourteen New York suffragists strode through Madison Square Garden. Among them were prominent society members such as the Misses Portia Willis, Harriet May Mills, Gertrude Lee, and Helen Benson. These were women far more familiar with Victorian silver choices than life in the open air. Entering the mess hall that April evening in 1913, they spied their quarry in the corner and beetled over. The two white-haired men were hunkered down over a meal of roast beef, corned beef and cabbage, lima beans, potatoes, and rice pudding. Maybe a little heavy on the starch, but Colonel Cody and Major Lillie had survived on much worse. And they couldn’t be too picky now either. Edison’s moving picture shows had eaten into the Wild West business. Old pals Cody and Lillie had thrown in together to create the “Buffalo Bill Wild West and Pawnee Bill Far East” Show. By autumn they’d be bankrupt, but for tonight they were still in the game.

Harriet May Mills/Library of Congress/https://lccn.loc.gov/2014681639

Mrs. Marie Nelson Lee, President of the New York State Woman Suffrage Association and experienced in the ways of…