Badge promoting Warren Harding for president and Calvin Coolidge for vice president, worn by a woman casting her first presidential ballot, 1920. J. H. Shaw Co., Philadelphia. Silk-covered 1.75" button bearing the legend, "UNDER/ The 19th/ Amendment/ I CAST MY/ FIRST VOTE/ Nov. 2nd, 1920; from which is suspended a silk ribbon bearing the legend, "Harding/ Coolidge/ The Straight/ Republican/ Ticket/ Lancaster, Pa."
The ratification of the 19th Amendment on August 18, 1920, gave women the right to vote in federal elections, and millions cast their first presidential ballots the following November. Both major party candidates supported the amendment, but Harding's landslide over Democrat James Cox was due in large part to women, who trended Republican and (some say) found Harding the more attractive of the two.
This rare badge, crafted in suffrage yellow silk, would have been proudly worn by a newly enfranchised woman on Election Day. Near pristine example.
