UWS History: ‘Votes for Women Grocery Store’ Opens on UWS in 1913 to Advance Suffrage Cause

By Pam Tice
Pam Tice is a member of the Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group.

The opening of the “Votes for Women Grocery Store” at 2540 Broadway at West 95th Street in February 1913 made news across the country.

The store was a project of Sophia Kremer of 233 West 83rd Street, a Hungarian immigrant married to a doctor. The profits from the store were to be used for suffrage work in the “upper part” of the city.

Sophia Kremer was just one of several suffragists who lived on the Upper West Side. Their determination to pursue the right to vote resonates today as women struggle to gain and regain rights.

The campaign for women’s suffrage reignited during the Progressive Era, a time of social activism and reform, generally dating from the 1890s to the 1920s. Women in neighborhoods all over the city took up the cause, launching a new movement after the deaths of both Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in 1902. Stanton is commemorated today in the renaming of the building at 250 West 94th Street where she lived with her daughter, Harriet Stanton Blasch, who herself was an important suffragist.

The New York suffragists succeeded in 1917 in passing an amendment to the New York State Constitution granting women suffrage. This was a first for an eastern state and helped lead the way to the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1919.

Mrs. Kremer had incorporated as “Suffrage Pure Foods Stores Company,” cleverly combining two big issues of the day: women’s suffrage and pure food. Upton Sinclair’s 1906 book “The Jungle” was one of numerous efforts around the country that got Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906, an effort to produce hygienically and properly labeled products.

The Votes for Women Store sold copies of the “Westfield book of Pure Foods,” which analyzed manufactured food products, and promised to stock only foods approved in the book and produced on local New York and New Jersey farms. These were sent to the store directly, avoiding middleman costs, and passing the savings on to the customers. The products included chickens, home-cured ham, butter, eggs (35 to 40 cents per dozen), and honey. One farmer’s wife had agreed to supply country sausage, unsalted butter, head cheese, pig’s feet, scrapple, and sauerkraut.

In 1867, Kansas suffragists adopted the sunflower, the state flower, as a symbol of their campaign. From then on, yellow became associated with the national women’s suffrage movement. The Votes for Women store had a yellow front, yellow banner, yellow parcel cord, and a yellow delivery wagon, although “good suffragists” were asked to take home their own packages. Each egg was labeled “Votes for Women,” and a suffrage brochure tucked into every package.

On opening day, it was reported by the South Bend Tribune that a man “came to rubber” (slang for gape), and perhaps buy a pack of matches. When he left, he’d bought six pounds of cheese, two dozen eggs, a large bottle of olives, and three pounds of candy.

Another newspaper report about opening day confirmed that the only man working in the store would be the iceman making a delivery. Women would handle the customers and clean the shop. The New York Times described what the women working there wore: white linen blouses and dark blue woolen skirts with a white butcher’s apron. All of them had “Votes for Women” buttons on their white aprons. Zip, the store dog, had the same button on his blanket.

The yellow delivery wagon with its “Votes for Women” signage was originally handled by two boys, according to The Times. Within a month, the boys suddenly went on strike one day, too upset to work any longer due to the teasing they had to endure. Mrs. Kremer asserted “Girls wouldn’t have deserted us during a busy day. We put on our hats and did the deliveries ourselves,” The Times continued. She did admit to having some help from “regular” delivery boys and a couple of Boy Scouts. Later, there were reports of “two strapping women” hired to do the job.

The publication of the Woman Suffrage Party, “The Woman Voter,” referenced regular Saturday evening meetings at 96th and Broadway, enrolling both men and women who supported the suffrage cause. The grocery store served as “a rostrum” (platform) for Wednesday afternoon meetings for high school students when the suffragist Aimee Hutchinson would speak. Hutchinson, a New York Catholic-school teacher, was dismissed from her job for attending a suffrage parade.

There were hopes of opening more stores “further up Broadway and perhaps in the Bronx.” There is no evidence that this happened and it’s not clear how long the first store stayed in business.

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