Voting Down the Rose

      Voting Down the Rose is a lively account of Maine native Florence Brooks Whitehouse’s efforts to win women voting rights in the decisive final years of the campaign, 1914-1920. Considered radical for picketing the White House, Florence helped win women suffrage against the challenges of conservative views of women’s roles, political intrigues, WW I, and the 1918 influenza epidemic. She founded and chaired the Maine branch of the National Woman's Party, working closely with Alice Paul and other national suffrage leaders. 

          Told from Whitehouse's perspective, often in her own words, this important book brings Maine's suffrage history to life and illustrates the difficulty state suffrage leaders experienced trying to navigate between the demands of competing national organizations and their local constituencies. 

        In the book's title, the rose is a reference to the anti-suffragists ("antis"), who used the rose as their symbol. The pro-suffragists' symbol was the jonquil, or daffodil.