Blogging about suffrage history
& suffrage centennial events
Today's suffrage song is specific to New York! "Set Your Daughter's Free" is one of the 26 songs found in Equal Suffrage Song Sheaf by Eugenie M. Raye-Smith. The second edition came out in 1912. Mrs. Raye-Smith appears to be the lyricist for these songs as all of the songs included in this volume are set to familiar tunes of the day. "Set Your Daughter's Free" is set to the tune of "Wait for the Wagon" which seems to have first appeared in published form around 1851. A number of people are attributed to different published versions, leading me to believe these were new arrangements of a folk tune. Arrangers could establish copyright for a new arrangement of a public domain song in order to collect royalties. Lyricist Eugenie Raye-Smith was a prominent NYC suffragist & lawyer. According to her obituary in the New York Times on July 10, 1914, Mrs. Raye-Smith was Chairman of the Queens County Women's Political Union. The WPU (formerly the Equality League of Self-Supporting Women) was created by Elizabeth Cady Stanton's daughter Harriot Stanton Blatch when she returned from Europe to find the NY State suffrage movement stagnant. "Set Your Daughters Free" (1912) Lyrics: Eugenie M. Raye-Smith, Tune: "Wait for the Wagon" traditional VERSE 1 Oh, New York with your pride of wealth and luxury untold, What, prize you not a woman's worth as greater more than gold? A mighty call now echoes for you from sea to sea, Oh, leader of the Union, come set your daughters free! CHORUS We're waiting for New york, Waiting for New York, Waiting for the Empire State to set her daughters free! VERSE 2 We do not wish to shame you, but lo! we're at the gate! Our Westerns sisters entered, but you seem bound to wait; We've always thought your wisdom our guide through life should be, Now must we try to doubt it? No, set your daughters free! CHORUS VERSE 3 Together on life's journey should man and woman ride, So grant them equal suffrage and they'll travel side by side; We look to you New York, in this our champion to be; The rend the chains of custom and set your daughters free! CHORUS By 1912, this fight for women's rights, including the right to vote, had been raging for 65 years or more (depending on if you use Seneca Falls for the starting point) & New York was right in the thick of it. As mentioned in the song, New York women, in particular, were tired of seeing Western states grant women the right to vote, while their own representatives refused. & NY would refuse one more time in 1915, before finally enfranchising women in 1917.
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