Tea Box to Ballot Box

Teresa Barkley

74 x 58 inches

2019

ARTIST STATEMENT

Suffragists in 1873 protested at the centennial of the Boston Tea Party with cries of “No taxation without representation.” In the years that followed, individual women and women’s groups hosted tea parties to support the right for women to vote. I designed this quilt as if it were a commemorative postage stamp depicting tea crates floating from Boston to Washington, D.C., where they are transformed into a ballot box. The suffragists’ ultimate success was achieved by persevering state by state.

Photo by Jean Vong