As we are the History Singers, I was asked to find a suffrage song with which to end my Veteran's Day talk regarding American women's efforts during the First World War and the passage of the 19th Amendment. Throughout our history, Americans have used songs to express their emotions and fire up their purposes and goals, much the way people today share those very things on social media. The American women’s suffrage movement was filled with songs intended to strengthen resolve and promote unity of purpose. What I learned during my recent search: some songs were written specifically for the suffrage movement, but just as the patriots of the American Revolution set their lyrics to familiar British tunes, so someone in the American women’s suffrage movement wrote new lyrics to familiar American tunes.  In this way, new songs could be cranked out and learned quickly—no one had to write a new melody and the singers didn’t have to learn one. The song I sang came from the above-pictured booklet, this one set to the then-familiar tune of the Union Civil War song, “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp” (which later became the tune for "Jesus Loves the Little Children.") 

It is quite fitting that women who were fighting for the right to vote would set their words to the tune of a war song.

Next Election Day

In our western homes we sit, thinking eastern friends of you

And the noble cause to which you give your might

And our eyes with joy are lit as we read of all you do

For we’re proud of you, our sisters dear, tonight.

 

CHORUS

Tramp, tramp, tramp, we’re onward marching

Good luck, comrades, on the way

And beneath the golden glow of the suffrage flag we know

You will join us on the next election day!

 

We have fought the battle here, we have won the freeman’s right

So, we promise you a loyal helping hand

Bid our sisters all good cheer

For the goal is now in sight

You are crossing now into the promised land.