Jeanette Poulart was eleven years old when women won the right to vote. Her mother was a suffragette and Jeanette has a vivid memory of going with her sister to see her mother speak at a demonstration on Fifth Avenue in New York City. She and her sister watched from the window of their family optician’s office. Jeanette recalls: “Mummy stood on a soap box and spoke about women’s rights at a big demonstration. Sister and I watched. Daddy was in the crowd because he was worried there might be trouble and he didn’t want anything to happen to her. She had a ribbon that she wore across her chest - Vote for Women. We still have it.”
Jeanette too became a suffragette. Like many women who pursued self-fulfilment through accomplishment, Jeanette remained single until an advanced age. She found employment in the bookbinding, which was one of the few professions affluent women could enter and maintain respectability with while earning money and practising a demanding craft.
Up until her late marriage she lived her with family, assuming responsibility for the care of her ageing parents. She died childless.