Suffragists

The otherwise excellent coverage by The Times of the 75th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment was marred by the unfortunate front-page photo caption identification of a “woman dressed like suffragette Susan B. Anthony” (Aug. 27).

Neither Anthony nor other 19th- and early 20th-Century advocates for women’s right to vote referred to themselves as “suffragettes.” The term they used and that was properly used by others to describe them is suffragist . The word suffragette was an epithet: It was a term of ridicule coined by newspaper editors and used by them and others to make these courageous women look silly and capricious.

MARY L. DOWELL

Alhambra