By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo
Buffalo voters – both men and women for the first time – line up to vote at Amherst and Parkside (top) and Hertel and North Park (bottom).
Journalism is often thought of as the first draft of history but on Election Day 100 years ago, The News slightly missed the mark.
First, more Buffalonians and more Americans headed to the polls than ever before – in large measure because it was the first Election Day where recently enfranchised women could cast their votes for president.
In Buffalo and around the country, the use of the rapidly developing medium of radio to deliver instantaneous results of the race between Warren G. Harding and James Cox the evening of that election ushered in the modern radio era.
Both of these events made it into the lead story on the front page of The Buffalo Evening News on that historic night, but leading the election story was the giant screen that was erected in front of the old News headquarters building, which stood on Main Street in what is now the footprint of the Seneca One tower.
The screen, readers were promised, would flash “the best election results first,” between moving pictures starring Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks – which would also be projected on the screen. The News arranged with the International Railway Company to have the streetcars stay off of Main Street that evening, so people could watch the results on the screen without having to dodge trolleys all night.
Election Day 1920 was a rainy day in Buffalo, but “men and women voters by the thousands stuck determinedly by their posts waiting for their turn.”
As was the case for most of the first half of the 20th century, in 1920, Buffalonians voted in portable sheds, which only fit two or three people at a time, placed on street corners all around the city.
Eight years earlier, in 1912, it was only men lined up around Buffalo to vote for President.
