This hat is designed to celebrate Dr. Mabel Ping-Hua Lee (李彬华), a Chinese-American suffragette who was a known leader in the women’s suffrage movement in New York City by the time she was 16, leading suffrage marches and advocating for women’s rights in newspapers, including the New York Tribune and New York Times. While a student at Barnard college, she joined the Chinese Students’ Association and wrote feminist essays for The Chinese Students’ Monthly. She went on to become the first Chinese woman to earn a PhD in economics at Columbia University in 1912. Her dissertation was published as a book The Economic History of China. She would devout the rest of her life to the Chinese American community. Although white women got the vote in 1920, because of the Chinese Exclusion Act from 1882-1943, Chinese women, like Mabel, were not able to vote until 1943. Despite not benefiting from the 19th amendment, many Chinese women, pushed for its passing, because as Mabel Lee wrote “We believe in the idea of democracy; woman suffrage or the feminist movement (of which woman suffrage is a fourth part) is the application of democracy to women…The fundamental principle of democracy is equality of opportunity … It means an equal chance for each man to show what his merits are. … the feminists want nothing more than the equality of opportunity for women to prove their merits and what they are best suited to do.”

I am releasing this as a free pattern in the hopes that this beanie can keep you cozy when you take the time to go vote and that you will consider taking part in #WarmTheLine 2020 election project, and keep someone warm while they wait in line to vote. Learn more about the Warm the Line Project and where to send hats and other items here. Please honor Mabel Lee, and all the women who fought for our right to vote and go vote.

MEASUREMENTS
Circumference: 20 inches/approx 42 cm

There are two versions provided, one knit in bulky yarn with 7mm needles and a scrappy marled version using 3 strands of fingering weight yarn held together and 4.5mm needles. You could also use worsted weight yarn. The hat should require roughly 100 grams of yarn.