My favorite story gleaned from researching this story was that 3 women in Massachusetts (?) from this era lost their property when they refused to pay taxes, claiming it unconstitutional to be taxed without representation.

Regarding the very good question about the uses and abuses of the terms suffragette and suffragist…It is, indeed, the case that the term suffragette was controversial. Generally, it was the name given to supporters of Emmeline Pankhurst, the most well-known leader of the British suffrage movement. The term became even more charged after factions in the British suffrage movement, Mrs. Pankhurst’s among them, decided to use more militant tactics in their long campaign to secure the right to vote for women.

To draw on the British connection and the authorities’ response to suffrage militancy, I always think about the London, characters and songs from the iconic film, “Mary Poppins.” The children’s mother is a suffragette, and returns home from a Votes for Women rally. One of the lines from the “Sister Suffragette” song is, “Take heart for Mrs. Pankhurst, who has been clamped in irons again!” It is a reference to the arrests and jail time faced by many suffragettes.

Many suffrage supporters, particularly in the United States, did not want to be associated with the suffragettes’ militant actions and tactics to gain favor for the votes for women cause. For this reason, they termed themselves suffragists.
So, that, within the suffrage movement itself, to call oneself a suffragette was to identify with the more militant supporters. Many American suffrage advocates were quite willing to do so. The most famous, Alice Paul, founder of the National Woman’s Party, was also America’s most famous suffragette.

That it took over 70 years in America to pass what became the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote is revealing. To me, it means that whether many people called supporters suffragettes or suffragists, they did not think women capable of exercising a fundamental liberty essential to calling the place where one lives, a democracy.

As far as the mystery object: my first thought was along the lines of a hydraulic/lifting chair at the dentist or barber. But it does also seem to evoke handlebars, especially since I can’t tell whether or not the bit under the “seat” is symmetric. And then I saw this pet high chair at Hammacher Schlemmer: [link]
so maybe it was a bike basket for animals? Kind of like Dorothy used to transport Toto?