Julia Duncan Brown Asplund | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Julia Duncan Brown October 6, 1875 Palmyra, Missouri |
| Died | July 26, 1958 (aged 82) Pasadena, California |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation(s) | Librarian, Clubwoman |
| Spouse | Rupert Franz Asplund (m. 1905) |
Julia Duncan Brown Asplund (1875-1958) was the first librarian for the University of New Mexico and the first woman to serve on the University of New Mexico Board of Regents.
Asplund née Brown was born on October 6, 1875, in Palmyra, Missouri. [1] Asplund demonstrated an early interest in politics and women's issues, writing to a friend at the age of 15, "I am very strong for women's rights, you know. I think I shall become a second Susan B. Anthony." She was educated at the Drexel Institute of Library Sciences in Philadelphia, graduating in 1901. [2]
In 1903 she went to Albuquerque to organize the Territorial University's library. In 1905 she married fellow faculty member Rupert Asplund, with whom she had one child. The family moved to Santa Fe in 1909. Around that time Asplund turned her attention towards establishing a system of free traveling libraries in New Mexico. In 1911 she joined the New Mexico Federation of Women’s Clubs (NMFWC) and served on the library extension committee almost continually through 1929. [3] Between 1914 and 1916 she was the president of the New Mexico Federation of Women's Clubs. A leader in the suffrage movement in New Mexico, she wrote in an editorial for "The Outlook" in 1927, "...we have found the suffrage of great assistance to women in speeding up the program of welfare work which was started by their organizations more than ten years ago...we knew exactly what we wanted and we got it. More than that, we are using it and we expect to go on using it..." [2]
Asplund was the first librarian for the University of New Mexico [1] and the first woman regent of the University of New Mexico, serving from 1921 to 1923. [2] She chaired the New Mexico State Library Commission from 1941 through 1954. [3] In 1920, a month after New Mexico ratified the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, extending suffrage to women, Julia Brown Asplund was nominated for governor as part of an all-female ticket selected by the New Mexico Woman's Party. Asplund declined the nomination, however, in favor of an appointment to the Republican State Central Committee. She later served as the Director of the State Library Agency from 1929 to 1932 and 1941 to 1954. [2]
She was a member of numerous civic organizations and social clubs, including the New Mexico Commission on Welfare of Women and Children, Commissioner of Management Santa Fe Public Library, the Santa Fe Woman's Club, and the Daughters of the American Revolution. [4]
Asplund died on July 26, 1958, in Pasadena, California. [1]
Asplund was one of six New Mexican suffragists named in a February 2020 memorial bill of the New Mexico legislature titled "Centennial Of 19th Amendment", along with Laura E. Frenger, Nina Otero-Warren, Ina Sizer Cassidy, Deane Lindsey, and Aurora Lucero. [5]
The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the United States and its states from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex, in effect recognizing the right of women to vote. The amendment was the culmination of a decades-long movement for women's suffrage in the United States, at both the state and national levels, and was part of the worldwide movement towards women's suffrage and part of the wider women's rights movement. The first women's suffrage amendment was introduced in Congress in 1878. However, a suffrage amendment did not pass the House of Representatives until May 21, 1919, which was quickly followed by the Senate, on June 4, 1919. It was then submitted to the states for ratification, achieving the requisite 36 ratifications to secure adoption, and thereby go into effect, on August 18, 1920. The Nineteenth Amendment's adoption was certified on August 26, 1920.
Julia Ward Howe was an American author and poet, known for writing the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and the original 1870 pacifist Mother's Day Proclamation. She was also an advocate for abolitionism and a social activist, particularly for women's suffrage.
The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was an organization formed on February 18, 1890, to advocate in favor of women's suffrage in the United States. It was created by the merger of two existing organizations, the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). Its membership, which was about seven thousand at the time it was formed, eventually increased to two million, making it the largest voluntary organization in the nation. It played a pivotal role in the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which in 1920 guaranteed women's right to vote.
Judith Winsor Smith was an American women's suffrage activist, social reformer, and abolitionist. She was involved in the suffrage movement until the Nineteenth Amendment was passed in 1920, when she voted for the first time at the age of 99. She was a founder and the first president of the Home Club of East Boston, one of the first women's clubs in Massachusetts.
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The General Federation of Women's Clubs (GFWC), founded in 1890 during the Progressive Movement, is a federation of over 3,000 women's clubs in the United States which promote civic improvements through volunteer service. Many of its activities and service projects are done independently by local clubs through their communities or GFWC's national partnerships. GFWC maintains nearly 70,000 members throughout the United States and internationally. GFWC remains one of the world's largest and oldest nonpartisan, nondenominational, women's volunteer service organizations. The GFWC headquarters is located in Washington, D.C.
The American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) was a single-issue national organization formed in 1869 to work for women's suffrage in the United States. The AWSA lobbied state governments to enact laws granting or expanding women's right to vote in the United States. Lucy Stone, its most prominent leader, began publishing a newspaper in 1870 called the Woman's Journal. It was designed as the voice of the AWSA, and it eventually became a voice of the women's movement as a whole.
María Adelina Isabel Emilia "Nina" Otero-Warren was an American woman's suffragist, educator, and politician. Otero-Warren created a legacy of civil service through her work in education, politics, and public health. She became one of New Mexico's first female government officials when she served as Santa Fe Superintendent of Instruction from 1917 to 1929. Otero-Warren was the first Latina to run for Congress, running unsuccessfully in 1922 as the Republican nominee to represent New Mexico's at-large district in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Margretta Dietrich was an American suffragette and activist. She served as resident of the Nebraska Woman's Suffrage Association in 1919 and Chairman of the Nebraska State League of Women Voters in 1920. Following the ratification of the 19th amendment, she went on to advocate for the rights of Indigenous Americans in New Mexico. She was the president of the New Mexico Association of Indians Affairs for more than 20 years and helped found and was the trustee for several organizations that advocated for Native Americans.
This timeline highlights milestones in women's suffrage in the United States, particularly the right of women to vote in elections at federal and state levels.
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Aurora Lucero-White Lea was an American folklorist, writer, and suffragist. She was a proud Nuevomexicana, advocating for bilingual education in English and Spanish and working to preserve the heritage of the Hispanic Southwest. Lucero-White Lea is best known for her 1953 work Literary Folklore of the Hispanic Southwest, a compilation of cultural traditions, songs, and stories collected while traveling northern New Mexico.
This is a timeline of women's suffrage in New Mexico. Women's suffrage in New Mexico first began with granting women the right to vote in school board elections and was codified into the New Mexico State Constitution, written in 1910. In 1912, New Mexico was a state, and suffragists there worked to support the adoption of a federal women's suffrage amendment to allow women equal suffrage. Even after white women earned the right to vote in 1920, many Native Americans were unable to vote in the state.
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Ada McPherson Morley was an American author, suffragist and rancher. Early in her time in New Mexico, she and her husband edited a newspaper and took on the Santa Fe Ring both in print and in business matters. Morley became involved with the New Mexico chapter of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and later served as president. She was also involved in women's suffrage in New Mexico and helped recruit women into the Congressional Union (CU) later in her life. Morley owned a ranch in the Datil Mountains where she raised cattle and was able to host meetings.
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