This is a list of Kentucky suffragists, suffrage groups and others associated with the cause of women's suffrage in Kentucky.
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Laura Clay, co-founder and first president of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association, was a leader of the American women's suffrage movement. She was one of the most important suffragists in the South, favoring the states' rights approach to suffrage. A powerful orator, she was active in the Democratic Party and had important leadership roles in local, state and national politics. In 1920 at the Democratic National Convention, she was one of two women, alongside Cora Wilson Stewart, to be the first women to have their names placed into nomination for the presidency at the convention of a major political party.
Mary Barr Clay was a leader of the American women's suffrage movement. She also was known as Mary B. Clay and Mrs. J. Frank Herrick.
Katherine Rebecca Pettit was an American educator and suffragist from Kentucky who contributed to the settlement school movement of the early 20th century.
Josephine Kirby Henry was an American Progressive Era women's rights leader, suffragist, social reformer, and writer from Versailles, Kentucky in the United States. Henry was a strong advocate for women and was a leading proponent of legislation that would grant married women property rights. Henry lobbied hard for the adoption of the Kentucky 1894 Married Woman's Property Act, and is credited for being instrumental in its passage. Henry was the first woman to campaign publicly for a statewide office in Kentucky.
Eliza Caroline "Lida" Obenchain, was an American author, women's rights advocate, and suffragist from Bowling Green, Kentucky. Lida Obenchain, writing under the pen name Eliza Calvert Hall, was widely known early in the twentieth century for her short stories featuring an elderly widowed woman, "Aunt Jane", who plainly spoke her mind about the people she knew and her experiences in the rural south.
Sally Ann's Experience is an 1898 short story written by American author Eliza "Lida" Calvert Obenchain under the pen name Eliza Calvert Hall.
Kentucky Equal Rights Association (KERA) was the first permanent statewide women's rights organization in Kentucky. Founded in November 1888, the KERA voted in 1920 to transmute itself into the Kentucky League of Women Voters to continue its many and diverse progressive efforts on behalf of women's rights.
Women's suffrage was established in the United States on a full or partial basis by various towns, counties, states, and territories during the latter decades of the 19th century and early part of the 20th century. As women received the right to vote in some places, they began running for public office and gaining positions as school board members, county clerks, state legislators, judges, and, in the case of Jeannette Rankin, as a member of Congress.
Louise Southgate was one of the first women physicians in Northern Kentucky where she advocated for girls in the juvenile court system and was an early proponent of birth control. Besides her medical practice and outreach, she led many efforts for the American women's suffrage movement through her local clubs and the Kentucky Equal Rights Association.
Susan Look Avery was an American writer, suffragist, pacifist and supporter of temperance as well as a single tax. She hosted Lucy Stone and husband Henry Blackwell when they came to Louisville, Kentucky for the American Woman Suffrage Association meeting—the first suffrage convention in the South—in 1881. In 1890 she started the Woman's Club of Louisville, and in honor of her birthday, the suffrage club of Wyoming, New York, named itself after her.
The Southern States Woman Suffrage Conference was a group dedicated to winning voting rights for white women. The group consisted mainly of highly educated, middle and upper class white women of prominent families. They were originally part of the larger National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), but broke off in 1906. Prominent leaders in the group included Laura Clay and Kate Gordon, who supported and focused on local and state reforms rather than a national amendment. The group applied tactics like the Lost Cause, the belief that the Confederate cause was moral and just, and the Southern strategy, which appealed to white voters by promoting racism.
Mary Jane Warfield Clay was an American socialite, suffragist, abolitionist, and political activist. An early leader in the suffrage movement in Kentucky, she began by forming a suffrage club at her home in 1879. Her experience and success as a farm manager included her acute business sense in the middle of the American Civil War. She sold supplies from her farm to both Union and Confederate forces when they each occupied the Commonwealth.
Elise Clay Bennett Smith was President of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association from 1915 to 1916, and served as an Executive Committee member for the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Her last name changed several times as she married three men in succession: from her birth surname of Bennett she became Smith, then Jefferson, and finally Gagliardini.
Luella Wilcox St. Clair Moss was an American educator and suffragist. She was one of the first female college presidents in the United States.
Alice Barbee Castleman was an American social leader, philanthropist, and suffragist. She was known throughout the country for her activities in political and civic endeavors.
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