Women's suffrage in Virginia

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Women's suffrage rally at the Virginia State Capitol in 1916 Women's suffrage rally at the Virginia State Capitol in 1916.jpg
Women's suffrage rally at the Virginia State Capitol in 1916

Women's suffrage was granted in Virginia in 1920, with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The General Assembly, Virginia's governing legislative body, did not ratify the Nineteenth Amendment until 1952. [1] [2] [3] The argument for women's suffrage in Virginia began in 1870, [1] [4] but it did not gain traction until 1909 with the founding of the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia. [2] Between 1912 and 1916, Virginia's suffragists would bring the issue of women's voting rights to the floor of the General Assembly three times, petitioning for an amendment to the state constitution giving women the right to vote; they were defeated each time. [1] [2] During this period, the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia and its fellow Virginia suffragists fought against a strong anti-suffragist movement that tapped into conservative, post-Civil War values on the role of women, as well as racial fears. [4] [5] After achieving suffrage in August 1920, over 13,000 women registered within one month to vote for the first time in the 1920 United States presidential election. [1] [2]

Contents

Early efforts

Organizing for women's suffrage began in Virginia in 1870, when Anna Whitehead Bodeker, originally from New Jersey, invited suffragist Pauline Kellogg Wright Davis to speak in Richmond. Bodeker and other supporters of women's suffrage created the Virginia State Woman Suffrage Association in May 1870. [1] [4]

During her time as president of the Virginia State Woman Suffrage Association, Bodeker tried to stir up public support of women's suffrage by contributing to local newspapers and inviting nationally known suffragists to speak in Richmond. [1] Bodeker arranged to have Susan B. Anthony speak about suffrage in Richmond's federal courthouse in December 1870. [4]

Citing the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S Constitution, Bodeker attempted to vote in a municipal election in Richmond in November 1871. She was unsuccessful. [1] [4] In place of a ballot, Bodeker put a note in the ballot box that read:

"By the Constitution of the United States, I Mrs. A. Whitehead Bodeker, have a right to give my vote at this election, and in vindication of it drop this note in the ballot-box, November 7th, 1871." [4]

Due to pressure for women in post-Civil War Virginia to adhere to traditional values of womanhood, Bodeker was unable to attract significant support for the cause of women's suffrage. [1] [4] The Virginia State Woman's Suffrage Association faded from the women's suffragist movement less than a decade after its founding. [4]

In 1880, Orra Henderson Moore Gray Langhorne unsuccessfully petitioned Virginia's General Assembly to allow women to vote in the presidential election. In 1894, Langhorne petitioned the General Assembly for female property owners to have the right to vote in state and national elections—also unsuccessfully. [6]

Langhorne established the Virginia Suffrage Society (later called the Virginia Woman Suffrage Association) in 1893, as part of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). She served as the society's president, as vice-president of NAWSA, and testified with other NAWSA suffragist at a 1896 United States Senate committee hearing on women's rights. However, due to low membership numbers and organizational challenges, the Virginia Suffrage Society closed before the turn of the century. [6]

Equal Suffrage League of Virginia

Crenshaw's home, the site of the first meetings of the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia Crenshaw House Richmond VA.JPG
Crenshaw's home, the site of the first meetings of the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia

In November 1909, a group of about 20 activists formed the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia in Richmond. The first meetings took place at Anne Clay Crenshaw's home, located at 919 West Franklin Street, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. [7]

Lila Meade Valentine served as the league's first president. Other founding members included Kate Waller Barrett, one of Virginia's first female physicians; artists Adele Goodman Clark and Nora Houston; and writers Kate Langley Bosher, Ellen Glasgow, and Mary Johnston. [2] [5] The league joined NAWSA a few months after its founding. [1]

Lila Meade Valentine, co-founder and first president of the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia Lila Meade Valentine.jpg
Lila Meade Valentine, co-founder and first president of the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia

While NAWSA favored organizing by electoral districts and putting pressure on politicians, the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia had to take different approach. Aware of the widespread apathy towards the issue of suffrage in Virginia, the league's leaders knew that educating the public on suffrage was the only way to give the cause legislative traction. [5] The Equal Suffrage League focused their legislative efforts on winning support in the General Assembly for a voting rights amendment to the state constitution. [1]

Equal Suffrage League of Virginia in front of Washington Monument, Capitol Square, Richmond, February 1915 Equal Suffrage League of Richmond, Va., February 1915.jpg
Equal Suffrage League of Virginia in front of Washington Monument, Capitol Square, Richmond, February 1915

The Equal Suffrage League of Virginia began educating the public about suffrage and drawing more women into the cause. Members canvassed house to house; distributed leaflets and "Votes for Women" buttons; and made speeches across the state. The league began publishing Virginia Suffrage News in 1914. [1]

The Equal Suffrage League of Virginia's membership grew from about 100 members in its first year to more than 15,000 by 1917. By 1919, with 32,000 members, it was the largest political organization in the state of Virginia, and perhaps the largest state association in the South. [1] [8]

Meanwhile, some Virginia suffragists grew impatient with the painstaking process of petitioning the General Assembly for a women's suffrage amendment to the state constitution and educating the public on the value of giving women the vote. Some women left their local chapters of the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia to join the more militant National Women's Party, joining efforts in pressuring the United States Congress and President Woodrow Wilson for a federal amendment giving women the right to vote. [1]

Anti-suffragism in Virginia

The role of women in society

Headquarters of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (NAOWS) in New York City. Virginia's branch of NAOWS formed in 1912. National Anti-Suffrage Association LCCN97500067.tif
Headquarters of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (NAOWS) in New York City. Virginia's branch of NAOWS formed in 1912.

In 1912, the Virginia Association Opposed to Women's Suffrage (VAOWS) was formed in affiliation with the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage. Jane Rutherford served as president. [9] The VAOWS began distributing anti-suffragist pamphlets claiming that, due to biological differences between the sexes, women were "easily excitable and impractical"; [5] unable "to engage in political strife without calm minds"; [5] and not "disposed to bother their heads with the actual facts of politics." [5] The Equal Suffrage League of Virginia responded to these claims by arguing that Virginia women were intelligent, sensible citizens, and taxpayers with interests ignored by male legislators of the time—education, health care, and child labor, specifically. [1] [3] In its early years, the league appealed to conservative views on a woman's traditional role as wife and mother, insisting that in order to be a good mother, a woman had to be a good citizen. [1] [5] A flier issued by the NAWSA and reprinted by the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia proclaimed that "the place of the woman is in the HOME" and "Women are, by nature and training, housekeepers...Let them have a hand in the city's housekeeping, even if they introduce the occasional house-cleaning." [5]

The issue of race

"Virginia Warns Her People Against Woman Suffrage" 1915 anti-suffrage flier Virginia Warns Her People Against Woman Suffrage 1915 antisuffrage flier.jpg
"Virginia Warns Her People Against Woman Suffrage" 1915 anti-suffrage flier

By 1915, anti-suffragists in Virginia were openly tapping into racial fears. They warned that giving women the right to vote would also give African American women the right to vote, leading to blacks taking control of the polls and putting white supremacy in danger. [1] [2] A flier distributed by the VAOWS claimed that if both black men and women had the right to vote, then "Twenty-nine Counties Would Go Under Negro Rule." [5] At first, Virginia suffragists publicly ignored this element of the anti-suffragist argument. [2] [5] However, private exchanges within the Virginia suffrage movement showed differing views on the issue of giving African American women the right to vote. [1] In a letter to Lila Meade Valentine, Mary Johnston wrote, "I think that as women we should be most prayerfully careful lest, in the future, women—whether coloured women or white women who are merely poor—should be able to say that we had betrayed their interests and excluded them from freedom." [1] [5] Meanwhile, Valentine wrote to a friend, "I believe that all women, white or black, who meet the qualifications for suffrage in any State should have that right, but in working to secure that right, we should exercise common sense, and not complicate our efforts and add difficulties of the task by injecting elements of discord. As you know, the negro is the one remaining argument against suffrage in the Southern States . . . This is not a matter of principle but of expediency." [2] [10] In 1916, the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia distributed "Equal Suffrage and the Negro Vote," a pamphlet arguing that "the enfranchisement of Virginia women would increase white supremacy" and assured readers that literacy tests and poll taxes would prove effective in disenfranchising African Americans. [1] [2]

Legislative challenges

Between 1912 and 1916, Virginia's suffragists brought the issue of women's voting rights to the floor of the General Assembly on three separate occasions; they were defeated each time. [1] [2] After the United States Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment in June 1919, the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia fought for ratification, but Virginia's politicians refused. On February 6, 1920, the Senate of Virginia rejected the amendment, 24 to 10; on February 12, 1920, it failed in the House of Delegates, 62 to 22. [2]

After suffrage

New organizations, continued race disparities, and the rush to register

Ora Brown Stokes Perry, first president of Virginia Negro Women's League of Voters OraBrownStokesPerry1921.tif
Ora Brown Stokes Perry, first president of Virginia Negro Women's League of Voters

Virginian women won the right to vote in August 1920 when the Nineteenth Amendment became law and would go on to vote in the presidential election that following November. [1] [2] [3] The Equal Suffrage League of Virginia disbanded a few weeks later and reorganized as the League of Women Voters of Virginia, which would focus on educating women on how to register to vote and pay the poll tax. [1] [8] Members also participated in lobbying efforts for social welfare issues. [2] Adele Goodman Clark, an original member of the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia, chaired the committee to establish the organization and served as its president from 1921 to 1925; she served a second term from 1929 to 1944. [11]

Black leaders in Richmond organized voter registration drives and voter education efforts. [1] Maggie L. Walker, an African American businesswoman and the first woman in the United States to establish and serve as president of a bank, [12] [13] chaired a committee of female activists that held mass meetings to encourage black women to vote. [14]

Virginia women were only given one month to register to vote before the November 1920 presidential election, and registrars were not prepared for the large number of women voters. [1] [2] [14] Three white women were hired to process white women's voter registrations; black women were left to stand in long lines as they waited to be registered. [1] [14] Walker went to City Hall and demanded the hiring of more officials to speed up the registration process. Ora Brown Stokes Perry, an African American social worker, unsuccessfully petitioned the registrar of voters to appoint African American deputies to register black women to vote, but none were appointed. [1] [14]

Shut out from membership in the newly established Virginia League of Women Voters, African American women established their own organization: the Virginia Negro Women's League of Voters; Perry served as president. [1] [15]

By early October, 13,000 women—10,645 white and 2,410 black—had registered to vote. [1] [2]

Women's early participation in Virginia politics (1920 until state ratification)

Kate Waller Barrett, female delegate to the 1924 Democratic National Convention Kate Waller Barrett.jpg
Kate Waller Barrett, female delegate to the 1924 Democratic National Convention

In 1920, Mary-Cooke Branch Munford, a Richmond community activist and social reformer from was appointed to the Democratic National Committee. [1] [16]

In 1923, Sarah Lee Fain and Helen Timmons Henderson become the first women elected to the Virginia's General Assembly; they took office in January 1924. [1]

Equal Suffrage League of Virginia co-founder Kate Waller Barrett served as delegate from Virginia to the 1924 Democratic National Convention. [17]

Between 1923 and 1933, six women—all teachers or educators and all Democrats, the state's majority party at the time—ran successfully for the Virginia House of Delegates. [1] In addition to Fain and Henderson, other female delegates during this time included: Sallie Cook Booker, Nancy Melvinna Caldwell, Helen Ruth Henderson, and Emma Lee White. [18]

No women served in Virginia's General Assembly between 1933 and 1954. [1]

In June 1948, Clintwood, Virginia, elected its first female mayor, Minnie "Sis" Miller, and an all-female city council: Buena Smith, Ida Cunningham, Ferne W. Skeen, Kate Friend, and Marian C. Shortt. They took office on September 1, 1948. [1] [19] [20]

The General Assembly of Virginia finally ratified the Nineteenth Amendment on February 21, 1952. [2] [3]

See also

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women's suffrage in Georgia (U.S. state)</span>

The first women's suffrage group in Georgia, the Georgia Woman Suffrage Association (GWSA), was formed in 1892 by Helen Augusta Howard. Over time, the group, which focused on "taxation without representation" grew and earned the support of both men and women. Howard convinced the National American Women's Suffrage Association (NAWSA) to hold their first convention outside of Washington, D.C., in 1895. The convention, held in Atlanta, was the first large women's rights gathering in the Southern United States. GWSA continued to hold conventions and raise awareness over the next years. Suffragists in Georgia agitated for suffrage amendments, for political parties to support white women's suffrage and for municipal suffrage. In the 1910s, more organizations were formed in Georgia and the number of suffragists grew. In addition, the Georgia Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage also formed an organized anti-suffrage campaign. Suffragists participated in parades, supported bills in the legislature and helped in the war effort during World War I. In 1917 and 1919, women earned the right to vote in primary elections in Waycross, Georgia and in Atlanta respectively. In 1919, after the Nineteenth Amendment went out to the states for ratification, Georgia became the first state to reject the amendment. When the Nineteenth Amendment became the law of the land, women still had to wait to vote because of rules regarding voter registration. White Georgia women would vote statewide in 1922. Native American women and African-American women had to wait longer to vote. Black women were actively excluded from the women's suffrage movement in the state and had their own organizations. Despite their work to vote, Black women faced discrimination at the polls in many different forms. Georgia finally ratified the Nineteenth Amendment on February 20, 1970.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women's suffrage in Delaware</span>

Women's suffrage began in Delaware the late 1860s, with efforts from suffragist, Mary Ann Sorden Stuart, and an 1869 women's rights convention held in Wilmington, Delaware. Stuart, along with prominent national suffragists lobbied the Delaware General Assembly to amend the state constitution in favor of women's suffrage. Several suffrage groups were formed early on, but the Delaware Equal Suffrage Association (DESA) formed in 1896, would become one of the major state suffrage clubs. Suffragists held conventions, continued to lobby the government and grow their movement. In 1913, a chapter of the Congressional Union (CU), which would later be known at the National Woman's Party (NWP), was set up by Mabel Vernon in Delaware. NWP advocated more militant tactics to agitate for women's suffrage. These included picketing and setting watchfires. The Silent Sentinels protested in Washington, D.C., and were arrested for "blocking traffic." Sixteen women from Delaware, including Annie Arniel and Florence Bayard Hilles, were among those who were arrested. During World War I, both African-American and white suffragists in Delaware aided the war effort. During the ratification process for the Nineteenth Amendment, Delaware was in the position to become the final state needed to complete ratification. A huge effort went into persuading the General Assembly to support the amendment. Suffragists and anti-suffragists alike campaigned in Dover, Delaware for their cause. However, Delaware did not ratify the Nineteenth Amendment until March 6, 1923, well after it was already part of the United States Constitution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women's suffrage in Maine</span>

While women's suffrage had an early start in Maine, dating back to the 1850s, it was a long, slow road to equal suffrage. Early suffragists brought speakers Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone to the state in the mid-1850s. Ann F. Jarvis Greely and other women in Ellsworth, Maine, created a women's rights lecture series in 1857. The first women's suffrage petition to the Maine Legislature was also sent that year. Working-class women began marching for women's suffrage in the 1860s. The Snow sisters created the first Maine women's suffrage organization, the Equal Rights Association of Rockland, in 1868. In the 1870s, a state suffrage organization, the Maine Women's Suffrage Association (MWSA), was formed. Many petitions for women's suffrage were sent to the state legislature. MWSA and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) of Maine worked closely together on suffrage issues. By the late 1880s the state legislature was considering several women's suffrage bills. While women's suffrage did not pass, during the 1890s many women's rights laws were secured. During the 1900s, suffragists in Maine continued to campaign and lecture on women's suffrage. Several suffrage organizations including a Maine chapter of the College Equal Suffrage League and the Men's Equal Rights League were formed in the 1910s. Florence Brooks Whitehouse started the Maine chapter of the National Woman's Party (NWP) in 1915. Suffragists and other clubwomen worked together on a large campaign for a 1917 voter referendum on women's suffrage. Despite the efforts of women around the state, women's suffrage failed. Going into the next few years, a women's suffrage referendum on voting in presidential elections was placed on the September 13, 1920 ballot. But before that vote, Maine ratified the Nineteenth Amendment on November 5, 1920. It was the nineteenth state to ratify. A few weeks after ratification, MWSA dissolved and formed the League of Women Voters (LWV) of Maine. White women first voted in Maine on September 13, 1920. Native Americans in Maine had to wait longer to vote. In 1924, they became citizens of the United States. However, Maine would not allow individuals living on Indian reservations to vote. It was not until the passage of a 1954 equal rights referendum that Native Americans gained the right to vote in Maine. In 1955 Lucy Nicolar Poolaw (Penobscot) was the first Native American living on a reservation in Maine to cast a vote.

References

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  6. 1 2 Pollard, Frances S. "Dictionary of Virginia Biography: Orra Henderson Moore Gray Langhorne". Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia.
  7. ↑ National Register of Historic Places, Crenshaw House, Richmond, VA, 127-0228-0029, 2010. https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/VLR_to_transfer/PDFNoms/127-0228-0029_Crenshaw_House_2010_NR_FINAL.pdf
  8. 1 2 Komp, Catherine. "Richmond's Lila Meade Valentine and the Campaign for Equal Suffrage". Community Idea Stations.
  9. ↑ "Suffragists and Antis in Session". The Times Dispatch. Retrieved July 12, 2019.
  10. ↑ "Episode 1—Suffrage in Virginia". Virginia Political History Podcast.
  11. ↑ McDaid, Jennifer Davis (and the Dictionary of Virginia Biography) (March 10, 2016). "Adèle Clark (1882–1983)". Encyclopedia Virginia, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.
  12. ↑ Branch, Muriel Miller. "Maggie Lena Walker (1864–1934)". Encyclopedia Virginia, Virginia Humanities.
  13. ↑ Norwood, Alisha R. "Maggie L. Walker (1864-1934)". National Women's History Museum.
  14. 1 2 3 4 Terborg-Penn, Rosalyn (1998). African American Women in the Struggle for the Vote, 1850-1920. Indiana University Press. pp.  154. ISBN   978-0253211767.
  15. ↑ Caldwell, Arthur Bunyan (1917). History of the American Negro and His Institutions: Virginia Edition. A. B. Caldwell Publishing Co. pp. 137–139.
  16. ↑ "Mary-Cooke Branch Munford (1865 - 1938)".
  17. ↑ Reukauf, Diane McVittie. "Katherine Harwood Waller Barrett". Library of Virginia: Dictionary of Virginia Biography.
  18. ↑ "A History of the Virginia House of Delegates" . Retrieved July 14, 2019.
  19. ↑ Dickerson, Krystle. "The Petticoat Revolution: When Women Took Over the Government". History Hustle.
  20. ↑ Davis, Virginia (June 9, 1948). "Clinton Virginia All Woman's Ticket Swept to Victory". Kingsport News. Retrieved July 14, 2019.
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