Help us expand our exhibit

We would like to add several women to our gallery of suffragists with photos and brief biographies.

If you sponsor a suffragist, we'll include your name as a sponsor and your dedication under the photo and label in the exhibit.

We ask a $50 contribution from individuals and a $100 contribution from groups and companies.

Please enter the NAME of the suffragist you wish to honor in the COMMENTS section of your donation.

Sponsor A Suffragist

SPONSORED! Gertrude Weil (1879–1971) was an American social activist involved in many progressive, often controversial causes, including women’s suffrage, labor reform, and civil rights. Born into a family of wealthy German-Jewish merchants in Goldsboro, NC, she was inspired by Jewish teachings that “justice, mercy, and goodness…should be practiced in our daily lives.” At the Horace Mann School, Weil met Elizabeth Cady Stanton's daughter, Margaret Stanton Lawrence, who was an early influence on her. After graduating from Smith College in 1901, she volunteered in local politics since North Carolina law excluded “idiots and lunatics, illiterates, convicts, and women” from voting in elections. She soon challenged these laws by co-founding the Goldsboro Equal Suffrage League, and later becoming president of the state league in 1919. She also joined the National American Woman Suffrage Association and directed suffragist activities around North Carolina, giving speeches, writing letters, and lobbying North Carolina legislators to support woman suffrage. After 1920, she founded the North Carolina League of Women Voters. Throughout her life she continued to work for a more just society by championing child labor legislation, fighting for better working conditions for women and basic services such as food, housing, and medical care for underprivileged families. She opposed racism and supported the integration of schools and public facilities. During World War II, Weil and her mother devoted time and money supporting the rescue of Jews in Germany and Nazi-occupied France. Devoted to the causes she believed in, Weil was still writing letters to her congressmen when she was nearly eighty years old. SPONSORED by a LWV of Broward Member in honor of the League of Women Voters of Broward County for their passion and commitment to our most important issues.

SPONSORED! Katharine Martha Houghton Hepburn (1878 – 1951) was an American feminist social reformer and a leader of the suffrage movement. She was the mother and namesake of actress Katherine Hepburn. Born in 1878 to the wealthy family that founded the Corning Glass Works, Katharine Houghton grew up outside Buffalo, New York. Despite opposition from the Houghton family after her parents’ deaths, Katharine Houghton attended Bryn Mawr College, graduating in 1899 with an A.B. in history and political science, and earning her master’s degree in chemistry and physics the following year. In 1904, Houghton married Thomas Norval Hepburn, a medical student at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The couple moved to Hartford, Connecticut where Katherine Hepburn became interested in the suffrage movement and co-founded the Hartford Equal Franchise League in 1909. This organization was absorbed into the Connecticut Woman’s Suffrage Association, and as president of the CWSA, Hepburn represented the state of Connecticut in a 1913 deputation that met with President Woodrow Wilson to "seek some expression of the President of his attitude on the woman suffrage question." In 1917, she resigned as CWSA president, declaring the Association to be "old-fashioned and supine." She then joined Alice Paul and the more militant and aggressive National Woman’s Party. After the ratification of the 19^th Amendment, the Democratic Party asked Hepburn to run for the U.S. Senate, but she declined. Instead, Hepburn allied herself with birth control advocate Margaret Sanger and together they founded the American Birth Control League which would later become Planned Parenthood. Though she stepped back from leadership in the fight for birth control in the late 1930s, Katharine Houghton Hepburn remained involved in various feminist causes, including the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment. SPONSORED by a LWV of Broward Member.

Ruth Bryan Owen

SPONSORED! Ruth Bryan Owen (1885-1954) was a woman of many firsts. Daughter of the well-known orator and politician William Jennings Bryan and suffragist Mary Baird Bryan, Owen followed in her parents’ footsteps and had a successful career on the lecture circuit, sharing stories about her experiences as an Army nurse during WWI, and teaching public speaking at the University of Miami. In 1928, Owen ran for Congress and gave more than 500 speeches in 4 months. Owen was elected to Congress in 1929, the first woman from any Southern state. In 1933, she became the first woman to be appointed as a U.S. ambassador, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt selected her as Ambassador to Denmark and Iceland. During her four years in office, Owen focused on supporting the health and welfare of children and families, and environmental issues, and sponsored the bill designating the Florida Everglades as a national park. A Danish newspaper described her actions at a protest by landowners against the park: “At a meeting of the Congress was a group of landowners in Everglades. (They) trooped up to protest against conservation. They stated that it was pointless to classify their lands as a national park because Everglades was once worthless mud filled with snakes and mosquitoes. The landowners had brought a live snake, so everyone could see how disgusting and dangerous a place that was involved. But Ruth grabbed the snake and placed it around her neck and said, 'Exactly so scared we are of snakes in the Everglades.' And yes, the national park was created." SPONSORED by Suzanne Kranz in memory of Mary Elizabeth Franklin Gehrig.

Nannie Helen Burroughs 

SPONSORED! Nannie Helen Burroughs (1879–1961), an educator, feminist and suffragist, was the daughter of former slaves. She grew up in Washington, D.C., and despite excelling in her studies, was turned down for a job teaching in public schools. Burroughs decided to open her own school to educate and train poor, working African American women. Relying on small donations from Black women and children in the community rather than wealthy white donors, Burroughs raised enough money to open the National Training School for Women and Girls, based on her belief that women needed the education and training to expand their career choices. Writing about the need for Black and white women to work together to achieve the right to vote, she knew that suffrage for African American women was crucial to protect their interests in an often discriminatory society. Burroughs gave more than 200 speeches across the country about the importance of women’s self-reliance and economic freedom. A member of the National Association of colored Women, the National Association of Wage Earners and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, Burroughs also spoke about the need to address the lynchings of Black Americans. Like Terrell and Wells, she recognized the importance of voting as a tool to create laws and protections necessary for Black Americans. The Trades Hall, now a National Historic Landmark, is the last physical legacy of her lifelong pursuit for worldwide racial and gender equality. SPONSORED by Dr. Kamala Anandam.

SPONSORED by Laurie and Julie Schecter in honor of Ruth Greenfield, a life-long supporter of civil rights and the arts.

Nellie May Quander 

SPONSORED! Nellie May Quander (1880 – 1961), a descendant of two prominent free Black Virginia families who had been enslaved by George Washington, was an educator, suffragist, and a lifelong advocate for the rights of Black women. She attended public schools in Washington D.C., and graduated magna cum laude from Howard University in 1912 with a B.A. in History, Economics, and Political Science, and later a M.A. from Columbia University, a degree in Social Work from New York University, and a diploma from Uppsala University in Sweden. As the first International President of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, she twice contacted Alice Paul, one of the organizers of the National American Woman Suffrage Association 1913 Suffrage Parade, about the Howard students’ participation in the parade. It is not certain whether Paul replied, but it is documented that Nellie May Quander marched in the 1913 Women’s Suffrage Parade with Mary Church Terrell and approximately twenty-five other students from Howard University. A leader in her community, Quander worked as an educator in Washington D.C. schools for thirty years, served on the board of directors at the YWCA and YMCA, served as the executive secretary at the Miner Community Center, as well as holding leadership positions with the Women's Trade Union League and other groups. SPONSORED by Eva Hayward in memory of Lenny Hayward.

Tye Leung Schulze

SPONSORED! Tye Leung (1887-1972) was a civil rights and community activist and the first Chinese American woman to vote in the United States when she cast a ballot in San Francisco on May 19, 1912, one year after women won the right to vote in California. When asked about voting, Leung replied, "My first vote? - Oh, yes, I thought long over that. I studied; I read about all your men who wished to be president. I learned about the new laws. I wanted to KNOW what was right, not to act blindly...I think it right we should all try to learn, not vote blindly, since we have been given this right to say which man we think is the greatest...I think too that we women are more careful than the men. We want to do our whole duty more. I do not think it is just the newness that makes use like that. It is conscience." Born to working-class immigrant parents in San Francisco’s Chinatown when xenophobia against Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans was rampant, she and her family experienced segregation and discrimination. Rather than face an arranged marriage, Leung ran away to a Presbyterian Missionary shelter. Over three decades, she and the shelter staff rescued 3,000 Chinese women and girls from sex trafficking in San Francisco’s Chinatown. In 1910, Leung became the first Chinese American woman to pass the civil service exams and in 1910, she became the very first Chinese American woman to work for the federal government when she was hired as an interpreter at the newly opened Angel Island Immigration Station, designed to enforce the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. While working there, Leung met and fell in love with an Immigration Service Inspector, Charles Schulze. Since anti-miscegenation laws in 1913 had banned intermarriage between whites and Asians, the couple eloped to Washington State where interracial marriage was allowed. When they returned to California, they were forced to find new work. After her husband’s death in 1935, Leung continued to work as a community advocate and at age 61, she was arrested for allegedly driving women to abortion clinics. In 1948, after an investigation and trial, charges were dropped. SPONSORED by Ronni Sandroff in honor of her daughter's commitment to helping women in the tradition of her grandmothers and great grandmothers.

Marian Horwitz O’Brien

SPONSORED! Marian Horwitz O’Brien (1880-1930) was the founding leader of two Florida towns, Moore Haven and Clewiston, president of the railroad that connected them, and the first woman mayor in the South. She came from a wealthy Philadelphia family and moved to Florida after the death of her first husband, an attorney and investor in a Florida agricultural venture. She and her young son settled on a 2000-acre farm near Lake Okeechobee. After she married her husband’s business partner, John J. O’Brien, they worked together to develop the small town of Moore Haven. They built a general store, a vegetable exchange, started a canning factory, and organized a land development company. Marian O’Brien established a Woman’s Club and a library, then served as president of the bank she and her husband founded. Through her lobbying, Moore Haven became the Glade County seat and when Moore Haven was incorporated in 1917, the city charter granted women the right to vote. Marian was nominated for mayor and ran unopposed, becoming the first woman mayor south of the Mason Dixon Line. She and her husband had differences with the townspeople, especially after she hired African American workers for the potato fields. This enraged the town’s white workers who formed vigilante groups. An incident one night when Marian tried to protect her workers from these groups prompted the O’Briens’ move to Clewiston. But after the devastating 1926 Great Miami Hurricane, followed by the Depression, the family decided to leave Florida and settle in Michigan. SPONSORED BY JILL MARTINEZ in honor of Madison Gale Martinez.

Lucy Stone

SPONSORED! Lucy Stone (1818-1893) Lucy Stone, regarded as the “heart and soul” of the women’s rights movement, was an orator, abolitionist, and suffragist. In 1847, she became the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. She defied gender norms by dressing in men’s clothing and she became famous for writing her own egalitarian marriage vows and refusing to take her husband’s last name. In 1850, she helped organize the first National Women’s Rights Convention and influenced Susan B. Anthony to take up the cause of women’s suffrage. In 1858, Stone staged a highly publicized protest by returning her unpaid property tax bill, stating that taxing women while denying them the right to vote was a violation of America’s founding principles. In 1869, Lucy Stone broke with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton over their opposition to the passage of the 15^th Amendment which granted voting rights to Black men, but not to women. Stone supported the amendment and along with Julia Ward Howe and others, formed the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). In 1879, Stone registered to vote in Massachusetts where women could vote in some local elections but was removed from the voters’ rolls because she did not use her husband’s surname. SPONSORED BY REBECCA GILBERT AND SHARI LAZAR PORTER.

Mary Church Terrell 

SPONSORED! Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954) was a well-known African American activist who championed racial equality and women’s suffrage. An Oberlin College graduate, she was the daughter of former slaves. Her father was a successful businessman who became one of the South’s first African American millionaires. She was a lifelong activist, sparked, she said, when one of her childhood friends was lynched. Her words – “Lifting as we climb” – became the motto of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW), the group she helped found with Ida B. Wells. She picketed with the suffragists protesting at the White House as “Silent Sentinels.” At age 89, she joined the successful demonstrations to integrate Washington DC restaurants, which was achieved in 1953. SPONSORED BY MARGIE ROHRBACH in honor of Jonah Verdon, Oberlin College sophomore.

Inez Milholland Boissevain

SPONSORED! Inez Milholland Boissevain (1885-1916) had the great fortune of being born beautiful and wealthy. In 1909 she earned a law degree and became a lawyer specializing in labor and children’s right. As a student at Vassar, whe was suspended for organizing suffrage meetings, which were forbidden. She joined Alice Paul’s Women’s Party and became a prominent leader, including leading the 1913 march in Washington DC, riding a large white horse. She became the face of the movement. Inez undertook a grueling speaking tour to promote a constitutional amendment for women’s suffrage, even though she suffered from pernicious anemia. During the tour, she collapsed and died at age 30. Her memorial service was held in Statuary Hall in the Capitol Rotunda. Her last public words became the motto for the first suffrage pickets at the White House, “How long must women wait for Liberty.” SPONSORED BY MONICA ELLIOTT to celebrate all the women in this world who have lost their lives fighting for their beliefs.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton



SPONSORED! Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) was an abolitionist who traveled to London for the World Anti-Slavery Convention, but who was excluded from it because she was a women. She came home and with fellow activist Lucretia Mott helped organize the radical 1848 Seneca Falls Convention on women’s rights, where the bold Declaration of Sentiments proclaimed “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal.” Stanton was the primary author of the radical declaration, purposely modeled after the Declaration of Independence.

SPONSORED BY MARYJO MOSCA in memory of Lenora Mosca

SPONSORED BY ANNA SORENSEN in honor of Alex and Louis

Sojourner Truth

SPONSORED! Sojourner Truth (1797-1883) is best known for her work with the abolitionist movement. But there was no stronger advocate for women’s rights than Sojourner Truth. She was born a slave in New York and was sold four times. As a young girl, she had a violent master who beat her. She eventually ran away and was able to buy her freedom. She married, had five children, became a preacher and gave herself the name Sojourner Truth. She never learned to read or write, and yet she was important enough to be invited to the White House to meet Abraham Lincoln.  She was an imposing figure — nearly six feet tall – and her famous speech is “Ain’t I A Woman,” where she talks about the struggles of being both black and female. SPONSORED BY MAUREEN THOMPSON in honor of granddaughter Matilda Joy.

Amelia Bloomer

SPONSORED! Amelia Bloomer (1819-1894) attended the Seneca Falls Convention and was so inspired by the movement that she founded a newspaper that she named The Lily, solely dedicated to women. She was one of America’s first female newspaper editors. Amelia Bloomer’s biggest influence, however, was in the area of “dress reform.” Have you heard of the phrase “bloomers”? Those pantaloons were liberating clothing for women who were restricted by corsets and long full dresses. They were called "the freedom dress" but became known as bloomers because of the outspoken advocacy of Amelia Bloomer. Bloomers were so scandalous, however, that soon the suffragists stopped wearing them because they feared it was distracting people from their message. SPONSORED BY BETHANN MILLER NATIV.

Mary Edwards Walker 

SPONSORED! Mary Edwards Walker (1832-1919) was a Civil War surgeon who was captured by Confederate soldiers and imprisoned for four months. She was the first and only woman to be awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor. She wore her Medal of Honor proudly — even after it was rescinded in 1917 because she hadn’t been “a registered military soldier.” (She had not been allowed to enlist.) President Jimmy Carter restored the medal in 1977. After the war, Walker was arrested for impersonating a man because of her habit of wearing fitted suits. During her widely publicized trial, she argued she had the right to “dress as I please in free America” and the judge ordered the police to never arrest her again. When people criticized her for dressing like a man, she said: “I don’t wear men’s clothes, I wear my own clothes.” SPONSORED BY SANDY BIRCH in honor of her daughters Robin and Barbara and her granddaughter Laura.

Ida B. Wells

SPONSORED! Ida B. Wells (1862- 1931) was born into slavery during the Civil War. She was well known as a crusading journalist and anti-lynching activist. She was also, however, an important figure in the suffrage movement. She wanted the women’s movement to take up the issue of lynching, which it would not do. She was often excluded from suffrage organizations because of her race. So she, with other crusading African American women, founded the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, which was created to address issues dealing with civil rights and women’s suffrage. When the suffrage movement held its 1913 march in Washington D.C., Ida B. Wells refused to walk at the back of the parade, as African American women were instructed to do. She waited in the crowd, and then joined the delegation from her state, Illinois, when it walked past her. SPONSORED BY BARBARA MARKLEY in honor of Carol Greenlee who never gave up fighting for justice.

Susan B. Anthony 

SPONSORED! Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) is probably the best known suffragist. She spent five decades working tirelessly speaking, writing and organizing for women’s right to vote. In 1872, Anthony was arrested for voting, arguing that the U.S. Constitution gives ALL citizens the right to vote, She was found guilty in a highly publicized trial and fined $100 — a fine she refused to pay. Authorities took no further action. In 1979, Susan B. Anthony was the first female citizen to appear on a U.S. coin. SPONSORED BY MONICA ELLIOTT in honor of her mother Joanna, who has never taken voting for granted.

Mary Nolan

SPONSORED! Mary Nolan, (1844-1925) a Floridian from Jacksonville, was 73 when she picketed the White House with the protesters called the Silent Sentinels. Despite her age, Mary was imprisoned and arrested repeatedly. She figures large in the most infamous incident in the Occoquan Workhouse – what became known as the “Night of Terror.” Nolan and the others were arrested for standing in front of the White House and were sentenced to six days in prison. One night, the guards at Occoquan Workhouse violently and repeatedly abused them. Nolan was literally thrown into a cell, landing against the iron bed. As soon as she was discharged, Nolan went directly to the National Women’s Party office and dictated her account of what happened – the first one published. Then, six weeks later the women went on a whistle-stop train tour to tell their shocking stories. It was called the Prison Express and 73-year-old Mary Nolan was there, proudly wearing a prison uniform.  SPONSORED by Linda Bloomfield in gratitude to all the women before me who fought for my rights.

Alice Paul 

SPONSORED! Alice Paul (1885-1977) was the PR genius behind the parades and protests of the most militant phase of the suffrage movement. As a young graduate of Swarthmore, she went to London and discovered the far more radical suffrage movement there. When she returned to the United States, Paul and a friend she met in London’s suffrage movement, Lucy Burns, founded the National Women’s Party, which used compelling tactics like parades and protests. Paul suffered greatly for her militancy. She was arrested repeatedly. She was placed in solitary confinement in the mental ward of the prison as a way to “break” her will and undermine her credibility. She went on a hunger strike, which resulted in violent force-feeding. She used all these experiences to advance her cause. After women won the right to vote with the 19th Amendment, Alice devoted the rest of her life to working on ways to empower women. In 1923 she introduced the first Equal Rights Amendment. She was active in the fight for the ERA into the 1970s. She died in 1977 at 92. SPONSORED BY SARA SYED in honor of Katy Syed.

Carrie Chapman Catt 

SPONSORED! Carrie Chapman Catt (1859-1947) founded the League of Women Voters 100 years ago, as women were on the verge of winning the vote. She was a natural-born leader who started her career as a teacher. When her father refused to pay for college, Carrie raised her own money working as a teacher. With her degree, she became a high school principal and eventually a superintendent of schools in Iowa. She was elected the president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. immediately following suffrage pioneer Susan B. Anthony. Carrie Chapman Catt, considered a skilled political strategist, worked for decades, traveling the country organizing local suffrage chapters and led the final push for ratification in the states in 1920. SPONSORED BY CAROL SMITH in honor of her daughters-in-law, Diane, Caron, and Susan, and granddaughters Jessica and Breanne

Ivy Stranahan

SPONSORED! Ivy Stranahan (1881-1971) is one of Broward County’s founding citizens — Fort Lauderdale’s first school teacher and a lifelong advocate for the Seminole Indians. She was also one of Florida’s most prominent suffragists. Ivy was active in the Fort Lauderdale Suffrage League and was president of the statewide suffrage organization. She went to Tallahassee in 1917 to lobby legislators — unsuccessfully — for a state constitutional amendment. At the same time, she worked to win women the right to vote in local elections. As a result, in 1919 the women of Fort Lauderdale won the right to vote in municipal races, a year before they could vote for congressmen and presidents. SPONSORED BY MAJOR WILLIAM LAUDERDALE CHAPTER, NATIONAL SOCIETY DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

Zitkala-Sa

SPONSORED! Zitkala-Sa. Zitkála-Šá (1876–1938), also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, the name given to her by missionaries and later her married name, was a member of the Sioux nation and a champion of Native American citizenship rights. A writer, editor, translator, musician, and educator, she has been listed as one of the most influential Native American activists of the 20th century. Among her many accomplishments, she was a leader in the Society of American Indians, founded in 1907, whose work led to the passing of the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act. Nevertheless, some southwestern states continued to find ways to deny voting rights to Native Americans. As a result, she co-founded the National Council of American Indians in 1926, which lobbied for Native people’s right to United States citizenship and other civil rights they had long been denied. SPONSORED BY JOAN WIDER to honor this courageous woman and recognize the diverse leaders in the struggle for the vote and two contemporary leaders Eve Miriam Wider and Alex Mariko Webb/Wider. 

Lucy Burns 

SPONSORED! Lucy Burns  (1879-1966) was a passionate suffragist and women’s rights advocate. Burns first became active in the suffrage movement in the United Kingdom, where she was inspired by the activism of Emmeline Pankhurst. When she was arrested during a protest march, she met fellow American Alice Paul. They discovered they shared similar fearlessness and become good friends. Burns and Paul returned to the United States in 1912 to continue the fight for Women’s suffrage. They joined the National American Women Suffrage Association, but argued with the Association leaders who saw them as too radical. Burns and Paul, not wanting to cause a rift in the suffrage movement, began a new committee within the association. But ultimately, this committee, the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, split from the NAWSA. Then in 1916, Lucy Burns and Alice Paul founded a political party for women, The National Woman’s Party, who staged the famous “Silent Sentinels” vigil outside the White House. Burns was arrested in 1917 while picketing the White House. In jail, Burns joined Alice Paul and many other women in hunger strikes to demonstrate their commitment to their cause, asserting that they were political prisoners. After Burns was released, she was rearrested for continuing picketing, and marching at the White House. When she was arrested for the third time, the judge decided to make an example of Burns, and she was given the maximum sentence. While a prisoner at the Occoquan Workhouse, Lucy Burns endured what is remembered as the “Night of Terror.” The women prisoners were denied medical attention and treated with brutality. To punish Lucy Burns, they handcuffed her hands above her head to her cell door and left her that way for the entire night. This only inspired her fellow prisoners, who stood all night in solidarity, holding their hands above their heads. SPONSORED BY BRADETTE JEPSEN, in honor of all women who persist in challenging the status quo.

Dr. Mabel Ping-Hua Lee

SPONSORED! Dr. Mabel Ping-Hua Lee (1896-1966) Mabel Lee was born China in 1896. She learned English at a missionary school in Hong Kong and won a scholarship that granted her a US visa, and the Lee family settled in New York City in 1905. By the time she was 16, Mabel Lee was a known figure in New York’s suffrage movement. When New York City suffragists held a parade in 1912 to advocate for women’s voting rights, Lee, on horseback, helped lead the parade. In 1912, Lee began her studies at Barnard College, an all-women’s school, which was founded because Columbia University refused to admit women. While there, she joined the Chinese Students’ Association and wrote feminist essays for The Chinese Students’ Monthly. Lee remained involved in the suffrage movement throughout college. Her 1914 essay, “The Meaning of Woman Suffrage,” argued that suffrage for women was necessary to a successful democracy. The extension of democracy (through voting) and “equality of opportunities to women” were, she stated, the hallmarks of true feminism. In 1915, the Women’s Political Union started a Suffrage Shop and invited Lee to give a speech in which Lee encouraged the Chinese community to promote education for education for girls and civic participation for women. Although women won the right to vote in 1920, Chinese women, like Dr. Lee, could not vote until 1943 because of the Chinese Exclusion Act, a Federal law in place from 1882 to 1943. After graduating from Barnard College, Lee earned a PhD in economics at Columbia University, the first Chinese woman to do so. SPONSORED BY ANDREA ANGELUCCI in honor of her Chinese grandchildren, Dominic and Kayleigh

Catherine Flanagan

SPONSORED! Catherine Flanagan (1889-1927) was a first-generation Irish immigrant whose father’s death forced her, the second oldest of seven children, to work at the age of 13. By her mid-twenties, Catherine was secretary for the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association (CWSA). She traveled to Washington in 1917 to picket the White House with the suffragists known as Silent Sentinels, at which point the women were violently attacked by the crowd. Catherine was arrested along with five other women on August 17 and convicted of “obstructing traffic.” She was sentenced to 30 days at the Occoquan Workhouse in Lorton, Virginia. On her release, she said:“I am perfectly willing to go back to the picket line. I feel that it is a little thing to do toward the accomplishment of such a great purpose, especially since it seems to be the only thing left for us to do now.” After her release, Catherine continued as a paid organizer for the National Women’s Party. Catherine travelled all over the United States to rally support for the Nineteenth Amendment. She was in Tennessee for the climactic moment when it became 36th state to approve the amendment. SPONSORED BY PATRICIA McDONALD, honored to be her granddaughter

“Nina” Otero

SPONSORED! Adelina “Nina” Otero-Warren (1881–1965) was a woman’s suffragist, educator, and politician. In 1914, Otero-Warren started working in the New Mexico woman’s suffrage campaign and Alice Paul’s Congressional Union – forerunner of the National Woman’s Party. She quickly became a leader in the CU, working with Hispanic women’s groups and lobbying legislators to pass the 19^th Amendment. She played such an important role in this activist effort that Alice Paul, the leader of the CU, credited Otero-Warren with ensuring New Mexico ratified the Nineteenth Amendment. Otero-Warren continued her career as a leader in education, public health, and politics, and served as Santa Fe Superintendent of Instruction from 1917 to 1929, becoming one of New Mexico’s first female government officials. She was the first Latina to run for Congress in 1922, running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives as the Republican candidate for New Mexico. SPONSORED BY DEBORAH DAVIS.

Mary Agnes Chase

SPONSORED! Mary Agnes Chase (1869 – 1963) was a botanist and one of the world’s outstanding agrostologists (the study of grasses. Chase worked at the Smithsonian and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. As a woman scientist, she experienced discrimination and throughout her career mentored aspiring women botanists as well as underprivileged students in the sciences. As an active suffragist, Chase participated in the Silent Sentinels demonstrations, and was jailed several times for helping in the “Watchfire Demonstrations” and the burning of President Wilson’s speeches. She had vowed to burn any publication of President Wilson’s that used the words “liberty” and “freedom” until women were given suffrage. While jailed, she went on a hunger strike and was force fed. Her activism put her career at the USDA in jeopardy, but she persisted and continued a long, successful career of travel and research, publishing several important books on grasses. She never stopped defending and supporting women’s causes, particularly in attracting more women into the sciences. SPONSORED BY SuffragetteCity100.

Jane Addams

SPONSORED! Jane Addams (1860-1935) is well-known as a social reformer and as the co-founder of Hull House, a Chicago settlement house designed to help new immigrants get out of poverty. As a peace activisit, she was the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She was a co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for Advancement of Colored People. She is less remembered now for her suffrage work, which was extensive. She was a vice president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and wrote a series of columns for the Ladies Home Journal and other magazines promoting the vote for women. SPONSORED BY GLORIA REINHARDT in honor of her fearless grand nieces Ashlyn, Aurora and Mariah and hope they will grow up to be fearless women leaders

Helen Keller

SPONSORED! Helen Keller (1880- 1968) is famous, but few picture her as the political radical that she was. Left deaf and blind from an illness at 19 months, she nevertheless devoted her life to activism. An avid socialist, she was a leader who fought for women’s rights in the decade leading to the passage of the 19th amendment. She joined suffrage marches and protests and when people talked about men being superior, she said simply: “The inferiority of women is man-made.” SPONSORED BY Austin Celebrates Women’s Suffrage Centennial 

Dr. Cora Smith Eaton

SPONSORED! Dr. Cora Smith Eaton (1867-1939) In the suffrage movement, women were climbing mountains, both figuratively and literally. Dr. Cora Smith Eaton did both. A woman of the west, she was born in 1867 and graduated from the University of North Dakota. She studied in Boston to became a physician and became the first female licensed physician in North Dakota. Following her mother’s example, she was active in the suffrage movement, eventually becoming president of suffrage organizations in North Dakota and Seattle, where she moved. Dr. Eaton, like a surprising number of women, was active in early mountaineering. Half the founders of the Mountaineers climbing club, founded in 1906 in Seattle, were female — four were female physicians, including Dr. Eaton! Climbing 14,411-foot Mount Ranier was even billed as a “side trip” to a women’s suffrage convention in Seattle in 1909. On that climb, which was led by Dr. Eaton, she planted a “Votes for Women” banner atop the peak. The women of Washington won the vote the next year. Eventually, Dr. Eaton climbed all six of the highest peaks in Washington. SPONSORED BY MONICA ELLIOTT in honor of family and friends in North Dakota and Montana.

Anna Julia Cooper



SPONSORED! Anna Julia Cooper (1858-1964) She was born to an enslaved mother in Raleigh N.C. and to the white man who owned them both. She went on to earn a B.A. and M.A. from Oberlin College and at 67 years of age receive her Ph.D. from the Sorbonne in Paris, making her the fourth black woman in the country to earn a Ph.D. Cooper headed the first public high school for black students in the District of Columbia — Washington Colored High School. She was the author of “A Voice from the South,” published in 1892, cited as the first work of an African-American feminist. She spoke eloquently about the importance of voting rights to African Amerian women at the World’s Congress of Representative Women in Chicago in May 1898, saying that “The colored woman feels that woman’s cause is one and universal.” Did you know every page of a US Passport has a quote in it and the ONLY quote from a woman of the 12 is from Anna Julia Cooper? Cooper lived to 105 years of age and in 2009, the US Postal Service issued a stamp in her honor, SPONSORED BY SUSAN BASTIAN STALLONE for the love of learning.

Mary Ann Shadd Cary

SPONSORED! Mary Ann Shadd Cary (1823-1893) became the first female African American newspaper editor in North America when she edited The Provincial Freeman in 1853, and later in life, the second Black woman to earn a law degree in the U.S. despite regulations barring women from practicing law. She was a child of abolitionist parents, born in Delaware, the eldest of 13. Because black children were not allowed to be educated in Delaware, her parents moved the family to Pennsylvania in 1833. After finishing her education at a Quaker boarding school, Shadd Cary became a teacher. When the Fugitive Slave Act was passed in 1850, the family moved to Canada. Shadd Cary returned to America during the Civil War and recruited Northern Black men to fight for the Union Army. After the war, she remained in Washington and founded a school for the children of freed slaves. In 1870, she attended Howard University, but was not permitted to graduate with a law degree since women were prevented from admission to the bar. Shadd Cary then became active in the suffrage movement, addressing the House Judiciary Committee in January 1874 as part of a group of women petitioning for the right to vote. She spoke at the 1878 convention of the National Woman Suffrage Association calling for an amendment to strike the word “male” from the Constitution. In 1871, Cary unsuccessfully tried to vote in Washington D.C. In 1876, Cary wrote the National Woman Suffrage Association on behalf of 94 Black women requesting that their names be enrolled in the July 4^th autograph book as signers of the Woman’s Declaration of Sentiments demanding women’s enfranchisement (1876 was the 100^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence). Unfortunately, their names were not included. In 1880, she organized the Colored Women’s Progressive Franchise Association in Washington, D. C., based on both a political and an economic agenda. SPONSORED BY LEONA McANDREWS

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

SPONSORED! Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825 – 1911) was an abolitionist, suffragist, poet, teacher, public speaker, and writer, one of the first African American women to be published in the United States. In 1854, she delivered an antislavery lecture in New Bedford, Massachusetts, “Education and the Elevation of the Colored Race,” which launched her career as a lecturer. In 1858 she refused to give up her seat or ride in the “colored” section of a segregated trolley car in Philadelphia (100 years before Rosa Parks). In 1866, Harper gave a moving speech before the National Women’s Rights Convention, demanding equal rights for all, including Black women. Rejecting the racist comments of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, she helped found the American Woman Suffrage Association, and in 1873, she delivered the closing speech at the AWSA convention in New York. Harper told the convention, “As much as white women need the ballot, colored women need it more.” She called for equal rights and equal access to education for Black women, clearly defining race as a factor in the denial of women’s rights. Together with Mary Church Terrell, Harper helped organize the National Association of Colored Women in 1894 and was elected vice president in 1897. SPONSORED BY JEAN GORDON.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

SPONSORED! Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-2020) was an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1993 to 2020. An advocate for gender equality and women’s rights for most of her legal career, Ginsburg won many arguments before the Supreme Court. In 1972, she co-founded the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union and as director of the project, she won five of six gender discrimination cases. As Supreme Court Justice, Ginsburg dissented in the court’s decision on a case in which the plaintiff filed a lawsuit claiming pay discrimination based on gender. As part of her dissent, Ginsburg called on Congress to amend Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, resulting in the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, signed into law by President Obama in 2009, making it easier for employees to win pay discrimination claims. Ginsburg also authored the court’s opinion in United States v. Virginia, striking down the Virginia Military Institute’s Male-only admission policy as violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In 2013, Ginsburg dissented in Shelby County v. Holder, in which the Supreme Court declared a central provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 unconstitutional. This decision removed the requirement for those parts of the country with histories of discriminatory voting policies to clear in advance any changes to election practice and procedures. Ginsburg delivered her opinion aloud from the bench, referring to the many sacrifices made that resulted in the passing of the very law the Supreme Court was now gutting. Ginsburg famously said, "Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet." SPONSORED BY PATTI BARTELS.

May Groot Manson

SPONSORED. May Groot Manson (1859-1917) May Groot Manson, a wealthy Long Island suffragist, was the leader of both the Woman Suffrage League of East Hampton and the Women’s Political Union of Suffolk County. One of the most instrumental leaders of the local suffrage movement, she frequently hosted women’s suffrage meetings at her home, which still stands today. Manson was active in many high-profile suffrage events in New York City, and in August 1913, she organized a large suffrage rally and march from her home to the village green. Harriot Stanton Blatch, daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was the keynote speaker. At another memorable event, Manson led a cross-state auto rally from Montauk to the western tip of Long Island, from which the suffrage motorists traveled on all the way to Buffalo. Holding open air meetings along the way, Manson carried a torch, which she then handed to Louisine Havemeyer who took it to New York City. SPONSORED BY IRIS CONVISSAR

Hester C. Jeffrey

SPONSORED! Hester C. Jeffrey (1842-1934) spent years organizing the African American community in New York for women’s suffrage. She and her husband lived in Rochester, NY, where she became a friend of Susan B. Anthony. She was the only layperson chosen to speak at Susan B. Anthony’s funeral. She is best known for founding a number of organizations for Black women. She raised money through one group she founded, the Climbers, for young African American women to take classes at the Rochester Institute of Technology. SPONSORED BY NAKIA RUFFIN.

The Grimke Sisters

SPONSORED! Sarah Grimke (1792-1873) and Angelina Grimke Weld (1805-1879) were fervent abolitionists, even though they were born into a wealthy Charleston, SC, family who owned slaves. Their father cruelly mistreated his slaves and, in reaction to the violence they witnessed, the sisters moved to Philadelphia in the 1820s and became Quakers. The sisters were part of a movement within the abolitionist cause that took up women's rights. In 1838, Sarah Grimke wrote "Letters on the Equality of the Sexes," an important early work on women's rights. Both Sarah and Angelina were controversial figures because they spoke against slavery to groups of women AND men at a time when this was scandalous. SPONSORED BY BONNIE GROSS in honor of another pair of remarkable sisters, Anna Blasco and Erin Blasco.

Mary Burnett Talbert

SPONSORED! Mary Burnett Talbert, (1866 – 1923), civil rights and anti-lynching activist, suffragist, preservationist, international human rights proponent, and educator, was born, raised, and educated in Oberlin, Ohio. After graduating from Oberlin College, she taught high school in Little Rock, Arkansas. In 1887, she was named assistant principal of Little Rock’s Union High School, the only African American woman to hold such a position and the highest position held by a woman in Arkansas. After moving to Buffalo, NY, she helped found the Phyllis Wheatley Club, and helped organize the first chapter of the NAACP. As president of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, Talbert became a voice for African American women, writing suffrage articles and lectured in the United States and abroad. She was instrumental in the NACW’s 1922 purchase and restoration of the Frederick Douglass home in Anacostia, MD and was elected president for life of the Frederick Douglass Memorial and Historical Association. She also served as vice president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, where she and other members of the organization presented evidence about the disenfranchisement of Black women. SPONSORED BY CHRISTINA M. CURRIE, ESQ.

May Mann Jennings

SPONSORED! May Mann Jennings, (1872-1963), founder of the League of Women Voters of Florida and Florida’s First Lady (1901-1905), was one of Florida’s original suffragists and conservationists. In 1915, as president of the Florida Federation of Women’s Clubs, she championed the fight to establish Royal Palm State Park, later donated to the National Park Service as part of Everglades National Park. Jennings became known as the “Mother of Florida Forestry” for her conservation efforts, especially her lobbying for the creation of the State Board of Forestry, known today as the Florida Forestry Service. Besides environmental conservation, Jennings fought for numerous civic issues including child welfare, Women’s Suffrage, the State Library of Florida, reservations for the Seminoles, and the establishment of compulsory education. In 1917, the debate over two suffrage bills were the most prolonged and hotly debated of the session. The first bill failed in committee; the second called for a constitutional amendment granting equal suffrage be submitted to the voters for ratification. Jennings had worked tirelessly along with members of the Florida Equal Suffrage Association, including Ivy Stranahan and Annie Broward, but ultimately the bill was defeated by a margin of only five votes. While some Florida suffragists criticized her leadership, Jennings saw this as an encouraging sign that women now knew they needed to be a part of the political process. SPONSORED BY IRIS CONVISSAR in honor of all women who strive for equality and justice. 

Mary McLeod Bethune

SPONSORED! Mary McLeod Bethune (1876-1955), the daughter of former slaves,was an American educator, stateswoman, philanthropist, humanitarian, civil and women’s rights leader, and an advisor to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In 1904 Bethune opened the Daytona Literary and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls, with the goal of providing a rigorous academic curriculum while teaching her students to be self-sufficient. The inequity of school funding in Florida, where the allocation for educational spending for white children was $11.50 per year and $2.64 per year for black children, made her even more determined to address the needs of African Americans. After the passage of the 19th amendment, Bethune rode a bicycle door-to-door raising money to pay the “poll tax,” a tax imposed by white lawmakers to suppress black voting. Because a literacy test was also required, she conducted night classes to teach reading. The Ku Klux Klan threatened to silence Bethune when she encouraged African American Daytonians to vote in the county elections. When she met the Klan marchers at the front of campus “with arms folded and head held high,” they left without incident. The following day Bethune led a group of African Americans to the polls where they were forced to wait the entire day before being allowed to cast their ballots. Dedicated to improving the lives of African American women, Bethune held prominent roles, including president, in the National Association of Colored Women (NACW). She also served as president of the Florida Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs, where she fought against school segregation and sought healthcare for black children. Under her leadership, the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) was founded as a unifying voice for African American women’s organizations. On the anniversary of her 99th birthday, July 10, 1974, a statue of Mary McLeod Bethune was unveiled in a public park in Washington, D.C. She was the first woman and the first African American to be honored with a statue in a public park in Washington D.C. SPONSORED BY MIAMI-DADE LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS.

Charlotta Bass

SPONSORED! Charlotta Bass  (1874-1969) was an educator, civil rights advocate, the first African American woman to own and operate a newspaper in the U.S., the first African American woman to be a jury member in the Los Angeles County Court, and the first African American woman to run for Vice-President of the U.S. Bass used her newspaper, the California Eagle, Los Angeles’s largest African American newspaper, to raise awareness of the issues facing African Americans and other minorities. From 1912 to 1951, she published pro-suffrage editorials, encouraging all African Americans to register to vote for the 1912 state primaries. Throughout her life, she fought against injustices such as discriminatory hiring practices, the revival of the Ku Klux Klan, police brutality, and restrictive housing covenants. She was a leader in the NAACP, the Universal Negro Improvement Association, and was National Chairman of the Sojourners for Truth and Justice, an organization of black women who sought to improve working conditions for Black women and protested against racial violence in the South. SPONSORED BY CHRISTINA M. CURRIE, ESQ.