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 Fr