#19SuffrageStories –Number 10- The Rocky Road to Ratification Part 2: A Letter from his Mama!
August 18th, 1920, Tennessee state representatives and national leaders of both the suffrage and anti-suffrage movements crowded the Tennessee Capitol Building in Nashville for the state vote on ratification of the 19th amendment. Thirty five out of the thirty six states needed had ratified and eight states had voted against ratification. This left just five potential states…
Read More
#19SuffrageStories –Number 9- The Rocky Road to Ratification Part 1: The Race to Ratify
An amendment to the Constitution granting women the right to vote was first formally introduced to Congress in 1878. The amendment, introduced by Senator Aaron Sargent of California, stated “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” After the…
Read More
#19SuffrageStories- Number 8 – Fighting at the State Level Part 2: Suffrage in the States
We have talked about the well-known suffragists that traveled nationwide speaking for groups like the National American Womens Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and Alice Paul’s National Women’s Party but organizers at the local and state level fought just as hard to gain the right to vote. It was often a topic of disagreement within the movement over whether the focus…
Read More
#19SuffrageStories- Number 7 – Fighting at the State Level Part 1: Margaret Foley
We are going to talk about another Irish Suffragist who lived and fought for the right to vote at the state level just a little closer to home. This will be shorter than previous posts because not as much is known about the Suffragists who fought with state organizations that did not always have the…
Read More
#19SuffrageStories -Number 6- Working Suffragists Part 2: Paving their Way in The Movement
At this point, women like Leonora decided to create groups for themselves, and advocate for suffrage in a way that represented them and put their voice out there. These women felt that cooperative action that focused both on the treatment of workers and women’s suffrage was the best way to cause lasting change. They saw the…
Read More
#19SuffrageStories -Number 4- Leonora O’Reilly
Leonora O’Reilly was born in 1870 New York City to Irish immigrants that had come to America to escape An Gorta Mor, or the Great Hunger. Leonora’s class makes her stand out from the other Irish American Suffragists that we have talked about so far. Born into poverty to working class parents, her father died when she was only one year…
Read More
#19SuffrageStories – Number 3 – Vida Milholland
We could not talk about Inez Milholland without also talking about her sister, career singer Vida Milholland. If you missed yesterday’s post about suffragist Inez Milholland, you are going to want to check it out as it provides some nice context to Vida’s childhood and motivations in joining the suffrage movement. To sum it up, both girls grew up in an activist…
Read More
#19SuffrageStories – Number 1 – Lucy Burns
We are going to start the #19SuffrageStories with a well-known figure in the Suffrage Movement, Lucy Burns! Lucy was born in 1879 to an Irish Catholic family in Brooklyn, New York. A well-educated student of language and linguistics, Lucy graduated from Vassar College before studying abroad. It was at Oxford College in England where she first encountered the militant British Suffrage Movement. Inspired by these women, Lucy…
Read More
Counting Down to the 100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment!
For the month of August, the Maine Irish Heritage Center will be joining the Smithsonian, US National Archives, the Library of Congress and museums and libraries across the country to examine the fight for Suffrage. Many Irish American women played a role in the Suffrage Movement and we hope to dive deeper into their stories…
Read More