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Women’s Suffrage
Suffrage
from Latin “suffragium” meaning “the right to vote”
1776
Abigail
Adams wrote to her husband at the Continental Congress:
“I long to
hear that you have declared on independency. And, by the way, in the new code
of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you
would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your
ancestors. Do not put unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember
all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not
paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold
ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”
Fast Forward
to 1869 in Nevada
Curtis
Hillyer of Storey County proposed an amendment to the Nevada constitution
saying, “Politics is corrupt and women have been a civilizing and moralizing
influence” so should be able to vote. It passed both houses, but it needed to pass
a second time. It failed in 1870.
In 1910, the
Nevada Equal Franchise Society was co-founded by Jeanne Weir, a history
professor from the university who was also the founder of the Nevada Historical
Society, and Felice Cohn, a lawyer who was born in Carson City. They were in
favor of less militant methods than Anne Martin who was one of 110 women
arrested in England for advocating for Women’s rights. Another woman lawyer in
Goldfield who was a Vice-President of the Equal Franchise Society wrote and
distributed a pamphlet called “Women Under Nevada Laws”. An amendment was again
proposed in Nevada. Operators of casinos and saloons were expected to vote “no”
because they believed that women, being the moral arbiters of society, might
vote against their businesses. Some leading Nevadans opposed the amendment
including George Wingfield in Goldfield. He said if Nevada approved women’s
suffrage, he would close his mines and his businesses and leave the state. After
successful lobbying by women from the national organization like Anne Howard
Shaw and Jane Addams who went on statewide speaking tours, the legislature
passed the amendment for women’s right to vote in 1911 and in 1913 with wide
support including democratic U.S. Senator Francis Newlands and republican Governor
Tasker Oddie. The people of the state had to vote on it in 1914 and it passed! 10,936
to 7,258. (The vote in Las Vegas was 296 to 153.) Women had the right to vote
in Nevada in 1914! A poem appeared in the Nye county newspaper entitled “Where
You Goin’, George?” soon after it passes.
After the 19th Amendment passed Congress
in 1919 and was being ratified by the states, Carrie Chapman Catt called a
convention of the National American Women’s Suffrage Association. She wanted to
rename the organization the League of Women Voters because “a non-partisan
civic organization could provide the education and the experience the public
needed to assure the success of democracy.” It was called a League because it
meant to unite all the existing organizations of women who believed in the same
principles. The League would not be formed to “lure women from partisanship,
but to combine them in an effort for legislation which would protect the coming
movement, which we cannot foretell, from suffering the untoward conditions
which have hindered for so long the coming of equal suffrage.”
In its first
year, the new League program had 69 issues from child welfare and education to
women in gainful occupations and public health.
Now we are
about to celebrate 100 years of our right to vote. Molly Walt at the Nevada
Commission for Women is organizing and encouraging celebrations all over the
state. There will be a huge parade in Henderson next May which the League is
expected to walk in and the Nevada Day Committee is looking at having Women’s
Suffrage being the theme of the Nevada Day Parade (or at least a major presence
including maybe the grand Marshall being our state president) but don’t hold
your breath. She is also helping to get historical markers regarding women in Nevada
who helped with the suffrage effort, including our own Felice Cohn. Also, a
suffrage license plate is being designed.
As an aside,
Molly Walt wants to let everyone here know that she wants as many women as
possible to apply for state and local boards and commissions. The openings are
on the Governor’s website.
