campaigning for votes:
wOmAn suffrage in allen county
Sharing ideas from
across the world
Allen County activists invited women known throughout Ohio, the United States, and England to share ideas and strategies for the local woman suffrage movement. In addition to the hosting the 1916 Ohio Woman Suffrage Association Convention, The Allen County Political Equality Club, Business Women's Club, Lima City Federation of Women's Club, and other organizations hosted over ten visiting speakers in 1912 and 1914.
state
Florence Ellenwood Allen, Cleveland
(1884-1966)
Visited: July 29, 1912;
November 14 - 15, 1916
During 1912, Florence Allen toured Ohio, promoting equal suffrage. At that time, she was assistant secretary of the College Equal Suffrage League of New York City and New York board of education’s civil lecturer.
Allen held a Masters of Arts from Western Reserve University and studied in Berlin, Germany, while she taught and served as musical editor for local newspapers. She studied law at the University of Chicago Law Department starting in 1909 and continued her studies at New York Law School in 1913. She worked for the New York League for Protection of Immigrants.
The Ohio Bar admitted Allen in 1914. She was appointed assistant prosecutor for Cuyahoga County in 1919. Voters elected Allen as judge of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas in 1920 and Justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio in 1922. She was the first U.S. woman to be elected in both roles.
Learn More about Florence Ellinwood Allen at the Supreme Court of Ohio.
Harriet
Taylor Upton,
Marion
(1853-1945)
Visited: October 20, 1914;
November 14 - 16, 1916
Harriet Taylor Upton joined the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1890, serving as treasurer between 1894 and 1910. Upton led the Ohio Women Suffrage Association between 1899 and 1908 and between 1911 and 1920. A life-long member of the Republican party, she was the first woman on the Republican National Executive Committee, serving as Vice Chair in 1920. Upton ran unsuccessfully for the United States House of Representatives in 1926.
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Upton was a founding member of the National League of Women Voters, the Warren chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), and the Warren American Red Cross Chapter. She was the first woman elected to the Warren Board of Election, where she served 15 years, and to the Christ Episcopal Church’s vestry. She was influential in the passage of the first child labor law. Upton wrote books on Ohio’s history, the U.S. Presidents and their families and children’s books.
Clara Snell Wolfe,
Oberlin
(1874-1970)
Visited: July 29, 1912
Clara Snell and Albert Wolfe moved to Oberlin in 1909. Clara earned her Bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College that year. She served as Ohio Woman Suffrage Association’s Recording Secretary and was a College Equal Suffrage Association member. The Ohio Federation of Women’s Clubs elected Wolfe as the Corresponding Secretary in 1911, and she helped organize the 1912 Ohio Suffrage Campaign. During that campaign, Wolfe visited many women’s clubs throughout the Midwest, organized suffrage supporters, and collected donations.
In 1914, the Wolfes moved to Austin, TX. Clara founded the Texas branch of the National Women’s Party and lobbied Texan and later other states’ legislatures to ratify the 19th Amendment.
After moving back to Columbus, Ohio, she earned her Master’s degree from Ohio State University. National Woman’s Party elected Wolfe as its Second Vice chairman in 1942 and Executive Council Vice Chairman in 1949.
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Both Clara and Albert Wolfe advocated equal suffrage throughout their entire lives.
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NATIONAL
Grace Julian Clarke, Irvington, In
(1865–1938)
Visited: August 5, 1912
Grace Julian Clarke co-founded and led the Indianapolis Women’s Clubs, Indiana General Federation of Women’s Clubs, the Legislative Council, and the Women’s Franchise League of Indiana. She co-founded and served as the first president of the Legislative Council of Indiana. Clarke and other Women’s Franchise League members toured Illinois with a yellow “Votes for Women” banner on their car and literature to take their pro-suffrage ideas directly to women. She was an Indianapolis Star columnist from 1911 to 1929. After Indiana ratified the 19th amendment, Clarke was a League of Women’s Voters of Indiana member. However, her political focus turned to the peace movement; she was a supporter of the League of Nations.
Clarke wrote three publications relating to her father, George Washington Julian, an abolitionist and United States Congressman. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1884 and Master of Arts in Philosophy in 1885 from Butler University.
Margaret Haley, Chicago, IL
(1861-1939)
Visited: July 29, 1912
Margaret Haley, school teacher and teacher advocate, received her education from Illinois Normal University (now Illinois State University) and Cook County Normal School (now Chicago State University). She started teaching in Cook County in 1882 and two years later began her career at Hendricks School in the Stockyards District, which was incorporated into Chicago in 1889.
In 1901, she stopped teaching to become a paid business representative and vice president of the Chicago Teachers Federation. She worked to improve the economic conditions for Chicago’s public school teachers. She strove to raise awareness of the unfairness of taxation without representation. She believed women should have the right to vote, because teachers could not teach their students how to vote if they did not vote themselves.
When Illinois awarded the vote to women in 1913, she played an active role and was present when Governor Dunne signed the suffrage bill.
Rose Livingston,
New York City, NY
(1876-1975)
Visited: September 27, 1914
Rose Livingston, a social worker, was known as the “Angel of Chinatown.” Working for the woman’s society of a Brooklyn church, she fought against child abduction and the “commercialized vice” of prostitution and sex trafficking. A survivor of sex trafficking, Livingston believed that the only way to get rid of abduction and trafficking was to enable women to vote. Over her 30 year career, she helped over 5,000 young women and children, particularly girls between the ages of 12 and 18 held in New York, Brooklyn, Newark and other cities. Livingston helped to pass the Mann Act, declaring interstate sex trafficking a federal crime, in 1910.
She is known for her work in fighting human trafficking despite her own personal danger and for supporting women’s suffrage. She received a gold medal from the National Institute of Social Science in 1929 and the silver cup from Edith Claire Bryce of the Peace House.
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Lulu Loveland shepard,
Salt Lake City, Utah
(1866-1949)
Visited:
August 27 - 28, 1912
Suffragist Loveland studied psychology and child culture at several colleges. She lectured at teachers’ institutes, Federation of Clubs, reform organizations, and Chautauquas across the United States.
Loveland served as president of Utah's Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the State Sunday school primary superintendent, and the State Junior Christian Endeavor superintendent. For ten years, she managed work to uplift prisoners in the State prison and citizens of Salt Lake City. She also worked with evangelist Dr. French Oliver. Shepard was a member of the Order of the Eastern Star, Daughters of the American Revolution, Women’s League, and Monday Night Club.
international
Carrie Chapman Catt,
new york
(1859-1947)
Visited: October 20, 1914
Carrie Chapman Catt—33-year suffragist, political strategist, and peace activist—was instrumental in the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). After working her way up, she served as president from 1900 to1904 and from 1915 to 1920, when she devised the “Winning Plan” campaign to coordinate state campaigns for a constitutional amendment supporting women’s suffrage. She founded the League of Women Voters in 1920, serving as president until her death. Catt founded the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in 1902 and the League of Women Voters in 1920.
She co-founded the Woman’s Peace Party in 1915 and organized the Committee on the Cause and Cure of War in 1925, serving as its chief until 1932.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt presented Catt with the American Hebrew Medal for her efforts to assist Jewish refugees. Among her many recognitions, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1982.
Learn more about Carrie Chapman Catt through the Library of Congress.
Sylvia Pankhurst, Great Britain
(1882-1960)
Visited: October 26, 1912
Silvia Pankhurst was defined by her internationalism, anti-racism, anti-fascism, and anti-colonialism. A strong advocate for working-class women, she also made significant contributions to women’s suffrage internationally. Pankhurst joined the Independent Labour Party in 1893. She co-founded the Women’s Social & Political Union (WSPU) in 1903. By 1913, Pankhurst separated from the WSPU due to differing views and assisted in the formation of the East London Federation of Suffragettes (ELFS), which later became the Workers Suffrage Federation. She formed and edited The Women’s Dreadnought (later the Worker’s Dreadnought). Pankhurst founded the Woman’s Peace Army in 1914 with the outbreak of WWI and helped found the Communist Party of Great Britain. In 1930, she helped form the Women’s Committee Against War & Fascism, the Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom, and the International Peace Crusade. Through her many organizations and after, she remained active internationally, particularly across Europe.
Luella Twining, Denver, Colorado
(1871-1939)
Visited:
August 12 - 13, 1912
The “Joan of Arc of the working class,” Luella Twining championed many causes on behalf of the working class and women. She was an internationally-known member of the Socialist Party, serving as a delegate to the international socialist congress in Denmark in 1910. Twining led many protest demonstrations, including on Boston Common that numbered 100,000 participants and gave socialist lectures. She served on the Woman’s National Committee of the Socialist Party starting in 1912 and contributed to The Progressive Woman (a magazine later renamed The Socialist Woman). She helped found and lead the Industrial Workers of the World.
Twining ran as a candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction in Colorado in 1904 and U. S. Congress from Colorado in 1906. While serving as Denver’s Election Commissioner, c. 1910, she appointed the registration committee and judges, selected polling places, canvassed the vote, issued election certificates, and furnished all supplies for voting.