The fight for women’s right to vote in the United States began in the mid-nineteenth century. The 1848 Seneca Falls Convention for equal rights, organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, was the starting point from which a national woman suffrage movement emerged. During the 1900s and 1910s organized promotional efforts throughout Missouri and the nation included picket lines, parades, marches, lectures, letters, educational classes, petitions, and more. These efforts were ultimately a success. Missouri became the 11th state to ratify the federal suffrage amendment on July 3, 1919. Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify in August 1920, and U.S. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the ratification on August 26, 1920, creating the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This action permanently changed the face of the electorate, giving women not only the right to vote, but also more opportunities to participate in public office.“MISSOURI WOMEN: SUFFRAGE TO STATECRAFT” surveys the decades-long struggle for women’s suffrage by highlighting the roles of Missouri women in the national suffrage movement and the trailblazing women in Missouri politics who opened the doors for others to participate in the democratic process.

Exhibited at the State Historical Society of Missouri’s Center for Missouri Studies, in Columbia, Missouri from March 14 to July 25, 2020. “Missouri Women: Suffrage to Statecraft” was curated by Nicole Johnston and Jean Parsons of the Missouri Historic Costume and Textile Collection at the University of Missouri, and Joan Stack, Curator of Art Collections, of the State Historical Society of Missouri.

In 1868 the Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship and its rights to all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. This same amendment, argued Missourians Virginia and Frank Minor, also protected women’s right to vote as women were citizens and entitled to all the benefits of citizenship. A nationwide pattern of disobedience emerged, a “new departure” in which women all over the country demanded to vote at their local polling places. Minor herself attempted to register at the St. Louis County Courthouse in 1872 but was turned away.

Minor and her husband filed a lawsuit against St. Louis City Registrar Reese Happersett, but lost in the lower circuit court and again in the Missouri Supreme Court in 1873. In a nationally significant decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the Minors in 1874, stating that “the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon anyone,” and upheld the right of individual states to decide which citizens could vote. Between 1867 and 1901, suffragists in Missouri petitioned 18 times for a state constitutional amendment enfranchising women. Only eight came to a vote in the Missouri legislature. Missouri lawmakers voted against woman suffrage each time.

Many suffrage groups focused on piety, morality and domesticity. This became a problem when suffrage organizations began to align with the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, founded in 1874. Its earliest presidents were Missouri women who created strong affiliations to the organization through-out the Show-Me state. By the next century, this shared platform became a hindrance to women’s enfranchisement as alcohol lobbyists actively fought it. By early 1910, suffrage groups began to distance themselves from the WCTU.

Virginia Minor Bronze Bust by Cynthia Hitschler. 2014. Image courtesy of the Missouri State Museum.

Silk and lace dress. ca 1900. Gift of A. Leonhard. Missouri Historic Costume and Textile Collection, University of Missouri. This garment belonged to Emily Wells Grant (1857-1908), third wife of Heber J. Grant (1856-1945), the seventh and longest-tenured President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS.) She was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, a territory that passed legislation recognizing women’s voting rights in 1870.

Suffrage in Utah is a story of women gaining, losing and then regaining the vote. Religion played a major role in the fight for woman suffrage in Utah. Politicians hoped that recognizing women’s suffrage rights would aid in ending polygamy, a frequent marital practice of Mormons. However, Utah women did not necessarily vote for candidates opposed to polygamy as was the hope of anti-polygamists; rather many women hoped to demonstrate that they had chosen the LDS church and practices willingly. As a result, voting rights were rescinded through the Edmunds-Tucker Anti-Polygamy Act in 1887. When the LDS church officially ended the practice in 1890, it opened the door for Utah to join the union in 1896, and voting rights for women were restored.

Women from the LDS Relief Society developed programs to educate women about their roles in civic engagement from the beginning. Many, including Emmeline B. Wells, were delegates at national suffrage conventions, and it was Wells who helped to lobby for the vote in 1895. Wells, a plural wife of Emily Wells Grant’s father, was a prominent voice for suffrage and advocate for women’s rights. Very early on, Utah women such as Wells were able to develop ties with leading suffragists like Susan B. Anthony. Indeed, Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton visited Utah in 1871 as observers of the “suffrage experiment.”

Cotton shirtwaist. 1910s. Gift of B. Stone. Pleated wool skirt. 1910s. Gift of MU Theatre. Corn husk hat. 1910s. Gift of H. Jones. Missouri Historic Costume and Textile Collection, University of Missouri.

Clothing of the nineteenth century generally consisted of long, cumbersome skirts, multiple layers, and constricting corsets that hampered easy movement. During the early twentieth century, as women began leading more active lifestyles and seeking roles outside the home, shirtwaists and skirts, as well as tailored suits, afforded easier movement with fewer restriction. The overall trend was away from bulky layers and towards manageable, practical outfits. These styles quickly became associated with the period’s independent, educated, politically active “New Woman.”

Changing forms of women’s dress invoked and challenged popular perceptions of femininity. For leaders of the woman’s movement, the battle over women’s dress was a critical part of the battle for sexual equality and even the right to vote. Suffrage leaders Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony forcefully defended a woman’s right to dress as she pleased. “Why, pray tell me, hasn’t a woman as much right to dress to suit herself as a man?” Anthony asked a reporter in 1895. “[T]he stand she is taking in the matter of dress is no small indication that she has realized that she has an equal right with a man to control her own movements.” (Lynn Sherr, Failure is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words (Times Books, 1995), p. 196.) “The First New Woman,” The Washington Post, August 11, 1895, page 20.

Wool suit. Mid-1910s. Gift of F. Maupin. Grass hat. 1920s. Gift of R. Tofle. Reproduction sash. Missouri Historic Costume and Textile Collection, University of Missouri.

Suffragists used dress as a powerful form of communication, although they were not always in agreement. But, to avoid accusations of eccentricity, over-focus on high fashion, or of “mannish” dress, all of which could harm their cause, women dressed in their smartest clothes: tailored suits, crisp white shirts, stylish hats. Suits were required for every woman’s wardrobe, worn for almost any daytime event. In the early teens, suits featured longer jackets and narrower skirts that began to reveal the ankle which had to be covered by boots in daytime.

Suffragists often wore long white dresses, associated with purity, which also made for better visibility with the color of sashes or other regalia. Though sometimes depicted in masculine dress such as pants or bloomers, suffragists realized early on that such a radical choice would draw attention away from their cause. Some did adopt traditional yet highly visible dress, such as Susan B. Anthony’s signature red shawl.

Wool band uniform worn by member of Missouri Ladies Military Band. 1913. Nodaway County Historical Society, Maryville, Missouri.

“We did not have time to stop and think about the really important thing we did when our band led the parade down Pennsylvania Avenue.” Alma Nash [Director] said on her return to Maryville. “We were not right in the lead when the parade started: a number of women escorts, a number of walking officers of the National Equal Suffrage Association, with our band following, was the order when we first started. We had gone but a short distance when the crowd started closing up toward the line of the parade, and men blockaded a place in the street a short distance ahead. One of the suffrage officers came rushing back to us and told us to march on ahead and lead; that it would be necessary for the band to open the way proved true. We were not molested in the least and although the march was slow on account of the crowds, no one offered to stand in our way down the avenue.” “Alma Nash and Her Band,” Missouri Women: Women of the Past, Inspiring Women Today. November 16, 2010. Original post by Melissa Middleswart and Meghaan Binkley of the Nodaway County Historical Society.

James Scott (1885-1938). The Suffragette Waltz. Stark Music Company Catalogue, December 30, 1914. Paper. Considered one of the top ragtime composers of all time, African-American composer and pianist James Scott was born in Neosho, Missouri, to former slaves James and Molly Scott. Scott spent his teen years playing in bands and saloons. In 1905 Scott travelled to St. Louis in search of his idol, legendary ragtime composer Scott Joplin, who introduced Scott to his own publisher, John Stark of Stark Music Company. Listen to Scott’s waltz online.

The mostly white suffrage movement largely ignored the challenges faced by African American women and often discriminated against black women working towards the same goal. Black women as a whole were often excluded from conventions and forced to march separately in suffrage parades. As a result, black reformers began organizing their own groups in the 1880s. The significance of black women in the women’s suffrage movement was also largely overlooked in the first suffrage histories.

Jane Addams, Portrait by the Gerard Sisters, St. Louis. 1914. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

In 1914, Jane Addams, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, trailblazing social reformer, and future Nobel Peace Prize recipient, spent three days in Missouri promoting woman suffrage. On October 22nd, Addams visited Columbia at the invitation of the Columbia Equal Suffrage League and former MU President Richard Henry Jesse. Due to strong anti-suffrage sentiment, Addams was unable to speak in the University auditorium and instead spoke to an overflow crowd at Columbia Theatre and again at the Baptist Church.

Rose O’Neill. Votes for Mother, The Spirit of ‘76. 1915. Paper postcard. Bonniebrook Historical Society, Walnut Shade, Missouri. American artist and writer Rose O’Neill became one of the highest paid illustrators – male or female – of the early 20th century, due in part to the creation of one her most well- known characters, the Kewpie. O’Neill designed the cherubic winged Kewpie in 1909 while residing at Bonniebrook, her family homestead near Branson, Missouri. “I say this is not a doll, but a message of good will sent forth to cuddle the hearts of the uncuddled world.”

Beginning in 1912, Kewpies were mass-manufactured in porcelain, celluloid, chocolate, and wood. Kewpies featured prominently in the woman suffrage campaign. Beginning in 1915, while living with her sister, Callista in New York, O’Neill became involved with the women’s suffrage movement. She marched in parades, gave speeches, and illustrated posters and postcards for the movement.

Celluloid Kewpie doll by Rose O’Neill. 1914. Image courtesy of D. Davis. In 1914 Kewpies were used as a public relations stunt during the National American Woman Suffrage Association Convention in Nashville, Tennessee. The pioneering aviator Katherine Stinson swept her airplane over the heads of the assembled crowd to release a shower of 4″ celluloid Kewpie dolls swathed in yellow suffrage sashes and tiny yellow parachutes. In 1916, Mrs. John Blair, with pilot Leda Richberg-Hornsby, dropped suffrage leaflets on President Wilson while he was aboard his Presidential Yacht.

Navy wool suit. 1910s. Gift of M. Rickmeyer. Silk velvet hat. 1910s. Gift of M. Happel. Fur stole. 1955. Gift of S. Bingaman. Fur ruff. 1890s-1910s. Gift of H. Natsch. Missouri Historic Costume and Textile Collection, University of Missouri.

Linen duster. 1910s. Gift of B. Stone. Wool suit. 1900s. Gift of R. Tofle. Missouri Historic Costume and Textile Collection.

Suffragists travelled throughout the state to promote woman suffrage, by foot, train and automobile. In the early years of the automobile, driving and riding in open cars required protective outerwear from flying dust and mud. Early “motoring dress” included goggles, gloves, a scarf, hat with veil, and either a long heavy coat for winter or lightweight “duster” coat for warm summer months.

Sports motorist Dorothy Levitt – one of the first British female racing drivers and author of the 1909 handbook The Woman and the Car : A Chatty Little Handbook for All Women Who Motor or Want to Motor – provided useful tips for women drivers on what to wear. If driving in an open car, “neatness and comfort are essential.” On choosing the right dress, she wrote “Under no circumstance wear lace or fluffy adjuncts to your toilette – if you do, you will regret them before you have driven half a dozen miles.” She also recommended women wear a round cap or “close-fitting turban of fur” that fit well, and to tie a veil over it in order to protect the hair and keep the hat in place. A scarf and gloves were also useful. The glove compartment was to be stocked with a list of indispensable items: “a pair of clean gloves, an extra handkerchief, a clean veil, powder-puff, hair-pins, a hand mirror – and some chocolates are very soothing, sometimes!” Levitt, Dorothy. The Woman and the Car. London: John Lane, The Bodley Head; New York: John Lane Company (1909).

By 1913, leading daily and weekly newspapers in St. Louis and Kansas City gave their support to the suffrage movement. Ardent suffragist Flint Garrison, president of the Garrison-Wagner Printing Company of St. Louis, saw the possibilities of a monthly suffrage magazine, and began publishing the Missouri Woman in December 1915 with Emily Newell Blair as editor. Circulation increased following endorsements by prominent women’s groups such as the Missouri Federation of Women’s Clubs, the National Congress of Mothers,’ and the Parent-Teachers’ Association.

The June 1916 issue was created to impress the public in anticipation of the Golden Lane event to be held at the National Democratic Convention in St. Louis. William Byrnes, a well-known artist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, designed the cover featuring suffragists in white dresses carrying golden parasols and banners. The Missouri Woman generated significant sentiment for woman suffrage throughout the state. Its mission became less critical, however, after ratification of the Federal Suffrage Amendment in 1920. The following year, the St. Louis publication merged with The Woman Citizen, one of the most influential women’s publications of the early 20th century.

Recreation of Golden Lane. Missouri Historic Costume and Textile Collection, University of Missouri. The silent protest of the 1916 Golden Lane at the National Democratic Convention in St. Louis was successful, as Democrats at the convention agreed to endorse the enfranchisement of women and urged states to adopt it. When the roll call vote began and it became clear the suffrage plank would pass, “one yellow parasol began to wave, then more and more of them were unfurled. The Coliseum looked as if a field of golden California poppies had suddenly sprung up,” wrote Bertha K. Passmore, Vice chair of the Missouri Equal Suffrage Association.

Daniel Fitzpatrick (1891-1969) Why the Rest of Us Have to Stand. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 11, 1920. Courtesy of the State Historical Society of Missouri. Crayon, ink with pen and brush. Gift of the artist. Daniel Fitzpatrick, a two-time-Pulitzer-Prize-winning cartoonist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, was well known for his evocative caricatures of politicians and corrupt business men. This cartoon from the suffrage era presents stereotypical figures of shady politicos from the 1910s and 1920s. In this particular image, the figures embody concepts of “corruption” and “graft,” but one can also see in them the kind of sexist characters suffragette Hazel Hunkins described in a letter to her mother written on March 3, 1917; see next image.

Mary E. Bulkley. An Aid to the Woman Voter in Missouri. November 1918. Title Page and Introduction. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress. A prominent member of the St. Louis Equal Suffrage League and the Missouri Equal Suffrage Association, Mary Bulkley helped establish, and served as contributing editor, for the monthly suffragist magazine The Missouri Woman, published in St. Louis by the Garrison-Wagner Printing Company. In 1918 Bulkley wrote An Aid to the Woman Voter in Missouri as a guide to help women “use their vote intelligently.” The guide explained political parties, the process of voting, and the organization of city, state, and federal governments. It was used to outline lectures in government for Citizenship Schools throughout the state.

Explore the book online

Image Text

Flier titled “We Oppose Woman Suffrage.” ca 1916. Paper flier printed by the Woman Anti-Suffrage Association of New York. Image courtesy of the Missouri History Museum, St. Louis, Missouri. Those who opposed woman suffrage had various reasons for their beliefs. Many thought that women did not belong in the “dirty” world of politics. Suffrage especially frightened industrialists and distillers who were concerned about the potential for women to be reformers.

Marguerite Martyn. “Men Took Women’s Chairs…,” detail. June 15, 1916. Courtesy of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, ProQuest Historical Newspapers. Many opposed to woman suffrage believed there was a natural order that required men and women to operate in separate “spheres.” According to a 1915 Anti-Suffrage brochure: “Woman Suffrage, by introducing a new element of discord into the family, tends to increase material infelicity and consequent divorce.”

As part of the natural order, women cared for home and family. Who would manage these tasks if not women? At the 1916 Democratic National Convention in St. Louis, a Michigan delegate, commenting on the suffragists’ Golden Lane, argued, “…I’d just like to know who is at home taking care of the babies.”

Image Text

Ruf Nex. MU Savitar. 1920, page 326. Courtesy of University Archives, University of Missouri. The southern states often actively opposed woman suffrage as a reflection of tensions about citizen-ship and race. Thus the fight for the vote was, in general, more divisive and challenging in the south. Southern women did however create branches of suffrage organizations such as the American Woman Suffrage Association. Passage of the 14th and 15th amendments was used to support the conversation about extending the vote to women. But links between woman suffrage and black voting rights served to put both into question. Anti-suffrage leaders were often from the wealthy planter class and feared racial disorder.

Wool suit. 1910s. Gift of MU Theatre. Missouri Historic Costume and Textile Collection, University of Missouri. A popular suit style into the early 1920s, this black suit and shirtwaist are similar to those worn during the St. Louis registration rally and parade from September 13-16, 1920, when over 125,000 people registered to vote, many of them women who registered for the first time.

A Woman Living Here Has Registered to Vote Thereby Assuming Responsibility of Citizenship. 1920. Paper window flier. Image courtesy of the Missouri History Museum, St. Louis, Missouri. Just as today’s voters receive a sticker bearing the words “I Voted,” those who registered in St. Louis on September 13-16, 1920, received a paper flyer for their windows at home as evidence they registered for the presidential election that year.

One of those individuals was Mrs. Ebbie Tolbert, a slave under five owners before escaping from Mississippi to Missouri. On September 14, 1920, Tolbert became the first African American woman in St. Louis to register to vote. At the age of 113, Tolbert walked down to her polling place in St. Louis, Second Precinct, Seventh Ward, and entered her name into the lists as a registered voter. The following day, an interview with Mrs. Tolbert appeared in the St. Louis Star and Times. Mrs. Tolbert said, “It is going to be a great honor to be permitted to vote,” and [she] believes if women will vote right, they can do much to improve the present laws. “The world isn’t like it used be,” said Ebbie Tolbert, “and it may take the women to make things better. “From the St. Louis Star and Times, September 15, 1920, page 3.

Poll Book of An Election, Hannibal, Missouri. August 31, 1920. Image courtesy of Missouri State Archives, Jefferson City, Missouri. Page 4, Line 1 contains the signature of Marie Ruoff Byrum, who, at the age of 26, the first woman to vote in Missouri and in the United States for her choice of a candidate for public office in a special election held just five days after ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. Page 7 of the book includes the signature of Harriett Hampton, likely the first African American woman to vote in Missouri.

After women won the right to vote with the passage of the 19th amendment in 1920, many Missouri women aspired to participate as fully as possible in their own governance. Just as the earlier fight for equal suffrage challenged women of the 19th and 20th centuries, subsequent statecraft proved a challenge for those women who placed their names on the ballots. The all-male Missouri General Assembly slowly gained women representatives.

The first woman elected to public office in Missouri was Anna “Annie” White Baxter, as one of the nation’s first female county clerks, in 1890. In 1921, Mayme Ousley was the first woman elected mayor in Missouri (St. James). Other female mayors followed in 1924, 1936, 1977, 1989 (Columbia), 1999, 2015, 2017, and 2018. The all-male Missouri General Assembly slowly gained women representatives beginning in 1923. The first African-American woman would not be elected to the Missouri Legislature for another 40 years.

From 1980 to 1990 the percentage of women in the Missouri General Assembly grew from roughly 11 percent to 15 percent.

• 1963: DeVerne Calloway became the first black woman elected to the Missouri Legislature as a member of the Missouri House of Representatives.
• 1972: Mary Gant was the first woman elected to the Missouri Senate.
• 1977: Gwen Miles became the first black woman to serve in the Missouri Senate.
• 1989: Ann Covington was appointed the first woman on the Missouri Supreme Court.
• 1992: Claire McCaskill became the first woman elected County Prosecutor for Jackson County.
• 1996: Jo Ann Emerson remains the first and only woman to be elected and serve in the U.S. House of Representatives as an independent or third party.

Despite significant progress, the number of women to hold public office in Missouri remains a fraction of that of men. Women broke new records in 2018 primaries when 103 women ran for federal and state office. In 2019 women made up 24.6 percent of the Missouri legislator; forty-nine women out a total 197 positions, falling below the record nationwide average of 28.9 percent.

Former Lieutenant Governor Harriet Woods (1984-86) remains the highest ranking woman to hold office in Missouri, and the first woman elected to statewide office in Missouri. In its 199 years of statehood, Missouri has yet to elect a female Governor; however, the 2020 race for Missouri governor currently includes a female candidate. The torch for women’s equality remains lit for future generations.

Acrylic pussycat hat. 2017. Gift of K. Wood. Missouri Historic Costume and Textile Collection, University of Missouri. The first Women’s March, a worldwide event, was planned for January 21, 2017 with the goal to advocate for human rights – including women’s right, healthcare reform, and worker’s rights. Worldwide participation in the first marches was estimated at over 7 million. In connection with the march, The Pussyhat Project was a nationwide effort initiated by Krista Suh and Jayna Zweiman to create pink “pussyhats” to be worn at the marches. Launched in November 2016, the project quickly became popular. The hat pattern was developed with Kat Coyle, owner of “The Little Knittery,” and had over 100,000 downloads. The concept was to create a “sea of pink,” a color traditionally associated with girls and women, to demonstrate solidarity for women’s rights, and to protest against the language used toward women and minorities in the 2016 election.