On August 18, 1920 — three years after women got the vote in New York, the 19th Amendment was officially ratified: Women throughout the United States could now vote. As we mark the Women’s Suffrage centennial, there is a long and complex history to consider both prior to and after the ratification.
By many accounts, the journey starts on July 13, 1848, at a tea party. Jane Hunt, a member of the Quaker faith, hosted a party for four other women: Lucretia Mott, Martha Wright (Mott’s sister), Mary Ann McClintock, and the notable Elizabeth Cady Stanton (the only non-Quaker at the table).
The four women listened as Stanton vented about the rights and status of women at the time, historical accounts say. This rant prompted the women to host a two-day event at the Wesleyan Methodist chapel in Seneca Falls. This convention would become the first step towards getting the right to vote.
Which women?
Before moving on, it’s important to note which women were being advocated for. Historian Lori D. Ginzberg breaks down Stanton’s hidden agenda in her 2009 book, “Elizabeth Cady Stanton: An American Life“.
In an interview with NPR, Ginzberg says that when Stanton said women, “I think … that she primarily had in mind women much like herself: white, middle-class, culturally if not religiously protestant, propertied, well-educated.”
So although Seneca Falls was a vital part of the Women’s Suffrage movement, it’s vital to acknowledge who the movement was primarily for.
Beginnings of a movement
The convention sparked a new interest in Women’s Suffrage all over the country, and more women began to use their voices to advocate.
In 1850, Sojourner Truth, who’d been born into and escaped from slavery, spoke out in favor of the movement. She’d had a life of devastating hardships. When her enslaver failed to adhere to the New York Anti-Slavery Law of 1827, she fled with her infant son to the home of a neighbor sympathetic to the cause of abolition. As she put it in her words, “I did not run away, I walked away by daylight …”
It was a speech titled “Ain’t I a Woman?” that she delivered at the 1851 Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio that truly began her career as a member of the Women’s Suffrage movement.
“If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them,” she said.
The First National Woman’s Rights Convention was held in 1850 in Worcester, Massachusetts. This would be the first of almost a decade of similar conventions. Most times, these meetings were hosted by and made for white women.
On May 12, 1851, Stanton was introduced to one of the most notable suffragettes: Susan B. Anthony. The two worked together for many years to come.
However, when the 15th Amendment passed in 1870, the two became infuriated with the prioritization of Black men instead of women. The 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal government and each state from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen’s “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
According to the National Women’s History Museum, “their belief led them to split from other suffragists. They thought the amendments should also have given women the right to vote. They formed the National Woman Suffrage Association, to push for a Constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote.”
New generation
By the beginning of the 20th century, a new wave of suffragettes had risen. The names of Alice Paul and her closest companion, Lucy Burns, probably ring a bell.
Paul and Burns met in London where the Women’s Suffrage Movement had been using extreme methods of protests in order to gain attention from the media and government. Picketing, hunger strikes, and other tactics were learned from their British counterparts.
In 1912, both women joined the National American Woman Suffrage Association: the organization that Stanton and Anthony (and two other women) founded. Soon after joining, Paul decided to steer away from the association.
According to the National Women’s History Museum (NWHM), part of the reason for this split was because “NAWSA primarily focused on state-by-state campaigns; Paul preferred to lobby Congress for a Constitutional amendment.” Paul went on to make the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, which was too extreme for NAWSA. Eventually, in 1917, the Congressional Union became the National Women’s Party.
The ‘double burden’
The movements mentioned above did have a significant impact on history and the future rights of women. However, the future wasn’t necessarily built to serve all women.
Mary Eliza Church Terrell was an activist. Born in 1863 in Memphis, Tennessee, as a daughter of former enslaved people, Terrell understood the inequalities handed to her. Her interest in activism sparked in 1892 when, according to the NWHM, her “an old friend, Thomas Moss, was lynched in Memphis by whites because his business competed with theirs.”
From then on Terrell continued to live a life of activism. In 1896, she helped found the National Association of Colored Women and served as president from 1896 to 1901. She spoke out about how Black women in America have a “double burden”, as both were groups struggling to gain civil rights.
The struggle for voting rights for people of color would continue until President Lyndon B Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law on August 6, 1965, with Martin Luther King Jr. by his side. However, the “double burden” Terrell spoke about is still a problem for many women.
The path to Congress
In 1918, the 19th Amendment passed the House of Representatives with a two-thirds vote. However, it lost by two votes in the Senate. On September 30, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson gave his support to the movement. It had been a long 42 years since the original amendment for women’s suffrage was introduced to Congress in 1878.
At last, 100 years ago today on August 18, 1920, the 19th Ammendment was ratified.
A woman as Supervisor
Gaining Women’s Suffrage was only the first part of the battle. The next step would be to get women in leadership positions, specifically in government and elected positions. This would prove to be a lengthy challenge, reflected in both national and local politics.
Shelter Island has a rich history of women in power. After a fruitful life full of international visits and education, Marian Barbara Keyser retired to her summer home here in 1977. Two years later, in 1979, she was elected Town Supervisor.
She was the first non-native Islander to be elected to the position and the first woman. However, with this monumental moment came a backlash. Heather Reylek, leader of Town Democratic Committee, said that Keyser had to withstand a number of “misogynistic terms”.
Another prominent woman in Shelter Island history is Norma Edwards, who was elected receiver of taxes in 1969 and served for another 29 years. She was one of the first women to hold this position. Hoot Sherman remembers working with Edwards when he was the supervisor.
He told us a story from the early 90s when he introduced a computerized system that differed greatly from the ledger system Edwards was used to. One day, the novel computer system crashed. Edwards told Sherman not to worry.
“She had also handwritten all the information in her ledgers and once again, Norma saved the day,” he said.
Many women in elected posts
More recently, many women have been elected to government positions on the Island. Sharon Kast was elected to the Town Board and served for eight years, working also as Deputy Supervisor. Chris Lewis set a record for being the woman to serve the longest on the Town Board. She began in 2001 and retired recently in 2017.
But Dorothy Ogar must hold the record for longevity in public office by a woman, having served as Town Clerk since 1978, following her election in November 1977. Before that, she was Deputy Town Clerk for 16 years. She served under her mother, Helen Smith, who served as Town Clerk for 20 years. Prior to Smith, Mildred King was Town Clerk for at least 18 years, beginning in 1939. King was the first woman elected for the position.
Today, women hold numerous elected posts in the Shelter Island Town government. Town Councilwoman Amber Brach-Williams also serves as Deputy Supervisor. Annmarie Seddio is the elected Receiver of Taxes and Judith Lechmanski and Patricia Castoldi are elected Assessors. Mary-Faith Westervelt and Helen J. Rosenblum are elected judges on the municipal court.
Kathleen Lynch has just begun her second year at the helm of the Shelter Island Board of Education, along with Margaret Colligan, the board’s vice president, Tracy McCarthy, Katherine Rossi-Snook, Dawn Hedberg, and the freshly sworn-in Karina Montalvo. And in the Village of Dering Harbor, where 104 years ago three women helped to form the municipality even though they couldn’t yet vote, Besty Morgan is mayor, Karen Kelsey is deputy mayor and Clora Kelly is an elected trustee. At the county level, Shelter Island is served by Suffolk Legislator Bridget Fleming.
And not all of Shelter Island’s strongest women were in the spotlight. Mimi Brennan was a strong voice on the Island. Along with being a teacher and a world-traveler, Brennan was a volunteer for the League of Women Voters, Mashomack Preserve, and many other organizations and groups. Even though she was petite, she “got people to listen”, Reylek said.
The battle for suffrage was a long one, but a worthy one. Unfortunately, women still face many challenges in life. But they are also rising up to leadership positions on local, national, and global scales.
Special thanks to the League of Women Voters of Shelter Island, the Shelter Island Historical Society, the Shelter Island Public Library, Heather Reylek, Joanne Sherman, and others for assistance with researching this story.
