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Women Voters in Lexington and the Power of Kentucky
School Suffrage, 1838-1902
Randolph Hollingsworth, Ph.D.University of Kentucky
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Kentucky & Woman Suffrage
• 1st statewide woman suffrage law in new nation - 1838 KY rural femmes sole
• 1st time gender is federal condition for suffrage - 14th Amendment 1868
• Wyoming, Idaho, Colorado women enfranchised by 1893
• 1891KY’s new constitution (its 4th) gives legislature power to extend only partial suffrage to women statewide
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KY Woman Rights Activists
• Lucy Stone AWSA meeting in Louisville 1881 => KY Woman Suffrage Assoc. – 1st in the South
• KY Woman’s Christian Temperance Union formed 1881, 1st convention in Lexington
• KY Equal Rights Assoc. 1888 formed out of Fayette Co ERA with broad platform of reform (not just the vote)
• 1894: Josephine Henry gets Married Woman’s Property Act signed into law; KY Federation of Women’s Clubs starts
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Lexington’sBlack Women Activists
• By 1860s: Howard School (“Ladies Hall”) on Church St; Talbott School on Upper St
• 1st in South: KY Negro Education Assoc. formed in 1877 – male administrators
• 1880s Mary Elizabeth Britton leads Lexington Woman’s Improvement Club
• 1894: Colored Orphan & Industrial Home opens Georgetown St – E Belle Jackson
• 1895: National Assoc. of Colored Women starts in Washington D.C.
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Lexington’s White Women Activists
• Lexington WCTU chapter starts 1886 - Francis Beauchamp broadens agenda to prison reform and juvenile courts
• Kentucky Equal Rights Association, 1888, Laura Clay & Henrietta Chenault
• Madeline McDowell Breckinridge Lexington Herald editorials, creates Associated Charities 1899, Women’s Emergency Comm. (1910 becomes Lexington Civic League)
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Rural Women Rebel
Against Lexington
Democratic Patronage
for Schoolteach
ers
• Pricetown – petition Co. Superintendent M.A. Cassidy against removal of W.C.Taylor
• Cadentown – protest at schoolhouse door to stop new teacher
• Athens – parents warn off Andrew J. Peay who replaced Mary Mason, moved school to jailhouse
Spring
and Fall
1901
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1901 Lexington Voting Precincts
Precinct 19:Election booth on Indiana Ave.Registration Day 600+ votersElection Day 122 votes
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October 1901 Lexington Women Voter Registration,
by Party
Republican, 1,986
Democrat, 634
Independent, 136
Source:Lexington Leader, Morning Democrat, Lexington Herald (October 2, 1901)
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October 1901 Lexington Women Voter Registration,
by RaceWhite; 775
Black; 1,883
Source:Morning Herald (October 2, 1901)
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Lexington School
Board Voter Registrants vs. Election
Returns
8,926Total Registration of voters for Lexington School Board, Oct 1901vs.4,570Total Votes cast, Nov 5
difference = ~50%
• 1899 difference = 30%
• 1897 difference = 7%
October vs.
November
1901
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KY General Assembly
repeals 1894 partial
suffrage statute
• William A. “Billy” Klair, KY House of Representatives
• J. Embry Allen, KY Senate
vs.Committee on Retention of School Suffrage for Women(Laura Clay, Mary Creegan Roark, Ida Withers Harrison, Frances Beauchamp)
Dec 1901 –
Jan 1902