Virginia Vignettes » Women’s Suffrage

When did Virginia women gain the right to vote?

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:03:22 +0000

In 1909 a few Virginia women organized the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia to educate Old Dominion citizens on the issue of woman suffrage. They were following the path blazed by two unsuccessful late nineteenth-century efforts to obtain the vote for women in Virginia. Rejecting radicalism for a more moderate approach, the suffragists capitalized on the evolving view of women’s new roles in the society to argue that women taxpayers and citizens deserved the vote and that the quality of politics and government would improve significantly through their participation. By 1919 the league had grown to over 100 local chapters and 32,000 members, but on three different occasions it had failed to win assembly approval for a voting rights amendment to the state constitution. In the face of these disappointments, many Virginia women joined the militant National Woman’s Party that was more aggressive in pressing for a federal amendment, which finally passed Congress in 1919. Although the 1920 assembly rejected the nineteenth amendment (Virginia’s legislators did not approve the amendment until 1952), ratification at the national level allowed Virginia women to vote for the first time in 1920.

Further Reading

Sara Hunter Graham, “Woman Suffrage in Virginia: The Equal Suffrage League and Pressure Group Politics, 1909-1920,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (April 1993).

What rights did women have in Colonial Virginia?

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:00:34 +0000

Not many! An unmarried, divorced, or widowed woman possessed a legal personality as feme sole and was solely responsible for her affairs. She could own titles and sign contracts and wills. On the other hand, a married woman was under the cover of her husband’s authority as feme covert and had few property rights. Land she brought to the marriage became her husband’s to manage as he saw fit, although he normally could not sell her inherited property unless he got her permission to do so. A widow did receive one-third interest in her husband’s estate.

All women were proscribed in their civil rights. They could not vote, serve in the militia, or hold public offices. They could not act as jurors, but they could give testimony. Seventeenth-century observers ridiculed assertive women as unruly and disorderly and held them responsible for social discord. ”Brabbling” or quarrelsome speech among women was a crime, punishable by fines or the humiliation of a public ducking.

Further Reading

Linda Sturtz, Within Her Power: Propertied Women in Colonial Virginia;

Terri L. Snyder, Brabbling Women: Disorderly Speech and the Law in Early Virginia.

Who was Helen Timmons Henderson?

EV — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 12:42:44 +0000

Helen Henderson was one of the first two women elected to Virginia’s House of Delegates after women won the right to vote in 1920. A Missouri native, Henderson was a teacher in Buchanan County and helped found the Baptist Mountain School, which opened there in 1911. In 1923, a group of local Democratic men invited her to run for the county’s assembly seat. “I’m not in the Legislature for publicity,” she explained that November. “It’s simply a question of public service with me, and a duty I owe to the people back in those counties which have elected me.” She won the election by more than 400 votes, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported, despite “strenuous opposition from some independent Democrats, Republicans, and wets.” (In the terminology of the day, “wets” opposed Prohibition.) “She took a vigorous and important part” in the proceedings of the four committees on which she sat, according to the Times-Dispatch, “and on the floor was one of the most respected and influential members of the House.” Henderson died, however, in 1925, before she could stand for reelection. Governor E. Lee Trinkle, and a House resolution, praised her “many virtues, clear vision and noble aspirations.”

Further Reading:
Elihu Jasper Sutherland, Some Sandy Basin Characters (1962)

How did the New Deal help preserve the history of women's suffrage in Virginia?

EV — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 12:00:30 +0000

In 1935 Ida Mae Thompson, the executive secretary for Virginia’s League of Women Voters, took on extra work as a researcher for the Works Progress Administration’s Historical Records Survey. Under Thompson’s leadership, the survey collected more than 25,000 items concerning the suffrage movement, from correspondence and treasurers’ reports to “Votes for Women” buttons and ribbons. Writing in one of many letters to former suffrage workers across Virginia: “NOW we have the opportunity . . . for collecting and classifying for permanent preservation all available materials on woman suffrage in our State, so that later a history of the movement can be written.” Thompson asked for minutes, fliers, newspaper clippings or “information that workers may remember.” “Short stories of certain meetings or mention of outstanding speakers will not come amiss,” she reminded one woman who had not yet responded. “In fact, we want any data that will help to make a complete history of the suffrage movement in Virginia.” To Thompson’s dismay, the correspondent replied, “All data was probably destroyed when I had to move my desk, not thinking that it was worth keeping.” Thompson donated the materials to the Library of Virginia in 1942.

Further Reading:

Ida Husted Harper, ed., The History of Woman Suffrage (1922)

When did Virginia women gain the right to vote?

VFHwebdev — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 15:13:17 +0000

Further Reading

Sara Hunter Graham, “Woman Suffrage in Virginia: The Equal Suffrage League and Pressure Group Politics, 1909-1920,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (April 1993).

What rights did women have in Colonial Virginia?

VFHwebdev — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 18:36:57 +0000

Further Reading

Linda Sturtz, Within Her Power: Propertied Women in Colonial Virginia;

Terri L. Snyder, Brabbling Women: Disorderly Speech and the Law in Early Virginia.