"For 53 years,"
Theodora Winton
Youmans wrote in the June 12, 1919 edition of the
Wood County Reporter,
"the woman suffrage question has been presented in some way to each
session of the Congress of the United States." In June 1919, it was
finally close to resolution when the Nineteenth Amendment was finally passed
into law and set to the states to ratify. Youmans was one of the first women
journalists and the president of the Wisconsin Women's Suffrage Association
(WWSA) when Wisconsin ratified the amendment. Her words can be widely read in
archived newsletters and newspapers, and paint a vivid picture of some of the
arguments and issues of the time.
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| Women's Suffrage Centennial Celebration, Wisconsin State Capitol, June 10, 2019 |
Women were the engines of change, fighting for the right to vote for
decades. While the conventional Wisconsin women's suffrage story tends to focus
on the final frenzy of ratifying the Nineteenth Amendment and the subsequent
rush to be first to file it in Washington D.C., the story of women's suffrage
in Wisconsin is both rich and lengthy, stretching back to the origins of the
state. Before women enjoyed full voting rights, they fought for limited rights
to serve in office and vote in school elections.
June 10, 2019 marks the 100th anniversary of Wisconsin's
ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. Throughout the month of June, the
David T. Prosser Jr. Library will host a display featuring historical briefs
and laws, related books, and photos and newspaper articles of the time.
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| Women's Suffrage Display at the David T. Prosser Jr. Library |
Come into the library to read through these first hand. This display is set up so you can pick up individual pieces to examine them more closely. Don't miss our newsletter feature articles,
Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Women’s Suffrage in Wisconsin and
Women’s Suffrage Legislation in Wisconsin, or our blog posts featuring Supreme Court briefs related to women's suffrage:
Brown v. Phillips and
Gilkey v. McKinley.
