Women Voters in Lexington and the Power of Kentucky

School Suffrage, 1838-1902

Randolph Hollingsworth, Ph.D.University of Kentucky

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

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

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.

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)

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

1901 Lexington Voting Precincts

Precinct 19:Election booth on Indiana Ave.Registration Day 600+ votersElection Day 122 votes

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)

October 1901 Lexington Women Voter Registration,

by RaceWhite; 775

Black; 1,883

Source:Morning Herald (October 2, 1901)

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

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