August 26, 2010 marks the 90th anniversary of women achieving the right to vote in national elections! Evanston women played a key role in making this happen in the years preceeding the passage of the 19th amendment to the constitution in 1920.
Elizabeth Harbert was connected to the national suffrage movement through her friendship with Susan B. Anthony and wrote numerous articles and published a newsletter in support of voting rights. Frances Willard and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union are credited by historians with convincing large numbers of women to support suffrage in the 19th century. Catharine McCulloch was instrumental in getting Illinois women the right to vote in 1913, making it the first state east of the Mississippi to do so. Some historians believe that this forced East coast states, and the nation in general, to realize the power of women voters.
If you’d like to know more about this moment in women’s history, here are a few web sites to visit:
Library of Congress, Women’s Suffrage Resources
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/vfwhtml/vfwhome.html
Susan B. Anthony Center for Women’s Leadership
http://www.rochester.edu/sba/suffragehistory.html
National Collaborative for Women’s History Sites (working on connecting all the sites throughout the U.S. that were influential in the suffrage movement, including those in Evanston)
About.com site on Women’s History
http://specials.about.com/service/newsletters/womenshistory/1282748400.htm