In this episode, Cynthia Holmes and Elyssa Ford discuss the suffrage battle at sites in Missouri.

• Virginia and Francis Minor were a St. Louis power couple determined to get votes for women and took their case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided citizenship did not mean the right to vote.
• Anna Holland Jones was an African American activist who in August 1915 wrote an article entitled, “Woman Suffrage and Social Reform” in which she asked the question, why should a woman “not have the legal means – the ballot – to widen and deepen her work?”
• Alma Nash and the Missouri Women’s Military Band energetically supported women’s suffrage and travelled to Washington D.C. for the 1913 parade and were moved to the lead to open the way for marchers.
• The Golden Lane Parade in 1916 saw 7,000 women lining the streets of St. Louis during the Democratic National Convention and silently staring-down the delegates as they walked from their hotels to the convention to illustrate how women had been silenced by the continued denial of the vote.

About our Guests

Cynthia Holmes is an attorney in St. Louis serving families and small businesses and is the State Coordinator for the National Votes for Women Trail.

Dr. Elyssa Ford is a professor of history at Northwest Missouri State University. She is a scholar of gender and sexuality with a focus on the West. Her first book Rodeo as Refuge, Rodeo as Rebellion: Gender, Race, and Identity in the American Rodeo looks at race- and group-specific rodeos across the US, and her second book Slapping Leather: Queer Cowfolx at the Gay Rodeo traces the history of gay rodeo in the United States as a site of queer activism and contestation. As a public historian, she is committed to local history and has written extensively on the Midwest and Northwest Missouri, including an article on women’s suffrage for the National Park Service.

Links to People, Places, Publications

Missouri & the 19th Amendment (here)

Virgina Minor Biographical Sketch (here)

Visit the Minor historical marker (here)

Anna Holland Jones Biographical Sketch (here)

Visit the Jones historical marker (here)

Alma Nash Biographical Sketch (here)

Visit the Nash historical marker (here)

The Golden Lane March of 1916 (here)

Visit Golden Lane historical marker (here)

CM Marihugh is a public history consultant and currently conducting independent research for a book on commemoration of the U.S. women’s suffrage movement. She has an M.A. in Public History from State University of New York, and an M.B.A. from Dartmouth College.

Learn more about:

• National Votes for Women Trail (here)
• National Votes for Women Trail - William G. Pomeroy historical markers (here)
• National Collaborative for Women’s History Sites (here)

Do you have a question, comment, or suggestion? Get in touch! Send an e-mail to NVWTpodcast@ncwhs.org

In this episode, Robyn Young discusses the suffrage movement in Pennsylvania.

We talk about the events and activists in the PA voting rights campaign:

• Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was a prominent speaker for abolition, African American rights, suffrage and education. She also authored poetry, articles, and books.
• Hannah Patterson helped organize the 1915 "Suffrage Day" at the Philadelphia ball park for a game between the Phillies and the NY Giants and threw out the first pitch.
• The 1915 Justice Bell Tour took a replica of the Liberty Bell for a 5,000-mile journey around the state during which tens of thousands came to see it. The bell’s clapper was symbolically chained down and would only ring out when women got the vote.
• Anna Howard Shaw was one of the suffrage movement’s leaders and greatest orators with an estimated 10,000 speeches given around the country over decades.
• Emma Writt and her sisters Pauline and Mary were African American suffrage leaders in western Pennsylvania when they helped plan and participate in an integrated women’s suffrage march in Pittsburgh in 1914 – the first march in that city.

About our Guest:

Robyn Young is an independent scholar and women's historian dedicated to sharing women's history with the general public. She is known as the “Marker Lady” as she has had four historical markers approved for the National Votes for Women Trail. She has been a board for NCWHS since 2018 and currently serves as its secretary.

Links to People, Places, Publications:

• Pennsylvania & the 19th Amendment (here)
• Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Biographical Sketch (here)
• Visit the F.E.W. Harper statue (here)
• Hannah Patterson Biographical Sketch (here)
• Visit the 1915 Justice Bell Tour marker (here)
• Anna Howard Shaw Biographical Sketch (here)
• Visit the Anna Howard Shaw marker (here)
• Emma Writt Richards Biographical video (here)
• Pittsburgh’s first women’s suffrage march (here)

CM Marihugh is a public history consultant and currently conducting independent research for a book on commemoration of the U.S. women’s suffrage movement. She has an M.A. in Public History from State University of New York, and an M.B.A. from Dartmouth College.

Learn more about:

• National Votes for Women Trail (here)
• National Votes for Women Trail - William G. Pomeroy historical markers (here)
• National Collaborative for Women’s History Sites (here)

Do you have a question, comment, or suggestion? Get in touch! Send an e-mail to NVWTpodcast@ncwhs.org

In this episode, Mary Melcher and Melanie Sturgeon discuss the suffrage battle at sites in Arizona.

We talk about the events and activists in the AZ voting rights campaign:

• Frances Willard Munds, suffragist leader, who said that it made her “blood boil” when women were told to stay in their domestic sphere and not get involved with voting.
• Sallie Davis Hayden passed on her convictions for women’s suffrage to her son, Carl Hayden, who voted for the 19th amendment as a U.S. congressman.
• Mary Kane and Amalia Valenzuela were women of Mexican descent who were early women voters at the schoolhouse in the town of Patagonia.
• Laura G. Cannon travelled around Arizona and spoke nearly every evening in a different town – often to crowds of working men who applauded her and “donated generously” to the suffrage cause.
• In 1912, Arizona women won the right to vote after 30 years of rejection after rejection by politicians.

About our Guests:

Mary Melcher is a historian who specialized in western women’s history, and the twentieth century U.S. She has conducted numerous women’s public history projects in Arizona and recently served on the Statue Committee of the Arizona Women’s History Alliance which installed the statue of Frances Willard Munds in the memorial park next to the Arizona state capitol.

Melanie Sturgeon is the co-founder and Chair of the Arizona Women’s History Alliance and the Chair of the Arizona Women’s Hall of Fame. She served as the State Archivist of the Arizona State Archives for 16 years and has always been passionate about women’s history.

Links to People, Places, Publications:

Arizona & the 19th Amendment (here)

Arizona Women’s Suffrage Timeline (here)

Frances Willard Munds Biographical Sketch (here)

Visit the Frances Willard Munds statue (here)

Sallie Davis Hayden Biographical Sketch (here)

Visit the Sallie Davis Hayden marker (here)

Visit the Patagonia marker where Mary Kane and Amalia Valenzuela voted (here)

Laura G. Cannon Biographical Sketch (here)

Visit the Laura G. Cannon marker (here)

Anna Howard Shaw Biographical Sketch (here)

Visit the 1912 Anna Shaw speech marker (here)

CM Marihugh is a public history consultant and currently conducting independent research for a book on commemoration of the U.S. women’s suffrage movement. She has an M.A. in Public History from State University of New York, and an M.B.A. from Dartmouth College.

Learn more about:

• National Votes for Women Trail (here)
• National Votes for Women Trail - William G. Pomeroy historical markers (here)
• National Collaborative for Women’s History Sites (here)

Do you have a question, comment, or suggestion? Get in touch! Send an e-mail to NVWTpodcast@ncwhs.org