S02 E12 Arizona: Creating Coalitions and Continuing Legacies

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)

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