The Only Woman to Vote for the 19th Amendment

Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973) is known for many things, but she preferred to be “remembered as the only woman who ever voted to give women the right to vote.”

At the time the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920, no women were serving in Congress. Rankin, two-time U.S. Representative from Montana, was the first woman elected to a federal office. During her first term, 1917-19, a resolution that would later become the Nineteenth Amendment passed the House. Though she was no longer holding office when ratification occurred, her unique standing remains.

Jeannette Rankin, 1917
Bain News Service

Active in the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), Rankin had been instrumental in making Montana the seventh state to give women unrestricted voting rights in 1914.

Interestingly, she won election in a state-wide contest in 1916, when Montana had two at-large seats in the House. But before the next election, the state legislature divided the state into two districts. Rankin, a Republican, knew she could not win in the largely Democratic district where she lived. So instead of running for reelection, she unsuccessfully sought one of Montana’s seats in the U.S. Senate.

A lifelong pacifist, Rankin was criticized for being one of 50 delegates to vote against the U.S. entering the war against Germany. "I wish to stand for my country," she said, "but I cannot vote for war." Years later, she would add, "I felt the first time the first woman had a chance to say no to war, she should say it."

During her term, she pushed for improved working conditions for laborers, and succeeded in winning shorter work days for employees of the Bureau of Printing and Engraving.

Rankin campaigning in Montana

After leaving office, she remained active in the political arena, lobbying for child labor protections, social welfare programs for women and children, and pacifism. When her efforts in the late 1930s to urge the country to pursue a diplomatic solution rather than prepare for war proved ineffective, she decided to run for Congress again.

At age 60, Rankin defeated the incumbent in the primary and a former representative in the general election to reclaim her seat in the House. In December 1941, she became the only member of Congress to vote against declaring war on Japan. When a similar declaration against Germany and Italy came to a vote, she abstained, and the vote in favor of the resolution was considered unanimous.

Rankin spoke against war at the

National American Woman Suffrage

Association in 1917

In later interviews, Rankin stated she had no regrets for her stance. “If you're against war, you're against war regardless of what happens. It's a wrong method of trying to settle a dispute."

Rankin’s courage in voting her conscience, even though it made her unpopular, was applauded by many political leaders, including John F. Kennedy. She also inspired a new generation of pacifists, civil rights activists, and feminists in the 1960s and ‘70s. She protested against the Vietnam War and even considered running for Congress for a third time in 1971 to enhance the reach for her message. But she was 91 and on-going ailments made such a campaign impossible.

Jeannette Rankin died in 1973. Her ranch near Missoula, Montana, where she grew up and continued to live most of her life, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

Margaret Knight: The Most Famous 19th Century Woman Inventor

Blogger: Amber Lemus

Newspaper article about Margaret Knight
Public Domain.

Continuing from our post on shopping bags last month, today we explore the fascinating and inspiring life of female inventor, Margaret Knight. February happens to be her birth month also!

Young girl working in a cotton mill
Public Domain

"Mattie" was born to Hannah Teal and James Knight on February 14, 1838 in York, Maine. She was known as a very odd little girl, because instead of dolls she preferred woodworking tools. Her father died when she was very young, so she and her two brothers were raised by her widowed mother. Life was very hard for them, and she didn't receive much education, since she had to leave school as soon as she was old enough to start working in the cotton mill with her brothers.


Mattie's first invention was spurred by yet another traumatic event. At age twelve, she was working in the cotton mill when a nearby machine malfunctioned, and sent a steel-tipped shuttle shooting out of the machine and into a young boy. Terrorized by the event, she immediately set to work and conceived a safety device to shut off the machine if something went wrong. Her device was developed and put into use, supposedly by mills all over the country. However she would never see a dime from that invention.

Before long, Mattie developed health conditions that prevented her from continuing to work in the cotton mill. She tried many different things to earn a living, including home repair, engraving and furniture upholstery. In 1867, near age thirty, Mattie moved to Springfield, Massachusetts and began working in a paper bag factory. The bags they made were envelope style, but they had several issues that made them less functional. However, flat-bottomed bags were more expensive to produce, since they had to be made by hand. Mattie's mind set to work on that problem.

About a year later, in 1868, Mattie invented a machine that cut, folded, and glued paper to form flat-bottomed brown paper bags, much like the ones we know today. This machine would greatly increase the speed of production for these bags, allowing a mass manufacturing of the more efficient design.

Another of Knight's Patents for a rotary engine.
Public Domain

This time, Mattie knew the value of what she had, and she intended to go about it in a way that would allow her to patent the machine and reap the rewards of her labor. She made her own wooden prototype, but she needed a working iron model in order to apply for a patent. So she went to a machine shop to get it built. But when Mattie went to patent her design, she discovered that someone else had already done so.

Charles Annan was either working at the shop to build the prototype, or was near enough to see the design as it was in the making, and he stole the design and filed his own patent. During this point in history, patents hadn't been awarded to women, at least not openly. Women would disguise their names by only using initials so their names were not perceived as female. But this was something Mattie was willing to fight for. She took Annan to court, shelling out over $100/day in legal fees (something around $2,143 today) to win back her patent. Annan argued that his invention was different than Mattie's, and that she never developed a fully functional machine. He even went so far as to state that "she could not possibly understand the mechanical complexities of the machine". Most consider this comment to stem from his prejudice against women, although some debate that point. Either way, Mattie had to bring witnesses, and copious amounts of evidence to prove the invention was actually hers. After a sixteen day hearing, which would have cost her over $1600 (over $34,000 in today's market.) she won the case and her patent was awarded in 1871.


From there, Mattie was able to sustain herself from the royalties of her patents. She continued to invent and registered more than 80 patents during her lifetime. Later in life, as she reflected on her accomplishments she said, "I'm only sorry I couldn't have had as good a chance as a boy, and have been put to my trade regularly." She is one of the most saluted women in the suffrage movement, because she demonstrated women's cognitive abilities and succeeded in a predominately male field.

Some articles have claimed that she was the first woman to receive a U.S. Patent, however that doesn't seem to hold up to fact checking.

Regardless, Margaret E. Knight is an inspiring person who despite countless trials, setbacks, and even having to fight for a place in the world, rose above it all to succeed at what she loved.

Today, I'd love to know what that would be for you. If you could rise above it all and succeed in a field, what field would that be? Leave me a comment below the blog post and let me know.

****

Two-time winner of the Christian Indie Award for historical fiction, Amber Lemus inspires hearts through enthralling tales She has a passion for travel, history, books and her Savior. This combination results in what her readers call "historical fiction at its finest".

She lives near the Ozarks in her "casita" with her prince charming. Between enjoying life as a boy mom, and spinning stories out of soap bubbles, Amber loves to connect with readers and hang out on Goodreads with other bookish peoples.

Amber is a proud member of the American Christian Fiction Writers Association. Visit her online at http://www.amberlemus.com/ and download a FREE story by subscribing to her Newsletter!

A True Difference Maker

 Jessie Harriet Daniel Ames: A True Difference Maker

by Martha Rogers

On a cold winter's night in 1893, a young girl overheard a discussion about an incident that happened in Paris, Texas 150 miles north of her home in Palestine. What she heard should never have been heard by a child, but 9-year-old Jessie listened, and it set the direction for the difference she'd make as woman and the impact she would have.

The incident overheard involved a lynching of a young black man who had been accused of murdering a 3-year-old child named Myrtle Vance. Whether or not the young man actually committed the crime didn't matter to the town, and a group of men dragged Henry Smith to a field where about 10,000 people witnessed his execution. After several hours of torture, the men men mutilated him, poured coal oil over his body, put a rope around his neck, set him on fire and lynched him.

Little Jessie never forgot that story and devoted her life to preventing such atrocities and securing the vote for women in Texas.

Jessie was born in Palestine, Texas on November 2, 1883 and lived there when the lynching occurred in Paris, Texas. Four years after the incident, the family moved to Georgetown where Jessie grew up and enrolled in Southwestern University at the age of 13, one of the youngest to ever attend college. She lived in the Women's Annex with other female students and graduated from the college in 1902 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. The family then moved to Laredo, Texas where Jessie joined the Methodist church with her mother and sister. 

In 1905, at the age of 22, Jessie married Roger Post Ames, who was a working with Walter Reed in Cuba. Their marriage was not a happy one because of the long separations caused by his work. Although he died in 1914 in Guatemala with blackwater fever, he and Jessie had three children, the third of whom was born shortly after Roger Ames death.

Ames as a young business woman

At age 31, a widow with three young children, a son and two daughters, Jessie entered the world of business and worked at the Georgetown Telephone Company which was owned by her mother, also a widow. In a male dominated business, both Jessie and her mother rose as competent, tough competitors.

This experience caused her to be very sensitive to the inequalities suffered by women. She entered the world of politics and organized the Georgetown Equal Suffrage League in 1916 and served as its treasurer in 1918. That year, the Texas Senate passed a bill which allowed women to vote in state primaries. Over 3,000 women were registered in the next seventeen days. The league provided voting instructions and mock elections to help women understand the process and to responsibly use their new rights. 

In 1919, she served as the first president of the Texas League of Women Voters. Now her interests returned to that incident of her childhood, and her efforts turned to the rights of blacks and interracial cooperation. 

From that interest and concern, Jessie served as chair of a women's committee of the new formed Texas Interracial Commission in 1922. In 1930, after another horrendous lynching revived all of the old memories, Ames founded the Association of Sothern Women for the Prevention of Lynching (ASWPL). She had garnered over 40,000 signatures of people against the practice. The group worked hard and diligently to do away with the horrors of lynching. They visited churches, social service organizations, and local law offices to gain allies for their crusade.

That work had an effect on interracial justices, but not enough. Jessie and many other women continued to work toward and address social ills. They encouraged women to use their vote as a bloc to to achieve workplace equity, marriage equality, educational opportunity, and racial justice.

These are two news articles that appeared reporting Jessie's endeavors for racial equality and the abolition of lynching.

In 1924 she served as the director for the Texas Commission on Interracial Cooperation. (CIC) Five years later, she moved to Atlanta to become the national director.  

Before lynching declined in the early '40's, she wrote two books, Southern Look at Lynching in 1937 and The Changing Character of Lynching in 1942. 

Jessie Ames spent thirty years working as a public crusader for the rights of women and racial equality during a time when neither topic was considered to be a polite topic of conversation. Her efforts helped to lay the groundwork for the beginning of more rights for women and blacks in the 1960's and '70's. 

In 1942, the ASWPL was absorbed into the CIC, and in 1944, she retired from public service and moved back to Georgetown to live with her daughter. She died in Austin, Texas in 1972 at the age of 88.

Her home in Georgetown has been designated as a historical site and a marker sits in front to tell a part of the history. 

The memories of a young child led to a movement for equality that changed the lives of women and black people. Times are changing even today, and Jessie Ames' endeavors are still a work in progress as people in Texas and across the nation strive for equality in all walks of life. 

Are there memories from your childhood that have affected your attitudes or beliefs today?

Martha Rogers is a multi-published author and writes a weekly devotional for ACFW. Since receiving her first novel contract at age 73, Martha has written and published over 50 books. Martha and her husband Rex live in Houston, Texas where they are active members of First Baptist Church. They are the parents of three sons and grandparents to eleven grandchildren and great-grandparents to six. Martha is a retired teacher with twenty-eight years teaching Home Economics and English at the secondary level and eight years at the college level supervising student teachers and teaching freshman English. She is the Director of the Texas Christian Writers Conference held in Houston in August each year, a member of ACFW, ACFW WOTS chapter in Houston, and a member of the writers’ group, Inspirational Writers Alive. 

Josephine Butler: A Courageous 19th Century Woman

 By Michelle Shocklee

One of my favorite things about being an author of historical fiction is the research! Research breathes life into our historical novels, but it also introduces us to interesting events and fascinating people we might not have run across had we not been digging deeper into history in order to bring our characters to life. 

That's exactly what happened to me a couple weeks ago. I'm in the "honeymoon" stage of writing a new novel. I have the story mapped out in the form of a synopsis, but like a roadmap, the synopsis doesn't fill in all the blanks. My characters need more flesh on their bones. That's where research comes in. 

                    Butler in 1851, portrait by George Richmond

Enter Josephine Butler. 

Josephine Elizabeth Grey Butler was born to a well-to-do family in April 1828 in Northumberland, England. Her father was cousin to Whig Prime Minister Earl Grey, and acted as a political advisor for him. Both men held strong convictions regarding Catholic emancipation, the abolition of slavery, the repeal of the Corn Laws, and reform of the poor laws. Her father believed in educating his daughters as well as his sons in politics and social issues, and her mother saw to their religious training. With such strong influences in her life, it's easy to see why Josephine grew up to be a woman who was comfortable expressing ideas and beliefs that were not in line with what was expected of women of her time. 

In 1850, Josephine married a like-minded man named George Butler. Their two oldest sons were born in Oxford where they lived at the time, but 1856, Josephine's doctor advised that the damp climate there was detrimental to her health. They moved to the Bristol area, where their third son and a daughter were born. 

During this time, Josephine had a deep encounter with God, finding she much preferred God over the religion of the Anglican church. This personal relationship with God led her to hold on to strong convictions, but it also prompted her to live them out. While still in Oxford, she and George began to help many of the fallen woman in the area and invited some to live in their house. One case in which they were involved concerned a young woman serving a prison sentence at Newgate Prison. She had been seduced by a university don who had subsequently abandoned her. Horrifically, the woman had murdered her baby in despair and been convicted. The Butlers contacted the governor of Newgate to arrange for her to stay in their house at the end of her sentence. 

Josephine Butler, circa 1900. New York Public Library

In 1863, Josephine and George's six-year old daughter, Eva, died tragically from a fall. In an attempt to cope with her grief, Josephine threw herself into charity work, particularly related to the rights of women. Among the issues on which she campaigned was child prostitution, and she was part of a group which eventually forced parliament to raise the age of consent from 13 to 16. In 1869, she began her campaign against the Contagious Diseases Acts. These laws had been introduced in the 1860s in an attempt to reduce venereal disease in the armed forces. Police were permitted to arrest women living in seaports and military towns who they believed were prostitutes and force them to be examined for venereal disease. Josephine toured the country making speeches condemning the acts. Many people were shocked that a woman would speak in public about sexual matters, but in 1883 the acts were suspended and repealed three years later.

In 1866, the Butler's moved to Liverpool where George had been appointed headmaster of Liverpool College. There, they continued to open their home to women in trouble, often ill with venereal diseases. It soon became clear that there were too many women in need, so Josephine solicited funds from the town's wealthy citizens and opened a hostel for the women. A second, larger hostel opened a year later that not only provided housing, but offered more suitable jobs, such as sewing and manufacturing. 

Knowing prostitution was a world-wide issue, she turned her attention abroad, visiting France, Italy and Switzerland, and spoke out against the growing problem of under-age prostitution and licensed houses. This led to the founding in London of a committee for the suppression of ‘white slave traffic’. In later years Josephine lobbied for causes including Irish Home Rule, women’s suffrage and the rooting out of police corruption. She also led a campaign to end the regulation of prostitution in India.

        The blue plaque erected in 2001 by English Heritage at Butler's
                                    former residence in Wimbledon

By the time Josephine passed away in 1906, her work had changed dozens of laws and hundreds of lives. What I find so remarkable in reading about Josephine is that she never set out to change the world. She simply saw people for who they were and who they could be if given help. She refused to remain quiet when she witnessed injustice, including lawful injustice. Her life and her work has inspired many people, and I hope to create a character in my new novel who will continue her legacy, even in fiction.

What would the world look like if we all were a little more like Josephine Butler? 

Michelle Shocklee is the author of several historical novels. Her work has been included in numerous Chicken Soup for the Soul books, magazines, and blogs. Married to her college sweetheart and the mother of two grown sons, she makes her home in Tennessee, not far from the historical sites she writes about. Visit her online at michelleshocklee.com.

UNDER THE TULIP TREE

Sixteen-year-old Lorena Leland’s dreams of a rich and fulfilling life as a writer are dashed when the stock market crashes in 1929. Seven years into the Great Depression, Rena’s banker father has retreated into the bottle, her sister is married to a lazy charlatan and gambler, and Rena is an unemployed newspaper reporter. Eager for any writing job, Rena accepts a position interviewing former slaves for the Federal Writers’ Project. There, she meets Frankie Washington, a 101-year-old woman whose honest yet tragic past captivates Rena.

As Frankie recounts her life as a slave, Rena is horrified to learn of all the older woman has endured—especially because Rena’s ancestors owned slaves. While Frankie’s story challenges Rena’s preconceptions about slavery, it also connects the two women whose lives are otherwise separated by age, race, and circumstances. But will this bond of respect, admiration, and friendship be broken by a revelation neither woman sees coming?

https://www.amazon.com/Michelle-Shocklee/e/B01MYD4TRE/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1486004955&sr=8-1

Those Amazing Beechers

Thomas Beecher among Elmira notaries

In the Nineteenth Century, a certain form of Biblical progressivism rapidly changed the dynamics in regards to women's rights, abolition of slavery, and many other social causes. As I researched several of my stories from The Abolitionist's Daughter, set in a Civil War town where women could get the same college degree as a man in the mid1800's, to my newest Barbour novella project involving school teachers, one family's influence kept coming up over and over, and that is the Beecher Family.


I've previously written about Thomas K. Beecher, a beloved pastor and influential figure in my hometown of Elmira, NY. Members of his congregation were active on the Underground Railroad and committed to Abolition. Reverend Beecher himself ministered to Confederate Prisoners of War at Elmira Prison camp, and served the community for decades, creating a true community where the church extended beyond the walls of his Independent Congregationalist building. He enjoyed people, and loved life, and valued education, and it showed. He helped organize baseball teams in town, led parties to the local observatory and planetarium, participated in croquet, billiards, target shooting, cricket, and encouraged community activity and relationship building with other faiths. He could often be seen riding a three wheeled bicycle through town, wearing his straw hat, waving and calling citizens by name. He organized a library in his church building with his own collection of books for community use. He was a devout man of the Word, and his sermons are filled with inspiration, clearly a man motivated to love others because of a passionate love for the Lord. He had the privilege of officiating the marriage of Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, to Elmiran Olivia Langdon. He himself was married to the granddaughter of Noah Webster. Beecher helped sponsor and raise up two different regiments of recruits in Elmira during the Civil War--NY 107th and NY 141st, and served briefly as chaplain for the latter.

I was delighted to learn some time ago that Thomas was brother to Harriet Beecher Stowe, the renowned author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. She wrote 30 books, none as successful as this record-setting novel about the perils of slaves after the Fugitive Slave Law, a book which most scholars argue was a catalyst to the Civil War. The book sold more than 300,000 copies in the US and over a million in Great Britain. It was made into a play which ran in New York City. Stowe was received by President Lincoln in 1862, where it is alleged he greeted her as "the little lady who started this great war." Stowe was active in education and in abolition and the Underground Railroad with her husband.

Henry Ward Beecher was another minister brother, who was also active in the Abolitionist cause. Henry was perhaps the most controversial in the family. He raised money to purchase slaves' freedom, and guns to distribute to the abolitionist militants in bleeding Kansas and Nebraska. The rifles were euphemistically called "Beecher's Bibles." Later in life he took a kindler, gentler view of social reform and the gospel, emphasizing God's love. He championed women's suffrage, and the temperance movement. But he also supported Darwinism and evolution, and was accused of adultery. The subsequent trial over his former business partner's accusation of philandering with his wife resulted in the most sensationalized court proceeding if its day, like an OJ Simpson Murder trial of its time. Despite this controversy in his later years, one can still find inspirational Henry Ward Beecher quotes in calendars and publications. His biographer considered him "The Most Famous Man in America."


Today I learned that one more sibling left a significant mark in history, in the area of education, and women's roles. I've been researching early schools and classrooms in America for a brand new collection in which I have been contracted to write a novella. As I was reading, the name Catharine Beecher appeared as one of the pioneers credited with gaining acceptance for women teachers in the classroom. I thought, no way. Couldn't be. Must be a coincidence. But sure enough, she was also born to Lyman Beecher, the father of Henry, Thomas and Harriet. Catharine grew up in a time when men led classrooms, and women were often undereducated. She achieved her own education, meaning she was self taught in the subjects not offered to girls back then, including math and Latin. She taught a private classroom in Hartford, Connecticut in 1821, and soon started a school for educating women to be teachers, Hartford Female Seminary, which grew in three years time from 7 to 100 students, and where her sister Harriet graduated and assisted. She wrote many of her own textbooks for the school.

Catharine was a crusader. She led the very first national women's political movement, which was against Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal bill. She called on women to write their congressmen and urge them not to fund the bill. Her greatest fame, however, was in her lifelong voice for women as educators. In a time when the country was pushing westward, the need for new educators was strong, and more and more qualified men were leaving the profession for better prospects. Other voices pushed for women to fill the role, especially because they were the cheaper alternative, and readily available. Catharine modeled that women were not only intelligent and capable, but argued that women were a moral force and uniquely created as nurturers to fill the role to shape the next generation. She helped establish teacher training schools in communities on the frontier, women's colleges, and had strong ideals on what the curriculum should include. Physical education, reading aloud, and studying English authors rather than classical Greek literature. She wrote and published books on women's roles in society and the classroom.




Curiously, Catharine was not a proponent of women's suffrage. She believed men and women were created for different roles, and that politics was too dirty if women wanted to retain their moral authority. She felt as instructors, women could shape politics by shaping the young men who would later serve.




Lyman Beecher, the venerable patriarch of this clan, which includes a total of 13 children, was once called "the father of more brains than any man in America." He was a graduate of Yale Divinity School and seemed to witness every major religious and social revolution of his time. From being a proponent of temperance, to favoring gradual emancipation of slaves, to finding agreement with the new evangelism style of revivalism and bucking Presbyterian tradition for the new, Lyman modeled free thought and independence. He headed Lane Theological Seminary and was called "America's most famous preacher."




To study the Beecher family is to understand many of the forces at play in our early republic. Social and religious reform, the Second Great Awakening, slavery and women's issues--all causes that seemed to be taken up by one Beecher or another. And at the center was a deep and abiding love of education. The Beechers were a smart, vital, culture-changing dynasty of America's nineteenth century.







Kathleen L. Maher has had an infatuation with books and fictional heroes ever since her preschool crush, Peter Rabbit. She has a novella releasing with BARBOUR in the 2018 Victorian Christmas Brides collection, featuring her hometown of Elmira, New York. Her debut historical, Bachelor Buttons, blends her Irish heritage and love of the American Civil War. She won the 2012 ACFW Genesis contest for her Civil War story, releasing this summer under a new title The Abolitionist’s Daughter. Kathleen shares an old farmhouse in upstate New York with her husband, children, and a small zoo of rescued animals.

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