SUFFRAGE IN NEBRASKA
Statement by Mrs. Gertrude M. McDowell
When I was requested to write a short article in regard to woman's suffrage in Nebraska I thought it would be an easy task. As the days passed and my thoughts became confusedly spread over the whole question from its incipiency, it proved to be not an easy task but a most difficult one. There was so much of interest that one hardly knew where to begin and what to leave unsaid.
This question has been of life-long interest to me and I have always been in full sympathy with the movement. When the legislature in 1882 submitted the suffrage amendment to the people of the state of Nebraska for their decision, we were exceedingly anxious concerning the outcome.
A state suffrage association was formed. Mrs. Brooks of Omaha was elected president; Mrs. Bittenbender of Lincoln, recording secretary; Gertrude M. McDowell of Fairbury, corresponding secretary.
There were many enthusiastic workers throughout the state. Among them, I remember Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby, of Beatrice, whom we considered our general; Mrs. Lucinda Russell and Mrs. Mary Holmes of Tecumseh, Mrs. Annie M. Steele of Fairbury, Mrs. A. J. Sawyer, Mrs. A. J. Caldwell, and Mrs. Deborah King of Lincoln, Mrs. E. M. Correll of Hebron and many more that I do not now recall.
There were many enthusiastic men over the state who gave the cause ardent support. Senator E. M. Correll of Hebron was ever on the alert to aid in convention work and to speak a word which might carry conviction to some unbeliever.
Some years previous to our campaign, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucy Stone on one of their lecture tours in the West were so impressed with the enthusiasm and good work of Hon. E. M. Correll that they elected him president of the National Suffrage Association, for one year. I also recall Judge Ben S. Baker, now of Omaha, and C. F. Steele of Fairbury, as staunch supporters of the measure. During the campaign, many national workers were sent into the state, among them Susan B. Anthony, Phoebe Couzens, Elizabeth Saxon of New Orleans, and others. They directed and did valiant work in the cause. We failed to carry the measure in the state, but we are glad to note that it carried in our own town of Fairbury.
Thanks to the indomitable personality of our Nebraska women, they began immediately to plan for another campaign. In 1914, our legislature again submitted an amendment and it was again defeated. Since then I have been more than ever in favor of making the amendment a national one, President Wilson to the contrary notwithstanding—not because we think the educational work is being entirely lost, but because so much time and money are being wasted on account of our foreign population and their attitude towards reform. It is a grave and a great question. One thing we are assured of, viz: that we will never give up our belief in the final triumph of our great cause.
It is a far cry from the first woman's suffrage convention in 1850, brought about by the women who were excluded from acting as delegates at the anti-slavery convention in London in 1840.
Thus a missionary work was begun then and there for the emancipation of women in "the land of the free and the home of the brave." We can never be grateful enough to Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and other noble, self-sacrificing women who did so much pioneer work in order to bring about better laws for women and in order to change the moth-eaten thought of the world.
Many felt somewhat discouraged when the election returns from New Jersey, Massachusetts, and New York announced the defeat of the measure, but really when we remember the long list of states that have equal suffrage we have reason to rejoice and to take new courage. We now have Wyoming, Kansas, Utah, Idaho, Colorado, California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Montana, Arizona, New Mexico, Alaska, and Illinois, besides the countries of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, New Zealand, Australia, Nova Scotia, and some parts of England.
In the future when the cobwebs have all been swept from the mind of the world and everyone is enjoying the new atmosphere of equal rights only a very few will realize the struggle these brave women endured in order to bring about better conditions for the world.
Statement by Lucy L. Correll
Hebron, Thayer county, Nebraska, was the cradle of the Nebraska woman suffrage movement, as this was the first community in the state to organize a permanent woman's suffrage association.
Previous to this organization the subject had been agitated through editorials in the Hebron Journal, and by a band of progressive, thinking women. Upon their request the editor of the Journal, E. M. Correll, prepared an address upon "Woman and Citizenship." Enthusiasm was aroused, and a column of the Journal was devoted to the interests of women, and was ably edited by the coterie of ladies having the advancement of the legal status of women at heart.
Through the efforts of Mr. Correll, Susan B. Anthony was induced to come to Hebron and give her lecture on "Bread versus the Ballot," on October 30, 1877. Previous to this time many self-satisfied women believed they had all the "rights" they wanted, but they were soon awakened to a new consciousness of their true status wherein they discovered their "rights" were only "privileges."
On April 15, 1879, Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, upon invitation, lectured in Hebron and organized the Thayer County Woman's Suffrage Association. This society grew from fifteen, the number at organization, to about seventy-five, many leading business men becoming members.
Other organizations in the state followed, and at the convening of the Nebraska legislature of 1881, a joint resolution providing for the submission to the electors of this state an amendment to section 1, article VII, of the constitution, was presented by Representative E. M. Correll, and mainly through his efforts passed the house by the necessary three-fifths majority, and the senate by twenty-two to eight, but was defeated at the polls.
During that memorable campaign of 1881-82, Lucy Stone Blackwell, and many other talented women of note, from the eastern states, lectured in Nebraska for the advancement of women, leaving the impress of the nobility of their characters upon the women of the middle West.
The Thayer County Woman's Suffrage Association was highly honored, as several of its members held positions of trust in the state association, and one of its members, Hon. E. M. Correll, who was publishing the Woman's Journal, at Lincoln, at the time of the annual conference of the American Woman's Suffrage Association, at Louisville, Kentucky, in October, 1881, was elected to the important position of president of that national organization, in recognition of the work he had performed for the advancement of the cause of "Equality before the Law."
This association served its time and purpose and after many years was instrumental in organizing the Hebron Library Association.
The constitution and by-laws of this first woman's suffrage association of the state are still well preserved. The first officers were: Susan E. Ferguson, president; Harriet G. Huse, vice president; Barbara J. Thompson, secretary; Lucy L. Correll, treasurer; A. Martha Vermillion, corresponding secretary. Of these first officers only one is now living.