Sunday, March 8, 2009

Moving forward

Today is International Women's Day, and also, in most of the United States, the beginning of Daylight Savings Time. Did you remember to set your clock forward an hour?

Here's a fun fact for today. Did you know that Oklahoma was one of the states that granted the vote to women before the passage of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution?

According to the Oklahoma Historical Society's online Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, activism to gain votes for women began in Oklahoma Territory as early as 1890, when the Women's Christian Temperance Union organized in the territory. Prohibitionists believed they needed the vote in order to be effective in their work. By 1893, women in the territory had gained only the right to vote in school elections. By 1895, the WCTU had allied with the National American Woman Suffrage Association to further their struggle for the vote.
Suffragists from Oklahoma and Indian territories met in 1904 at Oklahoma City and established the Woman Suffrage Association of Oklahoma and Indian Territory. With Kate H. Biggers as president, the joint association adopted a pro-statehood resolution declaring that no law should be enacted "restricting the right of suffrage on account of sex, race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

Despite a well-organized suffrage campaign the 1906 Oklahoma Constitutional Convention denied the vote to women. Not surprisingly, this convention also passed a number of restrictions on the rights of African Americans. Nevertheless,
As a favorable climate toward enfranchisement increased nationwide during World War I, Oklahoma suffragists, led by Pres. Adelia C. Stephens, lobbied the legislature in 1917, which submitted the matter as a constitutional amendment to be decided at the next general election. A splinter group of the national suffrage movement, the Congressional Union or National Woman's Party, was also active. In 1916 they sent Iris Calderhead of St. Mary's, Kansas, to Oklahoma to enlist support. Unlike the NAWSA, this organization was restricted to female membership and took a more militant and radical strategy. The Suffragist, the Union Party's official organ, encouraged women to paste literature on farmers' wagons, picket and parade, and shout from boxes at county fairs, picnics, and tent meetings. The most vocal of the local officers was Secretary Kate Stafford, who was unable to assume her duties until she had served thirty days in a Washington, D.C., jail for picketing the White House.

On November 5, 1918, Oklahoma voters approved State Question 97, which extended suffrage to women (emphasis added). A ratification committee, chaired by Katherine Pierce of Oklahoma City, helped ensure passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in the state legislature. When Oklahoma ratified the Nineteenth Amendment on February 28, 1920, the Oklahoma Woman's Suffrage Association disbanded and the state's League of Women Voters formed.

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