Bryn Mawr Women as Suffragists - the NAWSA Alumnae

Susan Walker FitzGerald '93 (1871-1943)

Susan Walker FitzGerald was founder of the Student Government Association at Bryn Mawr and a political science major. She is best known in suffrage history for her outdoor speaking campaigns, as an officer in several major organizations, and her participation in numerous suffrage campaigns across the country. Walker served as Executive Secretary of the Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government in 1907 and the Massachusetts Woman's Suffrage Association in 1911. In addition, she served as the recording secretary for the NAWSA from 1911-1915. FitzGerald's papers are held in Special Collections.

Miss Louise Hall with brush and Miss Susan FitzGerald assisting bill posting in Cincinnati. May 17, 1917. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Katharine Houghton Hepburn '99 (1878-1951)

Hepburn co-founded the Hartford Equal Franchise League in 1913, a group that eventually numbered between 20,000-30,000 members. She later became President of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association, an affiliate of the NAWSA, actively speaking as a representative of women who were mothers as well as suffragists. In September 1917, inspired by the arrests of the White House pickets, she resigned from the Connecticut organization and joined the National Woman's Party. By November 1917 she was on the NWP's National Executive Committee, where she continued to make public appearances on behalf of the cause.

Edith Houghton Hooker '01 (1879-1948)

Edith Houghton Hooker founded the Just Government League of Maryland in 1909 as part of an effort to renew interest in the suffrage question in Maryland. She also started its official journal, the Maryland Suffrage News, in 1912, which became the main suffrage newspaper in the state. Hooker spoke in Taylor Hall on May 3, 1912.

In 1914, Hooker became active in the Congressional Union run by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns. She was elected as the finance chairman for the executive committee in December 1915 at the first National Convention of the Congressional Union. She went on to work for The Suffragist and to hold offices in the National Woman's Party.

Edna Fischel Gellhorn '00 (1878-1970)

Edna Fischel Gellhorn was permanent president of the class of 1900 and later a trustee of Bryn Mawr College. She began her suffrage work in St. Louis in 1907 and eventually was elected president of the St. Louis Equal Suffrage League. She presided as chairman of the National Suffrage Convention in St. Louis, March 24-29, 1919. Gellhorn also led the National Shaw Memorial Campaign.

A famous political demonstration from 1916, the "Golden Lane," is associated particularly with Gellhorn's organization and planning. Timed to coincide with the Democratic National Convention in St. Louis, the local suffrage group decided to line the streets leading to the convention with gauntlets of women wearing "suffrage yellow."

According to Gellhorn in a 1964 interview:

We decided we didn't want to have a parade but we did want to be noticed ...so thousands of us, in yellow sashes, carrying yellow parasols, lined both sides of Locust Street. . . . In front of the old Art Museum we had a tableau. The tableau was a memorable event. The women representing states that had women's suffrage were draped in white. Those from states with partial suffrage . . . were draped in gray. Those from states with no votes for women, including Missouri, were draped in black . . . [T]wo little girls . . . represented future voters.

Caroline McCormick Slade '96 (1874-1951)

Caroline McCormick Slade was a Trustee of Bryn Mawr College and one of its most active fundraisers. She joined the College Equal Suffrage League in 1912 and, in 1917, became Chairman of the Woman Suffrage Party of New York City. Slade was particularly active in war service work and spoke at Bryn Mawr on April 19, 1918 on "The New York Campaign and Women's Work in the War." Her work for the NAWSA (which remained organized until 1951) continued well into the decades following the suffrage victory.

Margretta Stewart Dietrich '03 (1881-1961)

Margretta Stewart Dietrich was elected President of the Nebraska Woman's Suffrage Association in 1919 and became Chairman of the Nebraska State League of Women Voters in 1920. She reported in the November 1920 Alumnae Quarterly that she ". . .was one of the Suffrage Emergency Corps to visit Connecticut in May," alluding to the unsuccessful campaign to get the state to ratify the 19th Amendment.

Dietrich was married to a former governor of Nebraska. Following the suffrage victory she went on to work for the National League of Women Voters and later moved to New Mexico, where she became known as an activist for the rights of Native Americans.

Anna B. Lawther '97 (1872-1957)

Lawther was Chairman of the Equal Suffrage Association for Dubuque County, Iowa in 1916, and then the President of the Iowa Suffrage Association for three terms from 1916 to 1919. According to her friend, Cornelia Meigs '07, ". . .under Miss Lawther's leadership, the cause of woman's suffrage has taken a long and very important step forward."

Katrina Ely Tiffany '97 (1875-1927)

Katrina Ely Tiffany was a dedicated and charismatic suffragist who held a number of important positions. She was the president of the New York Collegiate Equal Franchise League for five years, a recording secretary of the Woman Suffrage Party of New York, and chairman of the War Service Committee of the NAWSA.

Her classmate Frances Arnold described Tiffany marching in one of the New York parades:

Katrina Tiffany carried a large flag much too heavy for most, which a mocking wind tried continually to wrest from her determined hands. Sometimes the flag completely enveloped and obliterated her from view, once to her great relief for she was passing the building where she knew her unconverted husband was looking sorrowfully down from the window.

Mary T. R. Foulke Morrison '99 (1879-1971)

Mary Morrison became President of the Chicago Suffrage Association in 1915 and was Recording Secretary of the NAWSA in 1915-1916. She organized and financed the massive suffrage parade at Chicago's Republican National Convention in 1916.

Bryn Mawr on the Picket Lines

Beginnings of the Movement	Speakers at Bryn Mawr
NCESL Bryn Mawr Activism NAWSA NAWSA Alumnae Picketing	Bryn Mawr Antis
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