Inauguration Day has passed, but let’s not forget the Suffragettes’ legacy.
“Let every woman, who has once begun to think, examine herself,” Margaret Fuller stated in her 1843 “Women in the Nineteenth Century” pamphlet. Following this statement, Fuller elaborated, “But the intellect, cold, is ever more masculine than feminine; warmed by emotion.”
Fuller’s arguments in “Women in the Nineteenth Century” would be the foundation of the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention. The convention’s conclusion and Fuller’s writings would cement the goal of women’s right to vote. However, within two years of this mobilization, the movement lost its voice on July 19, 1850, on Fire Island. While en route from Europe to New York, the “Elizabeth,” a ship in which she was a passenger, slammed into a sandbar off the coast of Point O Woods, resulting in her death. Rebuilding this centralized movement and its ideals would have to be at a local grassroots level. Ground zero for revitalizing this movement would be 99-101 Deer Park Avenue, Babylon Village.
In 1869 and 1870, the Western territories of Wyoming and Utah became the first to grant women the right to vote, but little to no progress has been made throughout the rest of the country. Frustrated over the lack of progress, a handful of local women in Babylon Village opened the Women’s Suffrage Study Club on February 16, 1912, at the Alhambra Theatre.
The first meeting had 200 women in attendance, with Babylon Village Mayor Edward Alley presiding over the lineup of guest speakers. The first speaker was wealthy landowner Ruth Carpenter-Litt of East Patchogue, who introduced Harriet May Mills, president of the New York State Women’s Suffrage Association. Mills elaborated that the goal is for “the legislature to remove the word male from the state constitution relating to citizens entitled to vote at an election. This change would give males and females an equal voice in casting the ballot.”
At the end of the meeting, local suffragette leader Rosalie Jones of Cold Spring Harbor strategized about the upcoming village elections. March 8, the Suffrage Study Club met the same day as the election and encouraged members to stop at the polling place. In response, the local newspaper South Side Signal indirectly endorsed women’s suffrage, stating, “Our hope is that the women voters will be able to mark a yes on any of the three propositions (on the ballot).” Inspired by the growing movement, South Shore Signal provided the Women’s Suffrage Study Club with a daily column; member and editor of Brooklyn Daily Eagle Edna Kearns oversaw the content.
The first column reported a series of forums and debates in Amityville High School on the pros and cons of women’s right to vote. These columns and public debates would evolve into large-scale parade rallies, with floats that read “The unfinished American Revolution” and “If Taxation without representation was tyranny in 1776, why not in 1913?”
Gaining attention from the national movement, suffragette and civil rights activist Elisabeth Freeman became a frequent speaker at the rallies that traversed the South Shore, recruiting dozens of new members daily. The growing presence of suffragette rallies influenced local elected officials and political juggernaut Theodore Roosevelt to become vocal supporters.
At the close of 1912, Roosevelt hosted suffrage events in his home that shaped his Bull Moose Party’s platform for a United States constitutional amendment to grant women the right to vote. In a press release during the 1916 elections, Roosevelt stated: “To deny the mother the vote seems to me something so preposterous that our descendants will fail to understand how we could call ourselves self-governing and democratic and yet deny it.” The growing support finally reached a fever pitch in late 1916, which led to a bill amending the state constitution to grant women the right to vote in 1917.
In the aftermath of New York granting women the right to vote, Edna Kearns continued her fight for a federal constitutional amendment by being enlisted as a lobbyist for Alice Paul’s National Women’s Party. Ruth Carpenter-Litt organized the first women’s voting drive that became instrumental in the Republican primaries and 1918 general elections.
As a result of Carpenter-Litt’s drive, Huntington resident Ida B. Sammis became the first woman elected to represent Suffolk County and the only woman in the state legislature two years before the U.S. Constitutional 19th Amendment granting women voting rights.
Today, the legacy of this movement and the ongoing strive for equality are reflected in the New York State legislature. The 213 seats, combined with the Senate and Assembly, only comprise 47 women representatives, but as of 2021, New York now has its first female Governor, Kathy Hochul.
On the federal level, women have held pivotal roles in both legislative houses and the U.S. Supreme court for decades––and in 2021 the first female Vice President took her oath of office. However one glass ceiling remains unbroken–– the Commander-in-Chief. Two women to date have won nomination on a major part ticket, and one of them even won the popular vote. Yet, over 100 years after Ida B. Sammis took office, the highest office of the land remains elusive. However, while the glass on that pane remains unsheltered, there are most certainly cracks.
