“Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?”¹ Expressed here, this sentiment spread like wildfire throughout the 1910s as women fought for suffrage. Shot in February of 1917, this photo demonstrates a popular national pastime of women picketing at the White House. United States President Woodrow Wilson, known as a leader in the Progressive Movement, was decidedly unprogressive in his stance on women's suffrage. Deciding to take matters into their own hands, women held demonstrations outside the White House that deliberately called on President Wilson to take action. Despite his initial misgivings, President Wilson would acquiesce and oversee the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.

But first, it was a long and winding road toward women gaining suffrage. Throughout the country, the movement toward women’s suffrage advanced at varying paces, but the movement in Kentucky was hailed as one of the most progressive in the South. The western-most region of the state of Kentucky is known as the Jackson Purchase Area and is comprised of eight counties. Known primarily for its rural farmland, this region demonstrated the characteristics of the overall suffrage movement. In the Jackson Purchase Area, women joined grassroots organizations to aid in the Women’s Suffrage Movement through group effort rather than individual contributions despite the generally negative perceptions of both the region and the media.

The Local Movement

Following the wider trend found in women’s suffrage movements, the women of the Jackson Purchase Area joined grassroots organizations dedicated to women. These groups included the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), both the Graves County Chapter and the Calloway County Chapter, various Women's Clubs throughout the region, and other groups specifically organized for women. The most active of these groups was the Graves County Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which was even more active than their sister group in Calloway County. Unfortunately, the records found for Graves County do not span the years of the actual suffrage movement, but rather they look back on the movement later. However, useful gems are still found in these later writings.

Notably, there is one newspaper article titled “Confederate Vets Chief Taboos Women at Parley,” in which the newspaper article covered the controversial opinion of one Confederate veteran toward women. General Julius Franklin Howell was a 95 year-old Commander-in-Chief of the United Confederate Veterans (UVC) and attended a meeting of both the UVC and the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC). While there, he insisted that he “approved of women's suffrage but dictation by women is something else” and was described as even becoming “irritated” by what he described as “meddling by women” in the affairs of the UVC.⁶ He even shouted, “but no women will be allowed” in reference to a vote in the UVC and a whole stream of veterans followed him out the door in solidarity!⁷ This event happened in 1940, a full 20 years after women had successfully lobbied for the right to vote. Although this happened so long after the initial fight for suffrage, it displays the blatant disregard women still had to face while attempting to exercise their hard-fought rights.

Local Sentiments

Throughout the Jackson Purchase area, the sentiment toward women's suffrage appeared to be mostly negative through the study of personal documents and newspapers of the time. The most telling evidence was a scrapbook assembled in 1924 by Mary “Mollie” Bridges which is composed of newspaper clippings from local papers. One scrapbook entry is titled “When Granny was a Bride” which seemed light-hearted enough as it described Granny's contributions to the house and to her children. However, it rapidly devolved into a social commentary on how the advancement of women's rights were ruining traditional gender roles and family values. The author even goes so far as to call Granny and her generation of housewives “drudges” or “slaves to her house and family!” The author insisted that women truly did not need the vote as Granny “doubtless gave grandfather good advice when voting time came around” and she was surely “an ardent advocate of her chosen party,” so that there was truly no need for women to vote as a man would take care of it.⁸ Throughout the article, the common theme is misogyny and discrimination against women disguised in the form of concern for the traditional role of women as childbearers and homemakers.

Personal correspondence also provided a glimpse into the perceptions of the region toward women's suffrage. One notable piece was a postcard distributed to Lizzie Robinson of Georgetown Kentucky in 1907 which was emblazoned with the message, “You couldnt pleaze sum wimmin if you give em the job of cookin for angels.”⁹ Handwritten on a small chalkboard with no other context, the meaning is clear enough. The advancement of women’s rights was opposed as women were, seemingly, getting greedy and demanding too many rights. From the perspective of the author, nothing would ever be enough for women who would just keep pushing and pushing so that they could eventually be equal to men. This would have threatened the clearly stated gender roles and traditions of the time.

Portrayal in Newspapers

Studying newspapers during the time of the women's suffrage movement can also help illuminate the perceptions of the region's people. Overwhelmingly, the newspaper coverage of the movement was not positive. One article, entitled “Why Should Women Vote? Woman’s Suffrage from the Viewpoint of Leading Farmers'' is a reprint from Texas that explained the reason why farmers were opposed to women gaining the right to vote. They insisted that men would “rather see [women] plant flowers than sow wheat; gather bouquets than pick cotton, rear children than raise political issues” and felt that women were better suited elsewhere than in the political arena.¹⁰ This is another example of misogyny and opposition to the advancement of women’s rights hidden behind flowery language and so-called concern for women.

Another article, titled “American Women Can Have Suffrage When They Want It,” argues that women simply weren’t fighting hard enough for suffrage at that time. The author argues that women should not want suffrage as “men like feminine women, and are very jealous and grow more so of the rights which custom and the laws have accorded them in the past.” Even further, the author says that “[men] will not passively accept any infringement by the weaker sex upon those rights.”¹¹ The achievement of suffrage by women would make them inherently unattractive to men and would presumably greatly limit their chances at marriage. This article attempted to scare women away from the vote by showcasing perceived social ramifications.

The Area's Leading Suffragists

Josephine Fowler Post was one of the Jackson Purchase Area’s leading suffragists. Known early on as a “speaker on patriotic and women’s suffrage topics,” she was noted for advocating that women both “needed and deserved the right to vote, but that all women needed to work to get this right” and that “slackers” should not sit back while other women worked to grant all women suffrage.¹² Like many of the women who worked toward suffrage in Kentucky, she joined her local organizations in order to have her voice be heard and work toward suffrage from within a group. From 1908 to 1916, she served as the Vice President of the Kentucky Federation of Women’s Clubs, but she is primarily known for her work with the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). This is where she, successfully, lobbied the 64th and 65th US Congresses which saw the passage of the 19th Amendment which granted women the right to vote. Her work within women’s clubs provided her a better foundation to advocate for women’s rights across the state.