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"Bullets and ballots are not companions, but ballots in the hands of people are supposed to be a substitute for bullets in the hands of hired agents…Thanks be to God that in giving women the crown of motherhood he made her the giver not the taker of life. Woman has no greater claim to the rights of the ballot than she is a producer not a destroyer of life."
"Bullets and ballots are not companions, but ballots in the hands of people are supposed to be a substitute for bullets in the hands of hired agents…Thanks be to God that in giving women the crown of motherhood he made her the giver not the taker of life. Woman has no greater claim to the rights of the ballot than she is a producer not a destroyer of life."
-Lizzie Crozier French, 1912 speech before the Tennessee Bar Association
Lizzie Crozier French, circa 1890Image: C.M. McClung Historical Collection, Knox County Public Library
Instrumental in the early stages of the suffrage movement in Tennessee, Lizzie Crozier French continued her dedication to the cause of equality throughout her life.
Following the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1919, which granted women the right to vote, Crozier French would move to Nashville and began lobbying state lawmakers full-time to ratify the amendment. By the time the next state legislative session convened in the summer of 1920, 35 of a needed 36 states had already ratified. Her advocacy was instrumental in ensuring that Tennessee would become the crucial 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment, resulting in its full ratification as law (Tabler).
In 1923, at the age of 72, Crozier French ran for Knoxville City Council and was only narrowly defeated. The following year she was elected President of the Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association.
Lizzie Crozier French died in May of 1926, while she in Washington, DC to lobby for a bill that would benefit workingwomen and to attend the dedication of a room in the National Woman's Party Building established in her honor (Taylor).
The Directors of The Knoxville Woman's Building Association
The Directors of The Knoxville Woman's Building Association
Editors of The Knoxville Cook Book, 1901.
Among them were members of the Ossoli Circle, alongside Lizzie Crozier French At least three had previously or would later serve as President of that organization.
Many were active equality and suffrage activists in their own right.
The Knoxville Cook Book, "Fore-Word."
Published in 1901 to raise funds for the Knoxville Woman's Building--which had once stood as simply the Knoxville building beside another Woman's Building on the Centennial Exhibition grounds in Nashville as the latter played host to both the first statewide gathering of suffrage activists in Tennessee and the first national woman's rights convention to be held in the state--The Knoxville Cook Book reflects a unique moment in the early history of Tennessee's women's movement organizing.
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