casting ballots

Grace Bagley got involved in women’s suffrage in the 1910s, after she and her family moved to Massachusetts. Although women in Illinois were given the right to vote in state elections in 1913, a strong anti-suffrage movement had formed in Massachusetts. After inviting 51 women to their Norwood, Massachusetts home to discuss suffrage, Grace and her daughter Elizabeth went on an auto tour to obtain signatures from state legislators for a woman’s right to vote. Grace Bagley quickly became a national leader in the suffrage movement, and she remained involved in politics long after the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920.