Women's suffrage in Maine

The first public advocacy of women's suffrage in Maine is an 1832 Independence Day speech by John Neal in Portland, in which Neal described the denial of suffrage to women as equivalent to taxation without representation. By the 1850s, Maine was in a state of transition. The abolition movement was important and the temperance movement started to draw more women in Maine. The country's first alcohol prohibition law passed in Maine in 1851. Women's rights also grew in support during the 1850s. Susan B. Anthony came to Maine and gave a lecture in Bangor in 1854. In Ellsworth, Maine, several women's rights advocates began to work towards women's rights and women's suffrage. Ann F. Jarvis Greely, who had attended the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, wanted to take action on promoting rights for women. Greely, her sister Sarah Jarvis, and Charlotte Hill worked together to create a committee to bring women's rights lecturers to Ellsworth. The lectures started in 1857. The first women's suffrage petition in Maine, known as a "memorial" was sent to the Maine Legislature in 1857. A second memorial, signed prominently by Greely and Hill, was presented to the legislature in 1858. The group, announced to the office of The Revolution, was called the Equal Rights Association of Rockland. John Neal in Portland called for the city's first women's suffrage convention in 1870. This led to petitions sent to the state legislature in 1872. Lydia Neal Dennett helped lead the petition campaign. Lucy Snow presented their own petition for women's suffrage from Rockland to the Maine Legislature in 1873. Adelaide Emerson in Ellsworth also sent the legislature an 1873 women's suffrage petition. Also in 1873, a call for women's suffrage convention went out in January. Hundreds of attendees came to the convention, held in Augusta on January 29. At the convention, Julia Ward Howe and Stone were featured speakers. However, after 1876, the MWSA largely stopped meeting and Quinby continued to keep MWSA alive during the slow years between 1876 and 1885. While the suffrage work slowed, the WCTU continued to grow. == Renewed efforts ==

In June 1881, the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) held a suffrage convention in Portland. In 1884, Thomas Brackett Reed, the leader of the Republican Party in Maine, drafted a report in support of a proposed women's suffrage amendment. The revival of a state suffrage organization was due to the influence of the New England Woman Suffrage Association (NEWSA). A convention was held in September 1885 in cooperation with NEWSA where the Maine Woman Suffrage Association (MWSA) was revived. Henry Blanchard, a pastor of the Unitarian Church in Portland, became the president of MWSA. Women's suffrage petitions resumed in 1887, bearing signatures from around Maine. Women asked for an amendment to the state constitution for women's suffrage. In the state legislature, the amendment was presented and received majority votes from the House and the Senate, but not the two-thirds needed to pass. Two years later, in 1889, suffragists presented the legislature an even larger petition that encompassed signatures from an even greater area of the state. Petitioners asked for school board or municipal suffrage. That year, the vote for municipal suffrage for women passed in the state Senate, but not in the House. In 1891, Hannah J. Bailey took over MWSA. Bailey, a Quaker, was involved in both the WCTU and peace activism. Bailey testified on women's suffrage in front of the Maine Legislature, claiming that women should vote because women were better suited to make laws that would guard children's needs and interests. She also believed that women's involvement in politics would end war. WCTU members were energized in 1893, and suffragists and temperance activists sent the state legislature more petitions for women's suffrage. In 1895, the WCTU and Lillian M. N. Stevens helped support the municipal suffrage campaign again, sending more than 9,000 names in favor to the state legislature. During hearings on the bill, the gallery was crowded with spectators from every county in Maine. Nevertheless, this effort failed in the state Senate. While efforts for women's suffrage failed, MWSA had a successful campaign for women's right to own legal titles to property and dower rights. Women gained the right to testify against their husbands in divorce cases, and earned equal custody of their own children. MWSA helped raise girls' "age of protection" from 10 to 16 years old. During Bailey's presidency, six state women's suffrage conventions were held in Portland. Local groups were created in Hampden, Portland, Saco, and Waterville. Bailey stepped down in 1897 and Lucy Hobart Day took over MWSA. Day promoted suffrage parades, recruitment at colleges, and "open houses" to promote women's suffrage. Petitions to the state legislature continued in 1897. MWSA created a "press bureau" in 1898 and Sarah G. Crosby worked as the head of the division. More divisions in MWSA were created, modeled after the hierarchy of the WCTU. The Maine Legislature in 1899 briefly considered a bill exempting taxation of women because they were currently disenfranchised. Suffragists held a state convention at Old Orchard Beach in August 1900. Carrie Chapman Catt was a featured guest, speaking on behalf of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Elizabeth Upham Yates had strong ties to NAWSA and helped MWSA partner with the national group. In 1902 Day worked with the executive staff at MWSA to put letters on the desk of each Maine state legislator about women's suffrage. The Maine Federation of Labor endorsed women's suffrage in Maine in 1906. Fernald reached out to rural Maine in her speaking tour of the state in the summer of 1909. Suffragists were also hopeful that women's suffrage legislation would pass in 1913. In 1914, the Men's Equal Rights League of Maine was established. The president was Robert Treat Whitehouse, and prominent men in Maine joined the group. In 1915, Deborah Knox Livingston spoke to the state legislative committee on women's suffrage and gender equality. The legislators passed a resolution to pass an equal suffrage amendment. == Amendments lost and won ==

Florence Brooks Whitehouse changed the tone of women's suffrage activism in Maine when she joined the more militant Congressional Union (CU). She also campaigned against Wilson in Wyoming in 1916. Sophia P. Anthoine and Mabel B. Cobb from MWSA brought suffrage schools to other towns around Maine. In early February, Catt met with the MWSA board at Balentine's home in Portland. Catt had already advised in 1916 against the MWSA pushing for a state equal suffrage amendment. She cautioned that there was not enough money or people secured for a full suffrage campaign and that resources would be better devoted to asking for limited suffrage, which would be easier to pass. MWSA chose to go forward with the campaign and a state women's suffrage amendment was submitted in February. On February 1, 1917, more than 1,000 women attended the suffrage hearing for the amendment bill. The press and other pundits blamed the loss partially on the NWP whose militant tactics had generated negative publicity for the suffrage movement. Other possible causes included a socially conservative society in Maine, voter apathy, and the "distraction of WWI." Mabel Connor was elected the next president of MWSA at the September 1917 convention in Augusta. MWSA decided to pursue a limited suffrage issue in 1918, pushing for women's right to vote for the president. Also in 1918, Maine suffragist, Georgie Nickerson Whitten, advocated for voting by mail for caregivers. A member of the Socialist Party, Whitten also advocated for Socialists to recruit more women in their organizations, as well as arming them with equal suffrage. The final tally in the state House was 72 for and 68 against, making Maine the nineteenth state to ratify. At a state suffrage meeting in Augusta on November 12, MWSA dissolved and reformed as the League of Women Voters (LWV) of Maine. The Nineteenth Amendment was adopted as an official amendment to the U.S. Constitution on August 26, 1920. When women went to the polls to vote in their first general election on September 13, they were also able to vote for the Presidential Suffrage Bill that had been placed on the ballot. It passed easily. == Native American suffrage in Maine ==

Lydia Neal Dennett led Maine's first petition campaign for Native American suffrage in 1872 — the same year she led the first women's suffrage petition campaign. Yet indigenous women fought much longer for equal suffrage in Maine. Native American people gained United States citizenship in 1924. The federal government left the decision to the states about allowing Native Americans to vote and Maine barred them from voting if they lived on a reservation. A voter referendum for equal suffrage for Native Americans living on reservations passed in 1954. The next year, Poolaw became the first Native American living on reservation to vote. Despite this win, Native Americans in Maine continued to have difficulty voting in state elections. == Anti-suffragists in Maine ==

Anti-suffragists in Maine corresponded with the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women (MAOFESW). Many upper-class women from the Portland area were interested in opposing women's suffrage. Maine anti-suffragists first sent petitions or "remonstrances" against women's suffrage to the Maine Legislature in 1887. The next round of petitions in 1889 had even more signatures. In 1913, the Maine Association Opposed to Suffrage for Women (MAOSW) was created and affiliated with a national suffrage group, the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (NAOWS). Women in the Maine chapter claimed that most women didn't want to vote and shouldn't have voting rights "forced" onto them. == See also ==