SDHC Tuesday Talk on Getting the Vote: Women's Suffrage in Michigan 7-28- 2020
View this recording of the July 28th SDHC virtual program on Zoom looking back on the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment with Ruth Stevens of the Greater Grand Rapids Women's History Council.
As women fought for the vote, Michigan was often in the national eye, because it was one of the few states where women could vote in school elections long before they won full suffrage and national suffrage leaders hoped that a win in Michigan would create a ripple effect across the country. Leaders such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton gave speeches across Michigan to raise support for the cause. Saugatuck became part of this historic effort when Horace and Tamar Moore hosted Susan B. Anthony at their home (later the Park House Inn) when she visited the village to speak at the Odd Fellows Hall in 1879. A large audience came to hear her and The Commercial Record noted that she "is a fine speaker" and "is laboring zealously for the woman suffrage cause."
The fight for women's suffrage was to continue in Michigan for decades. Undaunted by defeats in 1874, 1912, and 1913 and a court decision which struck down legislation allowing for municipal suffrage, suffrages persisted. Women and men in cities and villages across the state worked tirelessly to sway the opinions of male voters. In the course of their campaign they distributed many tons of literature, signed petitions, gave speeches, marched in parades, lobbied legislators, and even "took over" the Grand Rapids Press and Kalamazoo Gazette, creating special suffrage editions. Thanks to these efforts, which swayed voters in Saugatuck and other communities, Michigan suffragists finally achieved success in 1918, more than a year before the 19th Amendment granted suffrage to women across the country.
Ruth Stevens is a retired professor of Legal Studies at Grand Valley State University, where she taught Women and the Law among other Legal Studies courses. She earned a J.D. from the University of Michigan and a Master's in Library and Information Science from Wayne State University and she is currently a member of the board of the Greater Grand Rapids Women's History Council.
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