Opinion

Mayoral Notes: A woman’s right to vote

By CHARLENE LOVETT
By Charlene Lovett

This year, we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, securing a woman’s right to vote. Today, we may not fully realize how difficult this was to achieve or the price that was paid. Yet, we are the beneficiaries of those who rallied and fought tirelessly to give women a voice in shaping their communities and their nation.

In the introduction of “The Woman’s Hour,” a book written by Elaine Weiss, she describes the effort that it took to achieve this amendment. She writes, “Winning the vote required seventy-two years of ceaseless agitation by three generations of dedicated, fearless suffragists, who sought to overturn centuries of law and millennia of tradition concerning gender roles. The women who launched the movement were dead by the time it was completed; the women who secured its final success weren’t born when it began. It took more than nine hundred local, state, and national campaigns, involving tens of thousands of grassroots volunteers, financed by millions of dollars of mostly small (and a few large) donations by women across the country.”

Prior to the passage of the 19th Amendment, New Hampshire women could serve on school committees as early as 1871. Seven years later, they earned the right to vote in school elections only. At the turn of the 20th century, there were efforts to amend the State Constitution to remove the word “male” from the voter qualification clause, but the suffragists were unsuccessful. Not until 1920 did women have the right to vote in municipal, state or national elections.

Having won the right to voice how one is to be governed, it would be quite some time before women were elected to seats of government. In 1939, 19 years after winning the right to vote, the first Claremont woman to serve in the New Hampshire House of Representatives would be elected. Since then, 17 other Claremont women have been elected to the New Hampshire House.

In 1950, Marion L. Phillips would become the first woman to serve on the Claremont City Council. She would later serve as assistant mayor and Claremont’s first female mayor, as well as at the statehouse. After her, 17 other women would also serve on the council. However, it would not be until 2004 before more than one woman served on the city council at any given time.

Today, Claremont’s state delegation is comprised of one female senator and four male representatives, but this might change with the upcoming election. There are currently three women serving on the Claremont School Board and four on the Claremont City Council. Such a transformation in government is the direct result of the passage of the 19th Amendment. Beyond the right to vote, women are now active participants in governing bodies across the nation.

The magnitude of the change wrought by the 19th Amendment may not be fully realized or appreciated today. We may not know the names of the suffragist leaders or the men who supported their efforts. We may not know the ridicule they experienced for daring to defy societal norms or the despair they might have felt when success eluded them. We may not know the depth of their joy when victory was finally achieved in 1920 after 72 years of struggle.

Yet, this is what we do know. Because of them, our mothers, sisters and daughters have a voice at the polls. Because of them, the idea of women serving in government is not a wishful dream. Because of them, women are creating and shaping policy that will impact generations to come. What is left for us to do? Protect and exercise that right.

Charlene Lovett is the mayor of Claremont and a 22-year Army veteran. She welcomes your feedback. Please email questions, comments or concerns to her at [email protected].

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