Maryland can trace its women’s suffrage history back to the Colonial era. Margaret Brent, a British colonist who resided in St. Mary’s City, was the first woman in Maryland to receive a land grant. Governor Leonard Calvert made her executor of his estate, and she served as Lord Baltimore’s attorney. In 1648, Brent appeared before the Maryland General Assembly in St. Mary’s City, petitioning for the right to vote in its proceedings. The General Assembly recorded that she “requested to have vote in the house for herself and voice also…” Brent based her claim on being a landowner, and as such, she should enjoy the same right as any male landowner who could vote. Though her petition was denied, Brent’s bold request gave Maryland credit for the suffrage movement’s beginnings in what would become the United States.
The Years Leading to the 19th Amendment
Brent’s opening salvo for suffrage faded into silence for more than two centuries. While women’s suffrage activism was not prevalent prior to the Civil War, Maryland was the first state in which a local group, the Maryland Equal Rights Society, was established. Organized by Lavinia Dundore in 1867, the Society pushed to expand an encompassing range of rights, including universal voting rights. The group, comprised of white and black men and women, reached its peak in 1872 when its convention was attended by nationally prominent suffrage activists. The Society disbanded in 1874, possibly disheartened after years of opposition with no traction achieved. Future suffrage groups divided along racial lines but engaged in mostly parallel activism—an ironic contradiction to trailblazing activist Susan B. Anthony’s abolitionist and civil rights’ beliefs.
Caroline Hallowell Miller of Sandy Spring breathed life back into the state’s movement in 1889 by establishing and serving as president for the Maryland Woman Suffrage Association (MWSA). She coordinated efforts with the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), sending state delegates to the national association’s conventions. The Baltimore Suffrage Club was organized in 1894, and Emma Maddox Funck, elected its president in 1897, was also elected MWSA’s president in 1904. Funck served in both roles until the 19th Amendment was passed in 1920, after which she helped launch the Maryland Federation of Republican Women in 1921—a group still active today.
The 20th century saw an upsurge in suffrage activism with the emergence of new organizations. These groups held meetings and events throughout the state—including entering a suffrage-themed boat in a local regatta near Annapolis—to bring attention to their quest for voting rights. In addition, their members joined and enlarged NAWSA’s ranks. In 1906, NAWSA held one of its annual conventions in Baltimore at the Lyric Theater, which was attended by national suffrage icons, including Susan B. Anthony, who delivered a speech in one of her last public appearances, Clara Barton, and Julia Ward Howe.
Edith Houghton Hooker, who was one of the first women accepted into the Johns Hopkins University Medical School, organized the Just Government League (JGL) in 1909 in Baltimore. She served as JGL’s president and affiliated the group with the NAWSA. In 1912 Hooker launched the Maryland Suffrage News, a weekly newspaper for the JGL that promoted suffrage activities in the state that wider-circulation newspapers would likely overlook. Each issue featured this dedication:
To the poor women without homes, to the little toilers who should be in the schools and playgrounds, to the white slaves in their tragic bondage, and to the children who die, these pages are dedicated! May every woman who is not too idle to have a thought, or too vain to have a soul, or too rich in gold to have a heart, join in the great struggle for women’s freedom! Purity, Liberty, Justice-these we must work for!
An issue dated December 26, 1914, showcases a front-page cartoon titled, “The Crystal Gazer.” A young child with angel wings, seated in a tall-backed chair, peers into a crystal ball on the table before him. A small group, comprised of several women and one man, stand gathered in expectation around the table. The man wears a sash across his body with “Men’s League” printed on it, representing the Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage. The four women display sashes representing various Maryland-based suffrage organizations. The child holds a sign with what the crystal ball has revealed: “I see a long step ahead together toward Votes for Women in 1916.” The article featured on the front page is a plea for suffragists to contact their Maryland Congressional representatives and urge them to cast their votes for the Bristow-Mondell Federal Suffrage Amendment, also known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. Passage of this amendment would have given women voting rights via Congressional action rather than wait as the states drag their legislative legs in passing state suffrage laws.
JGL chapters spread throughout Maryland, growing to 17,000 members by 1915. Hooker later became editor of the National Woman’s Party’s publication, The Suffragist, and president of the Maryland Suffrage Party of Baltimore.
Meetings, demonstrations, events, and speeches continued to be the hallmark of suffrage activism across the state, but success remained elusive. In 1910 the Maryland General Assembly defeated a suffrage bill. Suffragists almost tasted victory in 1916 when the Maryland Senate passed another suffrage bill, but defeat was served instead when the bill died in the Maryland House of Delegates. A shift in focus had already begun, with hope and efforts put toward the potential for a constitutional amendment.
Maryland’s proximity to the nation’s capital provided ample opportunity for local suffragists to meet with those traveling to Washington, D.C. National delegates often made a stop at the JGL’s Baltimore office. Maryland suffragists sent a delegation to the 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession—the “Army of the Hudson”—led by “General” Rosalie Jones. The procession, en route from New York City to D.C., hiked through Maryland with stops in Baltimore and Laurel in the wintry cold of February. The purpose of their long winter trek was to deliver a petition to Woodrow Wilson prior to his presidential inauguration.
In July 1913, delegations from multiple states traveled to Washington, D.C. Their mission was to deliver 75,000 signed petitions to U.S. Senators who were considering a constitutional amendment for suffrage. Prior to entering D.C., the suffragists held a rally just across the D.C. line in Hyattsville. From there, a banner-laden parade of over 60 cars traveled along Rhode Island Avenue and into D.C. to accomplish their purpose.
Edna Latimer of the JGL led suffrage hikers on local trips around the state in a bid to gain support and publicity. One hike in 1914 began with a train ride from Baltimore to Cumberland, where the group disembarked and hiked to Frostburg. Their trek spanned Allegany County and west into Garrett County. The novelty of the women’s 125-mile hike drew fanfare, as did the twenty-one speeches delivered along the way. The result was 820 new JGL members. Another hike in 1915, the Margaret Brent Pilgrimage, took the JGL suffragists south to St. Mary’s City, with more new members added to the JGL’s roster.
During the 19th Amendment’s Ratification Period
Maryland suffragists continued to push for voting rights, despite several measures being shot down in the state legislature. Meanwhile, a couple of Maryland towns offered limited suffrage. Annapolis allowed voting in bond elections as early as 1900, starting with a ballot question on infrastructure improvement. In Still Pond, a town in Kent County, women who were taxpayers were permitted to vote in the local election in 1908—12 years before the 19th Amendment’s ratification. Fourteen women were registered, two of whom were African American, and three of whom cast their ballot. Still Pond later repealed the rule that allowed women voting rights.
By 1917, suffragists all over were frustrated at the lack of progress in moving the rights’ needle. A suffrage picket—the “Silent Sentinels”—was organized in front of the White House, which lasted from January 1917 until the passage of the 19th Amendment over two years later. With Maryland being just over the D.C. line, many Maryland suffragists took part in the picket demonstrations.
These picket demonstrations didn’t draw the type of support the suffragists hoped for, in large part due to the demonstrators tying the fight for democracy in World War I with women in the U.S. not having full access to democratic rights—such as voting. Mobs counter-protested, often destroying pro-suffrage banners. This heightened animosity drew the police, leading to picketers being arrested and jailed. Lucy Branham from Baltimore was frequently arrested for her suffrage demonstration participation and served time in both a jail and in the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia.
Though unable to use votes as a means for registering their position on matters, suffragists did apply what pressure they could to impact politics. Maryland Suffrage News urged state suffragists to press for the defeat of a candidate who had voted against ratification, carrying this headline in the April 17, 1920 issue: “Defeat Mish for Congress. Former legislator from Washington County who repudiated signature to suffrage petition by voting against ratification of the federal suffrage amendment, comes out as a candidate for Congress from the Sixth District.”
After years of suffragists’ activism, Congress passed the 19th Amendment on June 4, 2019. The amendment required 36 state votes to become law, which was accomplished on August 18, 1920. Maryland did not vote to ratify, so Maryland’s suffragists gathered 125,000 signatures and lobbied for Maryland legislators to do so. But on February 20, 1920, they voted against ratification. Maryland’s Senate tallied nine votes in favor and 18 against. In Maryland’s House of Delegates, the vote was 36 in favor and 64 against. Maryland legislators’ stance was that voting fell under states’ rights and viewed the amendment as Congressional overreach of federal power. In their Joint Resolution to reject ratification, Maryland legislators stated:
“Be it resolved by the General Assembly of Maryland, that we deny that Congress has any lawful right or power to propose such an amendment to the Constitution of the United States; we deny that the Legislatures of three-fourths of the States have any lawful right or power to adopt such an amendment; and we deny that such an amendment would be validly a part of the Constitution of the United States if thus adopted … Further, the legislators emphasized it was “the right of a State to determine for itself by the vote of its own people, who shall vote at its own State, county and municipal elections…”
Maryland’s suffragists still faced a long game. Legislators’ (and others’) fears were twofold. Women’s suffrage was viewed as a dual challenge to long-established norms: women entering a nontraditional arena that had long been reserved for men, and the fact that suffrage would allow black women to vote.
The state’s legislators were not the only ones who contested a woman’s right to vote. A contingent of women was also in opposition. Cornelia Gibbs, in a letter dated July 8, 1919 to Albert Ritchie, Maryland’s Attorney General, wrote:
“…We urge that you oppose the ratification of the 19th Amendment. The noisy element which is advocating Women Suffrage is in reality a small minority which disregards the great fundamental truth that the family is the real foundation of society and that it is not by duplication of effort but by co-operation that men and women make real progress.”
Cornelia Gibbs was President of the Maryland Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage.
Maryland After the 19th Amendment’s Passage
Maryland’s suffragists did not return home after the amendment passed. Efforts moved from obtaining voting rights to preparing for participation in political life. Voter registration and education initiatives were launched. Many women joined the League of Women Voters, formerly the NAWSA, established in October 1920. Lavinia Engle, who took a break from being a traveling organizer for the suffragist movement and went to set up a field hospital in Europe during World War I, later became Executive Director of the Maryland League of Women Voters. She became the Maryland General Assembly’s first elected female delegate from Montgomery County.
Baltimore neighbors Augusta Chissell and Margaret Hawkins held meetings in their homes and served in leadership roles for the Progressive Women’s Suffrage Club. This organization was founded in 1915 by Estelle Young to promote African American women getting the right to vote. In 1920, Chissell wrote a regular column, “A Primer for Women Voters,” for the newspaper Baltimore Afro-American. Readers mailed in questions about their new voting rights, which Chissell answered in the column. The Club also offered weekly citizenship meetings.
Opposition to women’s suffrage continued. Lawyer Oscar Leser of Baltimore sued to challenge women’s suffrage and the 19th Amendment’s validity. The case made it to the U.S. Supreme Court but was defeated.
After the 19th Amendment’s passage, another twenty-one years went by before Maryland suffragists’ local efforts were finally and fully rewarded. Through a Joint Resolution of the General Assembly of Maryland, legislators ratified the 19th Amendment on March 29, 1941, and the vote was certified on February 25, 1958.
The Department of Planning Maryland Historical Trust has documented over 50 historic sites in the state that are connected to Maryland suffragists’ efforts. These sites will be eligible for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places—homage to the determination and fortitude of the state’s role in women’s suffrage.
