Historical Tidbits- Women’s Suffrage Edition

So when did women secure the right to vote? August of 1920... passage of the nineteenth amendment? Well, sorta.

Illinois may have been in the forefront. My Albion “boosterism” streak will just claim it was so, even if it turns out that other states did the same thing.

But I never heard of the fact that women were voting prior to the suffragettes’ successful struggle for the right to vote. In Illinois, as early as the late 1800’s, women voted for elected positions related to education... only. This sample ballot proves it! Women couldn’t vote for more manly positions like local Sheriff or Governor, etc. But they could sure vote for the board members of the University of Illinois.

Some of the parties were cut off in my photo. These were generally way... way... way left of center parties that were not unheard of back before the turn of the century.

The state legislator who got the bill passed so women could practice their voting skills admitted later that he knew it was unconstitutional per the state constitution. But they got away with it for years. And if the Illinois Supreme Court were to rule it so, it would make for one of the greatest political strategies of all time. Get the ladies used to voting, then deny it... what an uproar that would caused.