Biography
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About the Women's Suffrage Movement:
(Excerpts from A History of the Suffrage Movement as Related to Michigan and Detroit by Lucia Voorhees Grimes, 1952):
"The first concerted movement [for women's suffrage] in the United States was the drafting of a statement of principles at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, by [suffrage] leaders Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucretia Mott.
Other women like Sarah and Angellina Grimke were speaking before church groups. Theodore Weld in Geneva, New York was one of the first to allow a woman to lead in prayer. He is the same one who later established Oberlin as a co-educational school.
Michigan fell into line, and in 1840 Lucinda Hinsdale Stone and her husband, Dr. Jas A. Stone precipitated discussions and a continued campaign which resulted in opening the doors of the University of Michigan to women in 1870.
As early as 1846, Mrs. Ernestine L. Rose, a Polish woman, spoke twice in the legislative halls in Detroit -- the first woman to address a legislature asking for political privileges for women.
Legislative action on Woman Suffrage was begun in Michigan in 1849, was reported favorable in 1853 -- and "favorable and respectful" in 1857...
The Michigan Equal Suffrage Society was organized in Battle Creek, at Hamblin's Opera House, January 20, 1870 only to pass out of existence in 1874, but the fight for suffrage was continued by the local groups...
When Susan B. Anthony heard that the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments were about to be adopted, she rushed back [to Washington, D.C.] from Kansas City to urge them to include the word 'sex' - 'The right to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of race, color, sex or previous condition of servitude' - but the women were told to 'stand back' - that 'this was the Negro's hour', and they did stack back until 1920."
The Susan B. Anthony Amendment was officially passed by Congress on June 4, 1919, and ratified as the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution on August 18, 1920.
Sources:
Grimes, Lucia Isabelle Voorhees. “Lucia Isabelle Voorhees Grimes Papers.” Bentley Hustorical Library University of Michigan. Accessed November 8, 2017. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/f/findaid/findaid-idx?cc=bhlead;c=bhlead;idno=umich-bhl-851380;didno=umich-bhl-851380;view=text.
“Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame.” Lucia Voorhees Grimes. The Michigan Women’s Historical Center Hall of Fame, n.d. http://www.michiganwomenshalloffame.org/inductees_by_name.aspx#l.
A History of the Suffrage Movement as Related to Michigan and Detroit by Lucia Voorhees Grimes, Paper, 1952, entitled "A History of the Suffrage Movement as Related to Michigan and Detroit" by Lucia Grimes, Box 3, Lucia Isabelle Voorhees Grimes Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.