A CENTURY OF WOMEN’S 

RIGHT TO VOTE 

Imagine, if you will,  the time when no woman was allow to inscribe her choices for public offices on pieces of blank paper.  It was  just a sole century ago when the requisite number of the United States approved the 19th  amendment to the United States Constitution on August 18, 1920.  The 28-word amendment simply states, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

Although women were allowed to vote in some colonies in Colonial America, most states banned a woman’s right to vote until the end of World War I.   

Imagine what might have happened had women been allowed to vote from the beginning.   The history of the country would have been vastly different if women had been allowed to elect delegates to the various Secession Conventions in the Southern States in 1860.  It is very likely that the women would not want a war.  In some parts of Georgia, mostly around East Central Georgia, there was a strong stand against secession from the Union.  In Laurens County, the “no” votes comprised 2/3 of the total votes.  In neighboring Montgomery County, the “no’s” were a momentous 90%, not counting the white females.  

During the “tea-totaling” decades in the last quarter of the 19th Century and the first quarter of the 20th Century, women rose to prominence in Women’s Christian Temperance Unions through which they showed their rising potential political power and influence.  The vast majority of smaller towns and counties would have banned the possession and sale of any alcholic beverage had women had the opportunity to cast their ballots in the “wet or dry” elections.  Consequently, Dublin would not had eight barrooms for the one hundred or so adult white males in Dublin in the 1880s.   Gambling and other heinous activities would have been erased from the itineraries on the male citizens. 

The beginning of the 20th Century gave rise to women’s organizations.  The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Daughters of the Grand Republic pushed for increased funding for the support for aging Veterans of the Civil War.  By the mid 1910s, women all over Georgia formed local Women’s Clubs in each of the state’s twelve Congressional Districts.  Mrs. F.N.Watkins headed the first Dublin club and was elected to represent the 12th District of Georgia.  Dublin’s women raised the funds to erect a Women’s Community Club House on North Drive in Stubbs Park, a building which still stands across from the entrance to the Old Dublin High School.

Mrs. J. Frank Lawson took over in 1916 and served until 1920.  Mrs. Lawson, wife of a Dublin newspaper editor, used her knowledge of publicity and newspapers to rise to the State Editor of the Federation’s newspaper and publicity articles. 

One of the early signs of women’s success and rights was the naming of Piccola Prescott as Laurens County’s first official female mail carrier in 1918.  

Following the adoption of the 19th Amendment, women across Laurens County slowly began accelerate toward their rightful place in the political, professional, religious and social organizations in the early 1920s.  

Maggie New was out running errands one day when she stopped in at the city hall.  When she was asked if she wanted to register to vote, New made history by becoming the first woman to register for a Dublin city election, which was held on the first Monday in December 1920.  

Brewton, Ga. Depot

The women of Brewton, Georgia in eastern Laurens County took voting as a very serious matter.  In the 1921 Brewton municipal election, women won the mayorship and five of the seven city council seats.  The victorious women were Mayor Mrs. W.H. Beall Mrs. M.E. Brantley, Mrs. M.F. Beall, Mrs. F.A. Brantley, Mrs. C.G. Moye, and Mrs. H.B. Sutton.  The election resulted in the first majority female council in the history of Georgia, with Mrs. W.H. Beall, being the first known female mayor of a Georgia town or city.   

Jessie Baldwin, Clemmie Patton, Mrs. J.S.  Adams, Mrs. M.A. Mertz, Mrs. T. Reins, Mrs. Frank Lawson, Mrs. T.J. Pritchett, Mrs. J.D. Bass, Mrs. F.L. King, and Mrs. W.D. Parkerson were chosen as the first women to participate in a 12th Congressional District Democratic Convention, which was held in Dublin in September 1922. 

MRS. O.L. ANDERSON

On New Years Eve in 1922, Mrs. O.L. Anderson was appointed Judge of the Juvenile Court of Laurens County, making her the first female judge in Georgia’s history. In  1924, Mrs.  Mary Rachels Jordan became the first Laurens County woman to exercise her right to vote.  In that same year, Opal Glen Rife became the first woman to pastor a Laurens County Church, the First Church of the Nazarene.   In 1927, Mrs. Frank Lawson, wife of the editor of the Courier Herald and women’s activist, was elected vice-chairman of the 12th Congressional District Democratic Committee making her the first woman in Georgia to achieve such a level in Georgia political circles.

  The first known Laurens County woman to practice law was Kathleen Duggan Smith. Mrs. Smith, a graduate of George Washington University Law School, was admitted to the bar of the District of Columbia on February 14, 1924. 

The wives of George C. Ingram, Kendrick Moffett, Theron Woodard, W.S. Dennis, T.W. Lester, Milo Smith, S.A. Stovall, Paschall Phillips, and M.C. Holcomb joined together to form the first women’s auxiliary unit of Post No. 17 of the American Legion in Dublin in February 1927. 

The year 1933 was a remarkable year for Dublin women.  Jessie Baldwin was appointed as the first female Deputy Clerk and U.S. Commissioner of the Dublin District.  Elizabeth Garrett Page was chosen as the first female on the Dublin Board of Education.   Aretha Miller was the first woman admitted to practice law in Laurens County.  At the age of 18, Miss Miller may have been the youngest woman ever to practice law in Georgia.   

ARETHA MILLER SMITH

Georgia's youngest female lawyer

In 1932, Charlotte Hightower Harwell, a twenty-year-old Dublin woman, became the first woman court reporter in the history of Georgia.  Grace Warren Landrum, Dean of Women at the College of William and Mary, was one of the foremost women educators in the country.  Dublin resident Eugenia Rawls performed on Broadway and as an understudy to Tallulah Bankhead. Miss Rawls was the first American actress to play the National Theatre of Ireland and is regarded as one of the great actresses of the American stage.  Augusta (John S.) Adams was regarded as one of the foremost leaders of women’s heritage organizations in Georgia. Mrs.  Adams served as President of the Georgia division of the United States Daughters of 1812 and the Colonial Dames of the 17th Century, National President of the Colonial Dames of the 17th Century, State Regent of the Daughters of the American Revolution and Curator General of the National United States Daughters of 1812.  

Women and their right to vote has wholly changed the landscape of elections over the last century.  As the country and world evolve, more changes are yet to come. 

POST SCRIPT:  Georgia women and Georgia men might be surprised or not surprised to know that the 19th amendment was adopted by the Georgia Legislature in 1970, fifty years after the amendment was ratified by the required number of states.