Recognizing Tompkins County's Suffrage Pioneers (2020 Historic Brochure Edition)

We celebrate the rich history of the movement in Tompkins County to obtain the vote for women and recognize the local women and their allies who helped make the drive for the women’s vote reality.

Recognizing Tompkins County's Suffrage Pioneers (2020 Historic Brochure Edition)

Ithaca, New York 14850, United States

Created By: Ithaca Heritage

Tour Information

**This tour is from the 2020 printed "Recognizing Tompkins County's Suffrage Pioneers: A Commemorative Marker Project", modified for PocketSights by The History Center in Tompkins County in 2023. Text is unchanged from the original printing.**

We celebrate the rich history of the movement in Tompkins County to obtain the vote for women and recognize the local women and their allies who helped make the drive for the women’s vote reality. These women described themselves as suffragists, people who believed in peaceful, constitutional campaign methods, although they were called by their opponents many derogatory names, including suffragette.

In Tompkins County, as throughout New York State and across the nation, women fought to achieve the right to vote. More than a half-century of tireless advocacy brought about ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920, which gave women the legal basis to exercise their right to vote. It would be some decades before the vote was fully extended to all, and even longer for women to achieve full citizenship.

Many people in Tompkins County actively supported the suffrage movement, and were committed to winning the vote for women. They formed advocacy organizations, held community meetings, canvassed throughout the country and across New York State, linked with Prohibitionists and Grange members, and organized and conducted two state conventions of the New York State Woman Suffrage Association that were held in Ithaca in 1894 and 1911.

Partnering with property owners, the Tompkins County Historical Commission has erected building markers recognizing eleven local individuals key in the drive for women’s suffrage. These markers are placed in public areas related to these honorees- near where they lived, where they studied or preached, or at a building named in their honor.

**Please note we have only included five of the 11 individuals included in the brochure, as the other locations are not in walking distance of downtown. Please visit The History Archives to learn about: Libbie Jayne Sweetland, Helen Brewster Owens, James Oliver, Nathaniel Schmidt, Harriet May Mills, and Isabel Howland.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This pamphlet was written by Marcia Lynch and published by the Tompkins County Historical Commion, c/o The Tompkins County Historian, 125 E. Court Street Ithaca, NY.
Information has been drawn from, Achieving Beulah Land: The Long Struggle for Suffrage in Tompkins County, New York (2019) by Carol Kammen and Elaine D. Engst.

ACCESSIBILITY NOTES FOR THIS TOUR

Total distance travelled: 0.9 miles

Terrain: Mostly flat

This tour is recommend as a walking or bicycle tour.


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What You'll See on the Tour

Rev. Juanita Breckenridge came to Tompkins County in 1892 to serve as minister of the Brooktondale Congregational Church. She married Frederick Bates, Town of Caroline Supervisor, and relocated to Ithaca where her husband served for a term ... Read more
From a reform-minded family, Lucy Calkins came to Ithaca in 1895, when her husband became president of the Ithaca Salt Company, living at 310 N. Albany Street (now demolished). She supported temperance and suffrage, becoming one of the foun... Read more
Carrie E. Richardson moved with her parents from New Hampshire to the Town of Caroline and later taught at Ithaca’s Central School. In 1882 she married DeWitt Bouton, a lawyer and newspaper owner. They lived at 413 N. Cayuga Street. As Mr... Read more
Rev. Robert T. Jones served as pastor of the DeWitt Park Baptist Church from 1880-1915, and welcomed the annual conventions of the New York State Woman Suffrage Association in 1894 and 1911. He delivered the invocation at the 1894 conventio... Read more
Rev. Cyrus W. Heizer was Minister of the First Unitarian Society of Ithaca from 1901 until his death in 1914. The Unitarian Society was the site of many suffrage meetings, including the 1894 New York State Woman Suffrage Association confere... Read more
The Cornell Local History Research Library and Archives are a department of The History Center in Tompkins County and are located on the first floor of the Tompkins Center for History & Culture. Our collections contain nearly 100,00... Read more

 

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