While women's suffrage had an early start in Maine, dating back to the 1850s, it was a long, slow road to equal suffrage. Early suffragists brought speakers Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone to the state in the mid-1850s. Ann F. Jarvis Greely and other women in Ellsworth, Maine, created a women's rights lecture series in 1857. The first women's suffrage petition to the Maine Legislature was also sent that year. Working-class women began marching for women's suffrage in the 1860s. The Snow sisters created the first Maine women's suffrage organization, the Equal Rights Association of Rockland, in 1868.
In the 1870s, a state suffrage organization, the Maine Women's Suffrage Association (MWSA), was formed. Many petitions for women's suffrage were sent to the state legislature. MWSA and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) of Maine worked closely together on suffrage issues. By the late 1880s the state legislature was considering several women's suffrage bills. While women's suffrage did not pass, during the 1890s many women's rights laws were secured. During the 1900s, suffragists in Maine continued to campaign and lecture on women's suffrage.
Several suffrage organizations including a Maine chapter of the College Equal Suffrage League and the Men's Equal Rights League were formed in the 1910s. Florence Brooks Whitehouse started the Maine chapter of the National Woman's Party (NWP) in 1915. Suffragists and other clubwomen worked together on a large campaign for a 1917 voter referendum on women's suffrage. Despite the efforts of women around the state, women's suffrage failed. Going into the next few years, a women's suffrage referendum on voting in presidential elections was placed on the September 13, 1920 ballot. But before that vote, Maine ratified the Nineteenth Amendment on November 5, 1920. It was the nineteenth state to ratify.
A few weeks after ratification, MWSA dissolved and formed the League of Women Voters (LWV) of Maine. White women first voted in Maine on September 13, 1920. Native Americans in Maine had to wait longer to vote. In 1924, they became citizens of the United States. However, Maine would not allow individuals living on Indian reservations to vote. It was not until the passage of a 1954 equal rights referendum that Native Americans gained the right to vote in Maine. In 1955 Lucy Nicolar Poolaw (Penobscot) was the first Native American living on a reservation in Maine to cast a vote.
Early efforts
The first public advocacy of women's suffrage in Maine is an 1832 Independence Day speech by John Neal in Portland, in which Neal described the denial of suffrage to women as equivalent to taxation without representation. By the 1850s, Maine was in a state of transition. The abolition movement was important and the temperance movement started to draw more women in Maine. The country's first alcohol prohibition law passed in Maine in 1851. Women's rights also grew in support during the 1850s. Susan B. Anthony came to Maine and gave a lecture in Bangor in 1854. Suffragist Lucy Stone spoke on women's suffrage in Augusta and Cornish in 1855. In Ellsworth, Maine, several women's rights advocates began to work towards women's rights and women's suffrage. Ann F. Jarvis Greely, who had attended the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, wanted to take action on promoting rights for women. Greely, her sister Sarah Jarvis, and Charlotte Hill worked together to create a committee to bring women's rights lecturers to Ellsworth. The lectures started in 1857. In March of that year, Anthony spoke to a "packed hall" in Ellsworth. There were some threats against the controversial nature of the lecture series, however, overall, the series was "widely attended." In addition to the lectures, the three women hosted a "woman's rights" ball on the evenings of July 3 and 4, 1857 in Ellsworth. Both Greely and Hill also wrote to newspapers under pseudonyms advocating and arguing for improving women's access to equal right. Hill also brought women's rights materials for women to share and distribute. The first women's suffrage petition in Maine, known as a "memorial" was sent to the Maine Legislature in 1857. A second memorial, signed prominently by Greely and Hill, was presented to the legislature in 1858. Maine was one of the first states in the country to petition its legislature on women's suffrage.
Working factory women marched in the Lewiston Independence Day Parade in 1865, promoting women's suffrage. The first women's suffrage group in the state was formed by Lavina Snow, Lucy Snow, and Elvira Snow in Rockland, Maine in 1868. The group, announced to the office of The Revolution, was called the Equal Rights Association of Rockland. Lucy Snow also attended the American Equal Rights Association (AERA) convention in New York in May 1869.
Into the 1870s, suffrage efforts continued. Margaret W. Campbell lectured in 1871 and 1872 in several Maine towns, including Bath, Belfast, Camden, Damariscotta, Freedom, and Rockland. John Neal in Portland called for the city's first women's suffrage convention in 1870. This led to petitions sent to the state legislature in 1872. Lydia Neal Dennett helped lead the petition campaign. Lucy Snow presented their own petition for women's suffrage from Rockland to the Maine Legislature in 1873. Adelaide Emerson in Ellsworth also sent the legislature an 1873 women's suffrage petition. Also in 1873, a call for women's suffrage convention went out in January. Hundreds of attendees came to the convention, held in Augusta on January 29. At the convention, Julia Ward Howe and Stone were featured speakers. Later, the Maine Women's Suffrage Association (MWSA) was formed. The first president was Joshua Nye and a year later, Benjamin Kingsbury served until 1876.
In Maine, many suffrage efforts were supported by the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). The first WCTU chapter was created in Bangor on March 5, 1874. In Maine, women who were leaders in WCTU were often also leaders in the suffrage movement and in the abolition movement. Their work in WCTU gave them valuable experience working in politics. In 1876, the first woman to serve as president of MWSA was Cordelia A. Quinby. However, after 1876, the MWSA largely stopped meeting and Quinby continued to keep MWSA alive during the slow years between 1876 and 1885. While the suffrage work slowed, the WCTU continued to grow.
Renewed efforts
In June 1881, the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) held a suffrage convention in Portland. In 1884, Thomas Brackett Reed, the leader of the Republican Party in Maine, drafted a report in support of a proposed women's suffrage amendment. The revival of a state suffrage organization was due to the influence of the New England Woman Suffrage Association (NEWSA). A convention was held in September 1885 in cooperation with NEWSA where the Maine Woman Suffrage Association (MWSA) was revived. Henry Blanchard, a pastor of the Unitarian Church in Portland, became the president of MWSA.
Women's suffrage petitions resumed in 1887, bearing signatures from around Maine. Women asked for an amendment to the state constitution for women's suffrage. In the state legislature, the amendment was presented and received majority votes from the House and the Senate, but not the two-thirds needed to pass. Two years later, in 1889, suffragists presented the legislature an even larger petition that encompassed signatures from an even greater area of the state. Petitioners asked for school board or municipal suffrage. That year, the vote for municipal suffrage for women passed in the state Senate, but not in the House.
In 1891, Hannah J. Bailey took over MWSA. Bailey, a Quaker, was involved in both the WCTU and peace activism. Bailey testified on women's suffrage in front of the Maine Legislature, claiming that women should vote because women were better suited to make laws that would guard children's needs and interests. She also believed that women's involvement in politics would end war. WCTU members were energized in 1893, and suffragists and temperance activists sent the state legislature more petitions for women's suffrage. In 1895, the WCTU and Lillian M. N. Stevens helped support the municipal suffrage campaign again, sending more than 9,000 names in favor to the state legislature. During hearings on the bill, the gallery was crowded with spectators from every county in Maine. Nevertheless, this effort failed in the state Senate.
While efforts for women's suffrage failed, MWSA had a successful campaign for women's right to own legal titles to property and dower rights. Women gained the right to testify against their husbands in divorce cases, and earned equal custody of their own children. MWSA helped raise girls' "age of protection" from 10 to 16 years old. During Bailey's presidency, six state women's suffrage conventions were held in Portland. Local groups were created in Hampden, Portland, Saco, and Waterville. Bailey stepped down in 1897 and Lucy Hobart Day took over MWSA. Day promoted suffrage parades, recruitment at colleges, and "open houses" to promote women's suffrage. Petitions to the state legislature continued in 1897. MWSA created a "press bureau" in 1898 and Sarah G. Crosby worked as the head of the division. More divisions in MWSA were created, modeled after the hierarchy of the WCTU. The Maine Legislature in 1899 briefly considered a bill exempting taxation of women because they were currently disenfranchised. Suffragists held a state convention at Old Orchard Beach in August 1900. Carrie Chapman Catt was a featured guest, speaking on behalf of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Elizabeth Upham Yates had strong ties to NAWSA and helped MWSA partner with the national group. In 1902 Day worked with the executive staff at MWSA to put letters on the desk of each Maine state legislator about women's suffrage. The letters asked why women were being taxed the same as men, but still not able to vote.
After Day retired in 1905, Fannie J. Fernald was elected president of the MWSA. Fernald canvassed throughout all of Maine and gave speeches to various organizations. Fernald brought reports of MWSA to the NAWSA conventions and also to the NEWSA meetings. The Maine Federation of Labor endorsed women's suffrage in Maine in 1906. Fernald reached out to rural Maine in her speaking tour of the state in the summer of 1909. On February 17, Fernald spoke on women's suffrage at the Judiciary Committee of the Maine House.
L. Alfreda Brewster Wallace served as president of MWSA in 1911. In 1912, Helen N. Bates was elected president of MWSA. On Woman's Day in 1912, Bates thanked the Socialist Party as being the only one in the U.S. advocating for women's suffrage. Suffragists from Maine marched in the Woman Suffrage Procession. Suffragists were also hopeful that women's suffrage legislation would pass in 1913. A chapter of the College Equal Suffrage League was formed in Maine that year. Bates told the Woman's Journal that there "can be no question" that women would get the right to vote within the year.
In 1914, the Men's Equal Rights League of Maine was established. The president was Robert Treat Whitehouse, and prominent men in Maine joined the group. In 1915, Deborah Knox Livingston spoke to the state legislative committee on women's suffrage and gender equality. The legislators passed a resolution to pass an equal suffrage amendment.
Amendments lost and won