Kewaunee County, Nancy Higgins & the 19th Amendment

August 18 marks the 94^th anniversary of the 19^th Amendment, the right to vote without regard to gender.  It is an understatement to say it was a long time in coming. Nationally, as early as June 1848, the Liberty Party made women’s suffrage a plank in its presidential campaign. To put that in perspective, Wisconsin achieved statehood a month earlier and what is now Kewaunee County would not exist for another 4 years. Suffrage kept surfacing across the country and on June 10, 1919, Wisconsin led the nation as the first state to ratify the 19^th amendment, which Congress submitted for ratification just 6 days earlier, on June 4^th. Thirty-six states were required to ratify and Tennessee rounded out that number, thus completing ratification in 1 year, 2 months and 14 days.

Questions of women’s rights in Kewaunee County were there nearly as long as the county, however it was the 1873 advent of the Ahnapee Record that moved discussion to the fore. The paper’s two founding editors, 16 year old George Wing and Charles Borgman, 17, were very young by anyone’s standards, however the two were well ahead of their time when they editorialized calling for good schools, environmental protection – although those words were never used – beautification, and women’s rights.  

Most Judeo-Christians accepted the inferiority of women. After all, Eve was responsible for “the fall” of Adam. Both Greek and Roman law regarded women as inferior, and Roman law saw a woman subject to her lord and master: her husband. Roman law was the basis for church law.  In 1873 Wing and Borgman were surely raising more than eyebrows. Following their first edition, the Kewaunee Enterprise approved of the new paper saying it included “women’s rights.” The Green Bay Advocate opined that if subsequent editions were as good as the first, the paper would be successful. The Door County Advocate didn’t agree. It said the paper was only good for “swatting flies.”

While Wing and Borgman advanced women’s rights, the Enterprise had a history of uncertainty. In May 1869, that paper complained about the equal rights convention in New York. Earlier that spring, Ahnapee’s Mrs. Nancy Almira Higgins wrote a letter concerning women’s rights and wanted it published, but in March 1869 the Enterprise was her only option. At first the letter wasn’t printed because “old Higgins was a reliable subscriber” and it was felt he would be upset enough to discontinue his subscription. When Mrs. Higgins said such treatment was an “abridgement of her rights,” the editor said he would “cheerfully” give her space in the paper.

Nancy Higgins wrote that “female men” in Chicago were lecturing about poor, weak women being robbed of their rights and being slaves to the miserable men they called husbands. Mrs. Higgins felt women didn’t have rights because they did not fight for them. As for married women voting, Mrs. Higgins felt their husbands would vote as they were told. She said she would “like to see Jeremiah Higgins vote for something I didn’t want him to.” It was Mrs. Higgins’ beliefs that women should fight more and talk less so there wouldn’t be so much “babbling” about women’s rights.

Ten years later, the Advocate had its own ideas about the women of Ahnapee. It said Ahnapee women were “jolly” because they put on men’s trousers to visit each other. It went on to say that Sturgeon Bay girls “don’t put on trousers until after marriage, but they make up for lost time.”

Women’s suffrage came in 1920. President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964. Women had the vote, but voting did not ensure equal rights. Jeannette Rankin was the first woman ever elected to the House of Representatives. While living in Washington State, Rankin worked tirelessly to pass the vote for women. It happened in 1911. She went on to push for the right in Montana and the vote was granted there in 1914. Congresswoman Rankin was elected in Montana in 1916 and helped push the 19^th Amendment.

Remarkably, in July 1920 when Algoma Record Herald printed an article about women voting in the up-coming election, it was not with a screaming headline. The paragraphs stuck on an inside page merely pointed out that women would be voting for the first time and were eligible if they met the age, citizenship and residence requirements. The short article defined citizenship for a woman. If her husband was a citizen, so was she. If he was not, she was not. If unmarried, a woman's status reflected her father's, However, if a single woman was born in the U.S. of an alien father, she was considered Naturalized.

Nancy Higgins was in the prime of life long before Jeanette Rankin was effecting legislation and Mrs. Higgins was not the first woman to express her views in Kewaunee County. While others are written about, Mrs. Higgins was vocal and did her own writing.

If Mrs. Higgins could only return to tell another generation what it was like! Every kid graduating from Algoma High School in two, and maybe even three, generations took American and World History classes from Nancy Higgins granddaughter Alice. In another day, Nancy would surely have been listening to commercials and telling Alice, “You’ve come a long way, Baby!”

Sources: An-An-api-sebe: Where is the River? c. 2001; the photo of the Rankin statue was taken by the blogger in the Montana capitol building.
For more about the 19th Amendment, just Google.