As the first state to ratify the 19th Amendment,
Wisconsin led the way in giving women the right to vote nationally. The State
won the June 1919 honor by hand-delivering the necessary paperwork to
Washington. However, voting and women’s rights were on the minds of Ahnapeepers
as early as the 1860s when Mrs. Nancy Higgins could have been the community’s
answer to Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. A few
years before the advent of Mrs. Higgins, it was Mrs. Elmira Eveland who also
advanced freeing the slaves.
Today’s media calls attention to elections, reminding folks
what to bring to the polls, while the electorate is barraged with advertisements, commercials and robo-calls as mailboxes are stuffed with glossy, coated paper that goes straight to recycling bins. But it wasn’t always like that. In 1900, there were no radios, TVs
and every imaginable media that today;s voters have at their fingertips.. Telephone “instruments”
were still in their infancy. There were stump speeches from candidates or from
those who gave them in a candidate’s stead. Newspapers carried the
electioneering news and all the mudslinging, which also came via poems, cartoons and catchy little ditties. It was the newspapers that informed
the men just how the voting would be carried on. It was Mrs. Higgins’ feelings
that if women were not permitted to vote, at least married men would do what
their wives told them to do. Some felt such comments gave insights into who was
wearing the pants in the Higgins family.
No doubt women carried sway in 1884 when bachelor Grover Cleveland was on the presidential ballot. Cleveland was said to have fathered a child, leading to songs such as, Ma, Ma, Where is my pa? He’s up in the White House, Darling… and such newspaper cartoons as this "Another Voice for Cleveland," September 18884, Library of Congress.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/president-clevelands-problem-child-100800/
As voters arrived for the 1900 spring election, it was the Record
that outlined procedures. Voters - all men - gave their name and residence as
they entered the polling place. At that point, they were given a ballot
endorsed with the initials or names of the ballot clerks. The voter was told he
must go alone to a booth to prepare for voting. Although it was the ballot
clerk who told the men how to properly mark the ballot, the clerks could not
offer advice on voting. To vote for one party, one made a simple “X” to
designate the choice. The X meant each man listed received one vote. Those
wishing to vote for candidates in various parties would put an X next to the individual
candidate’s name. If the voter desired one whose name was not on the ballot,
the voter wrote it in the space provided. Any other marks meant the votes were
spoiled. Voters could then return their spoiled ballot to the ballot clerk who
would offer a new one. A voter had three chances to “blow it” before he would
not be given another voting opportunity.
Voting was subject to time constraints that allowed 5
minutes only in the voting booth. A voter could take an unofficial ballot, as a
memorandum, into the voting booth to use as a copy from which to mark his
ballot. However, that unofficial ballot had to be handled so that no other
person could see it and thus determine the voter’s choices. After the official
ballot was marked, it was required to be folded in such a manner that the
inside could not be seen, but so that the printed endorsements and signatures
of the ballot clerks were visible. At that point, the voter left the booth, presented
his ballot to the inspector in charge of the ballot box, and then left the
polling place.
If a voter told the presiding officer that he could not read
or had a disability that did not allow marking of a ballot, the voter was
allowed the assistance of one or two election officers to mark his ballot. If
the voter declared himself to be legally blind, he was able to choose any other
legal voter, within the county, to assist him. The presiding officer was given
discretion in administering an oath to the voter regarding his disability.
By 1919, Wisconsin women knew something about voting because
they were able to begin voting in school related local elections on April 1,
1902, when there was even a separate woman’s ballot. Algoma Record ran
sample ballots for the voters, including this Women’s Ballot for Kewaunee
County Superintendent of Schools. As easily seen, it was exactly the same as
the men’s school ballot. The remainder of the published sample was for men
only.
When the Record reported on women’s first vote in the
school election on November 7, 1902, it said a number of women went to the polls
and “seemed to take quite an interest” in voting. Mrs. A.W. Teske made history
being the first woman in the Town of Pierce to cast a vote. In a subsequent
issue on November 24, the paper’s publishers, Decker and Macchia, editorialized
saying, “Ladies should not forget they are entitled to vote this fall for
county and state superintendent of schools as this is the first time that the
women of Algoma have had an opportunity to cast a ballot they should turn out
strong.”
After ratification of the 19th Amendment, women
voted for the first time on November 2, 1920, and the school ballot for women
only disappeared.
The Record told readership on July 16,1920, that
Wisconsin women would vote in the November general election and would be
subject to only those restrictions which applied to men. Women, as men, were
required to be 21, a citizen of Wisconsin and the United States and be a
resident for ten days in the voting precinct.
Continuing, the paper said a married woman was of the same
citizenship as her husband and could vote if she was otherwise eligible. The Record
clarified citizenship by saying if the husband was not a citizen, the wife could
not vote. Unmarried women were citizens if their fathers were citizens. If
their fathers were alien, a woman needed to be born in this country or
Naturalized.
And – the rest is history.
Sources; Algoma Record; cartoon from the Library of Congress.
