Algoma 1902: The Woman's Ballot

 

As the first state to ratify the 19^th 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 19^th 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.