TURNING POINT SUFFRAGIST MEMORIAL, LORTON IN VIRGINIA

I am continuing my post from this link. A few days before, I found out about The Turning Point Suffragist Memorial. I am always intrigued by this part of history. I will be putting another post together after this one, as there are more photos and more history to share about this time, and the suffragette connection to Lorton.

My first photo shows a statue of Alice Paul who was a member and leader of The National Woman's Party. She stands at the entrance. Throughout this post I have included information I found online, and you can read more about Alice here.

She was described as "A vocal leader of the twentieth century women's suffrage movement, Alice Paul advocated for and helped secure passage of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, granting women the right to vote.  (There are great old photos at these links.) 

She was born on January 11th, 1885, in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, and was the oldest of four children. Her parents were Tacie Parry and William Paul, a wealthy Quaker businessman. She was a descendant of William Penn, the Quaker founder of Pennsylvania. Her ancestors included participants in the New Jersey Committee of Correspondence in the Revolutionary era and a state legislative leader in the 19th century. She grew up in the Quaker tradition of public service. 

Ms. Paul’s parents embraced gender equality, education for women, and working to improve society. Paul’s mother, a suffragist, brought her daughter with her to women’s suffrage meetings, and was a member of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).

The next statue just inside the memorial grounds was that of Mary Church Terrell, the daughter of former enslaved people, born in Memphis, Tennessee. She was a well-known activist who championed racial equality and women's suffrage in the late 19th and early 20th century. 

Mary Terrell, born Mary Church on September 23, 1863, and was one of the first African-American women to earn a college degree. She taught in the Latin Department at the M Street School (now known as Paul Laurence Dunbar High School (the first African American public high school in the nation, in Washington, DC.) 

Ms. Church's mother, Louisa Ayres, was a successful entrepreneur at a time when most women did not own businesses. She is credited with having encouraged her daughter to attend Antioch College Model School in Yellow Springs, Ohio, for elementary and secondary education, because the Memphis schools were not adequate. 

She was an avid suffragist for many years, going back to when she was a student, and continued to be active in the happenings within suffragist circles in the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Through these meetings she became associated with Susan B. Anthony, an association which Ms. Terrell describes in her biography as a "delightful, helpful friendship," which lasted until Ms. Anthony's death in 1906.  More can be read about Mary Terrell here.   

Next, Carrie Chapman Catt (born Carrie Clinton Lane; January 9, 1859 – March 9, 1947) was an American women's suffrage leader who campaigned for the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which gave U.S. women the right to vote in 1920. 

Ms. Catt served as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association from 1900 to 1904 and 1915 to 1920. She founded the League of Women Voters in 1920 and the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in 1904, which was later named International Alliance of Women. She "led an army of voteless women in 1919 to pressure Congress to pass the constitutional amendment giving them the right to vote and convinced state legislatures to ratify it in 1920". Ms. Catt "was one of the best-known women in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century and was on all lists of famous American women." Her story can be found here.

 

More next time! I don't want to rush through as there is much to say about the brave women I learned about. Not only these ladies here, but many who were involved in the vote we now have today.