![\"Suffragette\"](\"http:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/amendment.jpg\")
Looking back on her days at Hollins, Eudora Ramsay Richardson, class of 1909, remarked that her alma mater was always ahead of its time, \u201cif not with the radicals, at least in the vanguard of the conservatives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Richardson, who in 1936 wrote a book about women and public speaking (The Woman Speaker<\/em>), and was active in women\u2019s causes, had it about right in her assessment of her college and its students\u2019 attitudes toward the 19th amendment. They were slow to embrace women\u2019s suffrage, in part because Hollins discouraged any kind of political talk. The 1891-92 catalog, for example, includes this admonition:<\/p>\n But a boarding school for girls, of all places, is the most inappropriate arena for the discussion of party politics and sectarian tenets and distinctions. We discourage all such discussions.<\/p>\n And in 1895, a student dismissed the cause in an editorial in the Semi Annual<\/em>:<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Forgive us, gentle reader, if we evade a discussion of that intangible something, \u201cThe Woman Question.\u201d We fear that in the inevitable future woman\u2019s suffrage will come, but at present the movement is in its infancy\u2014and perhaps this accounts for the fact that our junior philosophers have found its childish prattle wholly illogical.<\/p>\n By 1912, the mood had shifted, as Beth Harris, university special collections librarian and archivist, observed. One student noted (\u201cPolitics Viewed from the Hollins Angle\u201d by J. B., Nov. 1912, Hollins Magazine)<\/em> that \u201cwe are as yet too conservative to adopt the \u2018Votes for Women\u2019 cry at Hollins, but amongst most of the girls the subject of politics is discussed with enthusiasm.\u201d<\/p>\n For a library exhibition she put together several years ago about Hollins and the 19th amendment, Harris found a variety of clues to the thinking on campus: among them, a speech given at Hollins in 1878 by Dr. J. J. Moorman, a Salem physician, about the \u201chorrors of Women\u2019s Rights\u201d (reported in Hollins Magazine<\/em>); and a reading at the 1882 commencement by a student, M. Lou Palmer, which posed this provocative question: \u201cIs It True that There Is a Growing Danger of Women Losing Caste in America?\u201d<\/p>\n Students began exploring the pros and cons of women\u2019s rights, including suffrage, in their works of fiction, too. The 1911 May Day celebration, for example, included a performance of a student-written play called My Wife Is a Suffragette!<\/em> \u201cMargaret Decides\u201d (Hollins Magazine<\/em>, 1914, by Judith Riddick) is a story about a young woman who argues with her boyfriend about her membership in the Woman Suffrage League before he goes off to war. By the time he returns, she has decided to quit the league, but he\u2019s found someone else (more pliable?) to marry.<\/p>\n \u201cWe feel as though we had, to some\u00a0 degree, paved the way for our first real Of course in 1920, the 19th amendment became law. Hollins students who were 21 that November could vote in the official elections. For those too young to vote, students held a mock election, with elaborate preparations leading up to the ballot. Frances Warren, class of 1923, wrote in Hollins Magazine<\/em> (Dec. 1920):<\/p>\n Monday night the Republicans took the school entirely by surprise when they marched upon the campus in a torch light parade. \u2026 However, the Democrats were not to be outdone by their opponents, and so on Tuesday they came forth with an equally original and inspiring demonstration. \u2026 And now it is time for the most important action of the day\u2014the casting of the votes. This was accomplished in a systematic way and a true political spirit, according to the rules and regulations of the polls.<\/p>\n The Democrat, James Cox, won the campus, if not the national, vote. All in all, wrote Warren, \u201cWe feel as though we had, to some degree, paved the way for our first real voting at some time in the near future.\u201d In March 1921, Hollins Magazine<\/em> reported that graduating seniors, \u201cmany of whom were able to vote the first time, were addressed at commencement as \u2018fellow citizens\u2019 on a subject in keeping with their new privilege and position.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" University archives contain clues to what students were thinking about women\u2019s rights, including the right to vote, in the decades preceding the passage of the 19th amendment. By Jean Holzinger M.A.L.S. \u201911 Looking back on her days at Hollins, Eudora […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9162,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[79],"class_list":["post-9024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-summer-2020"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9024"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9029,"href":"https:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9024\/revisions\/9029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Suffragette](\"http:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/suffragette.png\")
Minds began to open, gradually, in the early years of the new century. For example, an editorial in a 1910 issue of Hollins Magazine<\/em> asked, \u201cIs the Hollins Girl of To-day Ignorant of Contemporary Events?\u201d And, according to Harris, after several prominent members of the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia visited campus in 1914, a student reported in Hollins Magazine<\/em> that \u201cnot everyone at Hollins became a suffragist forthwith, but a surprising number of suffrage buttons were seen in the next day or two, and all who heard the able and earnest addresses realized that at least no woman of today has a right to be indifferent toward this much mooted question.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nvoting at some time in the near future.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n