Colby Proclaims Woman Suffrage

On this date, back in 1920, women were given the right to vote. (You can see the New York Times coverage of the story in 1920 here.) 86 years seems so long ago, and yet it is just a blink of an eye. I feel like I take for granted things like my simple right to cast a vote, or to talk about PMS on Dogwood Girl. Disenfranchisement doesn't seem quite so long ago, though, when i think that my Grandma Smith was only 13. (My Grandma Palmer was only four years old in 1920; like me, she was lucky enough to never know what it was like to be disenfranchised.) I wonder if she remembers anything about it. Did she follow the fight for enfranchisement? Or was she more interested in the boys down the street or fixing her hair? I wonder what her own father thought of women gaining the right to vote. I wonder what my great-grandmothers thought of their newfound rights. Daddy's grandma Butler would have been right around my age. She was about 32 years old in 1920. I wonder if the thought of voting excited or frightened her? What was it like to spend almost half of her life without that basic right? Her father died the year before, in 1919. What would he have thought of women voting? And what did her husband think? Was he supportive, or did she have to stand up to him just to go vote?

Just another of a million questions I wish I had thought to ask the women that came before me. What a huge debt I owe to them and to the Suffragists of the early 1900's. If you know someone who actually remembers women's enfranchisement, i would love to hear their their story.