Did Your Female Ancestors Vote?

1848 is when the women's suffrage movement in the United States took off. That was when the Liberty Party added women's suffrage to it's party platform. That same year Elizabeth Cady Stanton became active in the movement.

In 1850, the first National Women's Right Convention was held in Massachusetts. Women were becoming more active in national issues, but found themselves shut out of the process. The convention gave them a place to air their views. The right to vote was the primary issue of the convention. The convention pushed Lucy Stone to the forefront of the movement. Stone's writings are what inspired Susan B. Anthony to join the struggle in 1852.

Over the next 70 years women would protest, march, get mocked, and get arrested. They were met with violence and cries to return to the kitchen. Still, they fought on.

Jeannette Rankin was the first female elected to Congress in the United States. She represented the state of Montana. In 1918, she introduced legislation that created the women's suffrage amendment. President Wilson threw his support behind the bill. On May 21, 1919, the House of Representatives passed the bill. The Senate followed on June 4th of the same year.

By 1920, thirty-five states had signed on. August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the thirty-sixth and final state to ratify the amendment. On August 26, the amendment was certified. It is none as the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution.

The amendment that was ratified states "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation".

Voter registration records are available to the public for research. You will have to research to see if the locality you are interested in is available.

A couple of places to start looking for voter registration records are the county recorders office, your local public library, a college or university library, and your local LDS Family History Center.

The LDS Family History Library (of which your local center is a branch library) has several titles listed in it's catalog. They can be found under this subject: state, local area - voting registers. For example, you will find the St. Tammany Parish, Alabama registers under the subject heading: Alabama - St. Tammany - Voting Registers. You can search the LDS library catalog online.

Some voter registration records are available online, though they are few and far between. The subscription website ancestry.com has some voter registration lists under the category: Census & Voter Lists.

Searching "voter registration records" in Google pulled up some records as well. Doing the search "voter registration" + "alameda county" gave me several search results. One listings shows that the voting registers from 1875-1925 are held at the California State University, East Bay.

Although you will probably not find out anything earth shattering from voter registration records, it may be the only record you find pertaining to your female ancestor that she filled out herself. Early records tend to only have a name and party affiliation. As the records get more current, the address of the registrant is included. Later entries show the occupation of the person. Formatting of information varies by locality.

Some registry books are confusing. A large city like San Francisco has one book for each year. A less populated locality like Monterrey County may have one book that covers several years. You might find what looks like duplicate entries for your ancestor. In reality, you are seeing the same person's registration for different years.

Now for the examples. I'll show you my female relative who registered in California the first year it was possible. Then I'll show you how Mother and Daughter leaned in different directions. Last, I leave you with the question of how my Great Grandmother registered to vote when she was on her deathbed and most definitely not a U.S. Citizen.

Mary Ann (Kelly) Meincke was my Great Great Grandmother's sister. She was born in 1859 in San Francisco, CA and she spent her entire life there. Mary Ann and her husband, Frederick Meincke, ran a boarding house and saloon on Mission Road and Silver Avenue called the Five Mile House. She was widowed in 1900.

Mary Ann appears to be the first female in my family to exercise her right to vote. She registered in 1912, one year after gaining the right in the State of California. This is a copy of the Index to the Register: City and County of San Francisco (5 Oct 1912). Mary is listed on line 20.

Brigitte (Breilh) Mazeres was my Great Great Grandmother. Brigitte was born in 1871 in Castet, France. She came to America in the early 1890s.

I think Brigitte must have been a strong individual. She lost two children before they reached their 3rd birthdays. She and her husbanad, Charles Mazeres, moved from San Francisco to Modesto and then to Oakland before 1906. The family weathered the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.

When Charles died on Christmas Day in 1926, Brigitte was 56 years old. An age that was elderly enough to move in with her daughter and be taken care of. But she didn't. She lived alone and ran the laundry by herself. She made it through the Depression as well. She died in 1959 at the age of 87.

Brigitte first appears in the registers in 1924, two years after her daughter, Anna. She is listed as a Republican until 1932, when she switches to Independent. In 1936, she is a Democrat.

My Grandma, Anna (Mazeres) Lassalle, was a quiet woman who never spoke ill of anyone (at least in my presence!) I always thought of her as a old fashioned woman who wasn't interested in politics.

Anna first appeared in the California Voter Registers in 1920, unmarried and 22 years old--a couple years ahead of her Mother, Brigitte (Breilh) Mazeres. She is registered as a Republican. And, a surprise to me, she lists her occupation as dressmaker. I almost missed the entry because her surname was spelled wrong. A keyword search by address pulled up the entry.

My Grandma does not appear to have been influenced by my Grandpa when it came to party affiliation. In 1922, she had no party affiliation. My Grandfather was a Republican. In 1926, she was a Democrat and he a Republican. In 1928 and 1930, they were both Republicans. But, in 1932 and 1934 my Grandfather became a Democrat, but my Grandma stayed a Republican. In 1938, most likely due to the success of FDR's New Deal rather than my Grandfather's authority, my Grandma switched to the Democratic party. They both stayed Democrats for many years.

Here's the entry for my Grandma in the 1920 Voter Registration Supplement - Oakland, Precinct No. 180, line 41:

There is always one mystery in the bunch. In 1936, I found an entry for my Great Grandmother, Maria (de Braga) Smith. What is interesting about Maria being listed in the registration books? For one, she wasn't a US citizen. She was in the U.S. illegally. Second, Maria was very ill by 1935. She would have been on her death bed by the time the registration was filled out.

The register shows Mrs. Maria P. Smith at 2235 E. 25th Street, Oakland. Looking down the list you'll see her daughter, Mrs. Mary Souza, and Mary's husband, Tony A. Souza.



That leaves me with a problem. If Maria did register to vote, who allowed her to since she was had no legal status? If Maria didn't fill out the registration, then who did in her name? I'll never know the answer to those questions unless someone wrote a confession in their diary.

Old movies and books portray early women voters as too silly to understand the concept of voting. They are often portrayed as empty headed people who needed a man to tell them how to vote.

What was the reality? I'm not sure. One would have to undertake an extensive survey to figure out how women voted. From the anecdotal information from my own family tree, I'd say women were pretty darn independent. I found many wives registered with a different party than their husbands.

I sometimes wonder if what one says out loud and what one does behind the privacy of the curtain surrounding the voting booth may be two different things. Women may have outwardly feigned naivete about the political process and issues, but they were probably quite savvy--and secretive--about how they voted.

It would be interesting to pursue this line of thought. I bet we'd find women far more independent and opinionated about issues than those old films would lead us to believe.