Women’s Suffrage History at the Governor’s Mansion

As the Territorial and State Capital; Olympia and Thurston County were central to the history of women’s right to vote.  Activist women gained the vote and women were and continue to be leaders in local governments and tribes. Washington’s governors, First Ladies and even the Governor’s Mansion were central to the suffrage movement.

The first women’s rights convention, held at Seneca New York 1848, was a public call for voting rights for women.  After Washington Territory was created in 1853, the first Washington Territorial Legislature in 1854 considered enacting women’s suffrage. House member Arthur A. Denny introduced an amendment for women’s suffrage to a pending voting bill and the amendment failed by only one vote.

Following new laws in the Washington Territory and the post-Civil War U.S. Constitutional amendments regarding the rights of citizens—some Thurston County women were determined to go to the polls without waiting for legislative action to empower them to vote. In 1870 activist women, led by sisters Mary Olney Brown and Emily Olney French, went to the polls.  Fifteen women cast their ballots and had them accepted at Grand Mound and Littlerock (Black River) in southern Thurston County. However women who tried to vote in Olympia were turned away from the polls.

In 1871, the national suffragist, Susan B. Anthony came to the northwest accompanied by suffrage advocate Abigail Scott Duniway from Oregon.  They visited several cities and  addressed the Territorial Legislature in session in Olympia.

In 1883, the legislature enacted women’s right to vote in Washington Territory; only women in Wyoming and Utah had the right to vote before Washington women, including African-American women, after the Civil War.

Reflecting concern about women serving on juries when they gained the right to vote, lawsuits were brought to invalidate the suffrage law.  The Territorial Supreme Court revoked suffrage in 1887 because of a technicality in the enacting clause.  In 1888 the Washington Legislature re-enacted the suffrage law with an appropriate title. However, that same year the Territorial Supreme Court decided another suffrage case, again invalidating women’s right to vote.

When Washington was poised to became a state in 1889, suffragists made concerted effort to include woman suffrage in the body of the constitution which was ratified. However women’s voting was a separate issue on the ballot which lost by a substantial margin as did another ballot issue—prohibition.  Washington came into the union as a non-suffrage state.  In 1898 male voters turned down a suffrage amendment to the Washington constitution.

In 1909 suffragists were in Olympia to lobby the legislature for another try at a constitutional amendment.  May Arkwright Hutton and Emma Smith DeVoe led the lobbying efforts.  The Governor’s Mansion was at the center of the debate when suffragists used the occasion of the housewarming for the new residence on January 28, 1909 as an opportunity to persuade legislators who were present to vote for the amendment.

The suffragists were eventually successful and the amendment was passed on to male voters for