Clay Bennett

H-Kentucky Sarah "Sallie" Clay Bennett

Archive Item published by KyWoman Suffrage on Friday, February 15, 2019

Project Name: Kentucky Woman Suffrage

Name of Historic Site: Richmond Cemetery

Event(s)/Use associated with woman/group/site: Burial place of Sarah "Sallie" Clay Bennett

County: Madison

Town/City: Richmond

Zip Code: 40475

Street Address: 606 E Main St

Associated Organization: Richmond Cemetery

Years of Importance: 1880-1894 1894-1912 Geographic Location:

Citation: KyWoman Suffrage. Sarah "Sallie" Clay Bennett. H-Kentucky. 02-15-2019. https://networks.h-net.org/sarah-sallie-clay-bennett Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1 H-Kentucky

Your Affiliation: Kentucky Woman Suffrage Project

Additional Comments:

Sallie Clay Bennett (1841-1935) was the daughter of Mary Jane Warfield Clay and sister to Laura Clay and Mary Barr Clay, each members of the suffrage movement. Bennett herself was a prominent member of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association and President of the Madison County Equal Rights Association. She was married to James Bennett of Richmond and together they had five children. As early as 1882 on behalf of the Kentucky Woman Suffrage Association (precursor to KERA) and Madison County ERA, she lobbied together with her sister Mary Barr Clay the judiciary committee of the state Senate - seeking municipal and presidential suffrage, property rights for married women, and guardianship of children. She spoke before the U.S. Senate Committee on Woman Suffrage in 1894 arguing for the rights of both black and white women. She chaired NAWSA's Federal Suffrage Committee, and in 1896 she wrote a political treatise that was presented to Congress by Senator Lindsay and Repreentative McCreary on behalf of the NAWSA, "asking Congress to protect white and black women equally with black men against State denial of the right to vote for members of Congress and the Presidential electors in the States, under the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, in accordance with the combined Minor vs. Happersett and Yarborough decisions of the Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States. (1897 NAWSA Convention Proceedings, 44)" She also wrote private letters to every member of the U.S. Congress, enclosing a copy of the treatise. She sent a copy of the treatise to the editors of newspapers "in every State of the Union" requesting that it be published. She is buried in Section E, Lot 18 of the Richmond Cemetery.

Sarah Lewis “Sallie” Clay Bennett - FindAGrave.com Richmond Cemetery

Reference source of Information: * Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, eds. The History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 3, (Rochester: Charles Mann, 1887), 819. * "Minutes of the Suffrage Convention, January 29, 1897," Proceedings of the Twenty-Ninth Annual Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association at the Central Christian Church... Des Moines, Iowa, January 26th, 27th, 28th, and 29th, 1897, ed. Rachel Foster Avery (Philadelphia: Press of Alfred J. Ferris, [1897]).