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Santa Clara University Scholar Commons History College of Arts & Sciences Summer 2019 Belle La Follette’s Fight for Women’s Suffrage: Losing the Battle for iW sconsin, Winning the War for the Nation Nancy C. Unger Santa Clara University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/history Part of the American Politics Commons, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Legal History Commons, Political History Commons, United States History Commons, and the Women's History Commons Recommended Citation Unger, N. (2019). Belle La Follette’s Fight for Women’s Suffrage: Losing the Battle for iW sconsin, Winning the War for the Nation. Wisconsin Magazine of History, 102(4), 28–41. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Arts & Sciences at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in History by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WHI IMAGE ID 11701 ID IMAGE WHI Belle La Follette’s FIGHT FOR WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE Losing the Battle for Wisconsin, Winning the War for the Nation BY NANCY C. UNGER 28 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY century ago, on May 21, 1919, the US suffrage amendment [because of] your smart mother.” House of Representatives voted difini- Belle La Follette, worried that Illinois would “try to tively (304 to 89) in support of women’s steal first honors,” had wired representatives in her suffrage. Two weeks later, Wisconsinite home state to be sure that Wisconsin acted as quickly BelleA La Follette sat in the visitors’ gallery of the US as possible.2 Former state senator David James, whose Senate chamber. She “shed a few tears” when it was daughter Ada had been a leader in the state’s crusade, announced that, by a vote of 56 to 25, the US Senate was hailed by Belle as “the gallant, veteran courier” also approved the Nineteenth Amendment, sending it for delivering the papers to the state department just on to the states for ratification.1 For Belle La Follette, moments ahead of the messenger from Illinois.3 As this thrilling victory was the culmination of a decades- soon as a telegram of confirmation was received, long fight. Six days later, her happiness turned to reported Bob, “I went on the floor and had it read elation when Wisconsin became the first state to into the [Congressional] Record. Mamma and all deliver a certification of ratification. Her husband, of us feel good, you bet.”4 Senator Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette, confided Belle Case La Follette speaks with characteristic vigor for women’s to their children that Wisconsin “beat ’em to it on the suffrage at the Fox River Fair during the 1912 Wisconsin campaign. SUMMER 2019 29 Wisconsin held its first state- wide suffrage convention, a gathering attended by national WHI IMAGE ID 35075 ID IMAGE WHI leaders Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Many Wisconsin women promoted a combination of temperance and suffrage, earning the staunch opposition of the state’s beer- drinking population as well as its powerful brewing inter- ests. More acceptable to male policy makers were women who proclaimed themselves bent only on improving public schools. This goal did not inter- fere with local alcohol produc- tion or consumption, and it was more in keeping with women’s traditional and non–politically Former state senator David G. James (R-Richland Center, 1908–1912) celebrates with suffrage threatening interest in child- supporters outside the National Women’s Party building in Washington, DC, after delivering hood education. Wisconsin’s ratification papers, likely June 13, 1919. The Wisconsin Women’s Suffrage Association (WWSA), “It was no mere state pride that caused me to thrill with established in 1882 as the successor to the WSASW, began joy,” Belle La Follette insisted when she recalled the incident an all-out suffrage campaign in 1884. The following year in La Follette’s Magazine (published today as The Progres- the state legislature, ceding the argument that children’s sive), but rather “the conviction that a great service had issues were the rightful domain of women, passed a law been rendered. With Wisconsin as an example . ratifying (contingent upon voter approval) allowing women to run so speedily, almost unanimously, the opposition was . left for school boards and other elective school offices, and to dashed and hopeless at the very start!”5 It was a triumph that vote in “any election pertaining to school matters.” This contrasted sharply with the resounding defeat of women’s law, known as “school suffrage,” was approved by popular suffrage in Wisconsin in 1912 following an exhaustive state- vote in 1886, but Wisconsin women lost even this limited wide crusade in which she had played a leading role. The suffrage in 1888.7 story of the two campaigns, the first a statewide failure and the second a national victory, reveals the dramatic changes emerging in the state and in the nation during the intervening seven years and highlights the role of Belle La Follette as a key player in the charge that led to the Nineteenth Amendment WHI IMAGE ID115805 to the US Constitution. Wisconsin’s Early Suffrage Efforts Suffrage was a contentious issue in Wisconsin. When state- hood was achieved in 1848, the framers of the constitution denied African American men the franchise, a decision that was overturned when black Milwaukee resident Ezekiel Gillespie sued the state in 1866.6 The framers also rejected efforts to grant married women property or voting rights. Attempts to push through suffrage bills in 1855 and 1856 were quickly quashed, giving rise to women’s rights groups Ada James of Richland Center, daughter of state senator in the late 1860s. In 1869, the Woman Suffrage Associa - David James, was a leader for decades in Wisconsin’s fight for tion of the State of Wisconsin (WSASW) was formed and women’s suffrage. 30 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY Once her husband became governor in 1900, Belle to take up physical exercise and work outside the home, and La Follette began to use her influence to build on the promoting women’s clubs as important ways to contribute to momentum for women’s suffrage established by a plethora civic life and reform. When, after three terms as governor, of state leaders, most notably Ada James of Richland Center Bob La Follette was elected to the US Senate in 1906, his and Theodora Winton Youmans of Waukesha. Governor wife despaired of the way club women in the nation’s capital La Follette, who openly referred to his wife as “my wisest resisted civic engagement. She rather tartly reminded her and best counselor,” appointed women to state boards and sisters in Washington’s official life, “We are not supposed to commissions.8 In 1901, separate ballots were authorized for belong to the butterfly and parasitic class.”13 Beginning in school-related issues, reinstating and regularizing women’s 1909, her own widening circle of activities came to include voting. As the state’s First Lady, Belle urged Wisconsin writing the Home and Education column for La Follette’s women to make the most of their limited suffrage: “Be sure to Magazine, an enterprise dear to her husband’s heart but one vote for State Superinten- dent of Public Instruction even if you cannot vote for other officers. Don’t fold your talent in a napkin. If you vote when you have an opportunity, the opportu- nities increase.”9 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS LC-DIG-DS-05722 CONGRESS OF LIBRARY The Making of a Suffragist Belle La Follette’s belief in the rightness, and the neces- sity, of votes for women was unwavering. Born Isabelle Case on April 21, 1859, in Summit, Wisconsin, she grew up on her fami- ly’s farm in Baraboo. Her mother, deeply moved after hearing minister and physi- cian Anna Howard Shaw’s promotion of women’s right Belle La Follette was the first woman to graduate from the University of Wisconsin Law School. to vote, told young Belle She poses here with the other members of the class of 1885. that she felt “very indignant” that women did not have the same rights as men.10 Belle’s she found a drain on their energy and finances. Nevertheless, brother stated matter-of-factly, “I do not see any reason why her weekly column gave her new opportunities to campaign I should vote if Belle doesn’t.”11 Belle La Follette’s confidence for women’s suffrage. in women’s political power was reinforced during her years at the University of Wisconsin, where she had the opportunity Campaign Strategies to hear not only Anna Howard Shaw but also Elizabeth Cady Belle La Follette knew that many men opposed votes for Stanton, Julia Ward Howe, Susan B. Anthony, and Carrie women because they believed it would distract them from Chapman Catt. She revered these early suffrage advocates, the domestic world of home, husband, and children that later noting gratefully, “We stand on their shoulders.”12 should be every woman’s sole concern. Moreover, they Belle La Follette’s status as the first woman to graduate believed, the natural forces that rendered women so attuned from the University of Wisconsin Law School (an achieve- to domestic tasks left them ill-suited for the complex hurly ment fulfilled after she became a wife and mother) cemented burly of politics, a world that encompassed economics, busi- her belief that women were being held back by custom rather ness, and other subjects too sophisticated for the emotional than lack of innate ability. While supportive of her husband’s and sentimental female mind.

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