Kate Kelly

The other day I came across a great website that I want to share with you. Next autumn (2012), the state of Oregon will celebrate the centennial of women gaining the right to vote. To mark this occasion, a consortium of history professionals has put together a wonderful website to serve as a resource on women and suffrage.

As you may know, most of the west had given women the right to vote before the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, which provided for women’s suffrage nationally. Oregon had brought suffrage for women to a vote five times previously, but as they approached 1912, the supporters felt they had momentum. Oregon’s neighboring states–Washington, Idaho, and California–had all given women the right to vote; Oregonians felt November 1912 would be their time.

It was. By a vote of 52 percent in favor, the word “male” was removed from the paragraph describing voting privileges in the Oregon constitution. Ethnic and racial barriers still remained: first-generation women (and men) who migrated from Asia were prohibited from becoming naturalized citizens and could not cast a ballot. Native American women, except those married to white men, were also ineligible for U.S. citizenship until federal legislation in 1924.

Check out the Oregon Century of Action site, and for more on women’s suffrage read Penny Colman’s book, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: A Friendship that Changed the World. (Read more about it here.) Or for more information, read “Little-Remembered Stories of Women and the Vote.”

The reason I so enjoy maintaining this website is because I always learn something new–and its usually something quite different from what I expected to learn. This month’s newsletter is no exception.

Autumn means the start of a new school year for families, so the subject of the newsletter revolves around school. When I think of my own childhood I remember the Dick and Jane readers, so you’ll find interesting information about these books that were a part of so many childhoods. But the second story–about handwriting–was the one that really fascinated me! My parents used to talk about learning the Palmer handwriting method, and in reading about Palmer, I was struck by how very important handwriting was in business up until about the 1950s when office typewriters became more plentiful. Up until that time, legibility and speed-of-writing really mattered. That concept seems so foreign in a world where even our phones have keyboards!

If you’re on the American Snapshots mailing list, you’ll get your newsletter on Friday. If not, then take a peek at what I learned about “Reading, Writing, and ‘Rithmetic.”

And please write and tell me your favorite book from childhood. I’d love to know: [email protected].