Needham History: “To Rule with Gentle Hand”

“Just so let women have the right, to rule with gentle hand…”

Twin Oaks, the home of Eliza LaCroix, overlooking Rosemary Lake. The Needham Women Suffrage Club was organized here in 1873, and the anniversary picnic was held on its grounds.

“To Rule with Gentle Hand…”

A few years ago, we had a program for fifth graders that reproduced a Needham Town Meeting in 1775. The children were given two actual articles from the 1775 Warrant, with information on the pros and cons, and they were expected to form an opinion that they brought to debate in the class Town Meeting. We also provided them with the names and some facts about Needham people who would have sat in TM in 1775, and they got to choose a character. The boys went on with their choices, but the girls would sit silent for a while, until one would look up and ask: “Where are the girls’ names?” Well, I would explain, today you have to pretend to be a boy, because in 1775 women were not allowed to vote or speak in Town Meeting. As soon as I said that, I could see their eyes go wide: “That’s not FAIR!”

I think that, with relatively little effort, you can make a credible argument that the great engine of social progress is female indignation – the build-up of “that’s not fair” moments that finally become too much to accept. Certainly, the ultimate success of the women’s suffrage movement owed much to this impulse. This was certainly a part of how Needham responded to the national debate, and how our citizens and our leaders, and even a few surprising allies, took part.

The Needham Women Suffrage Club was organized on June 12, 1873 at Twin Oaks, the stately home of Eliza and Edmund LaCroix (on what is now Tamarack Lane off Garden Street). Its initial membership was 52 people – 37 women and 15 men. The Club was formed, as its constitution states: “to labor for the Suffrage of women.” Its members included descendants of Needham’s oldest families as well as more recent arrivals. Membership was open to anyone, men and women, as long as they were over 15 years old, possessed of good moral character, and paid the 25 cents annual dues.

For the Club’s first anniversary, in June 1874, a picnic was held at the LaCroix’s estate. 200 guests enjoyed a lavish meal on the estate’s lawns. In addition to the local speakers, there were also prominent speakers from the Boston area, and an address by the nationally-known activist Lucy Stone. The picnic was not only an event for celebration, but also a means of publicizing the cause. The League would eventually have about 130 paid members, and by 1885 was considered the second-largest suffrage club in MA.

However strongly pro-suffrage women might have believed in the justice, and in the common sense, of their cause, it was not really other women they had to convince – it was men. Ultimately, the success of the suffrage campaign would have to be at the ballot box.

Suffragists mustered numerous arguments in favor of voting rights – calculated to appeal to the patriotic, the rational, and the sentimental sides of men’s nature. The patriotic argument – “Taxation without representation is tyranny,” was the most often used. Women need and want to fulfill their civic duty. They are called up to help in times of war, but are not allowed to serve their community in times of peace.

There was the Gentle Hand argument – the compassion and virtue that a good woman brings to keeping her home and family would be a beneficial addition to the public sphere. As an anonymous letter writer to the Needham Chronicle observed: “When [suffrage] was done, temperance and peace would be promoted, and society at large would benefit.” Or, as Needham’s George Avery wrote in his extremely bad hymn to women suffrage:

“Just so let women have the right, to rule with gentle hand,
to take the station she may choose, to preach, to vote, command.
May not our laws be just and strict, our politics more pure….”

Finally, the Intelligent Beings argument – society was wasting the skills and knowledge of half its population: “First,” as writer ADP wrote to the Needham Chronicle, “because [women] are intelligent human beings and as such are bound to share the cares and responsibilities that affect the general good… Secondly, because their occupations are different, and therefore with their aid a more satisfactory result would be in many cases obtained than by men working alone…” Concluding, “Women should vote because we cannot afford to throw away one-half of the nation. It is bad economy.”

And of course – It’s Not Fair. Would men put up with this situation? Did working men feel that they could protect themselves without the right to vote? Did business men feel that they could protect themselves against adverse legislatures? Or fight against corrupt politicians? Or protect their interests and property without the right to vote? If men would not put up with this, why do they expect women to?

Although full suffrage was the goal, there were more incremental steps that helped to pave the way. In 1879, MA extended women the right to vote in School Committee elections. This may seem like a small step, but it was a step. Education had long since been considered the province of women, a part of their responsibility to successfully raise their children, to guide their moral outlook, and to raise the next generation of citizens for our democracy.

But Needham’s registration was disappointing. Of the 61 women eligible to register, fewer than 15 did. The 37+ women of the Suffrage Club were notable by their absence – only a couple of them registered. Perhaps they resented being offered only crumbs. Perhaps they felt that it just wasn’t fair – “When the suffrage has been extended to men, they have been allowed to vote for officers from President down to pathmaster, but women have been treated as though they were children, given only the privilege of voting for School Committee…” an anonymous correspondent wrote to the Needham Chronicle in 1884.

But the Needham Suffrage League toiled on. They held meetings, they wrote letters. Of course, they raised money. Some part of their dues went up the chain to the MA suffrage organization. Other money was raised through social events, tea parties, cookbooks, concerts, bazaars, and debates. And they politicked – oh, did they. Letters to elected representatives, expressing their views, and also thanking them for their support – putting them on notice that women were watching, and talking to each other.

Every one of the events and projects carried out by the Suffrage League was an opportunity to spread the word – for suffrage surely, but also for temperance, property rights, and other important issues. Suffrage, after all, was just one category under the heading of Equal Rights – but it was the means by which the other rights would be obtained. The political savvy that these women used to further the suffrage cause did not arise out of nowhere. By the late 19th century, women had had decades of experience in social activism, from Abolition to the fights over temperance and Prohibition. Organized in the churches, and further sanctified by embodying the female virtues of compassion, domesticity, and moderation – these fights had taught women how to wield their unique weapons in this new fight.

The banner of the Needham Women Suffrage Club, founded 1873. This banner was conserved and reframed in 2020 thanks to generous donations from the Needham League of Women Voters and the Needham Women’s Club. It is currently on display at the Needham History Center.

Needless to say, like all other towns, Needham was divided on this issue. In fact, suffrage sympathy was in the minority, opposed by about 60%. And in addition to the Needham Women Suffrage League, there was a just-as-active Needham Chapter of the Massachusetts Anti-Suffrage Association.

This opposition was just as dedicated in its own way, and these people were not slackers. The Needham Anti-Suffrage Association pushed back on both the Intelligent Beings and the Patriotism arguments: “Mr Voter! Remember – that woman suffrage has produced no reform in social conditions; no laws to regulate woman or child labor; no improved corporation legislation; no prison reforms; no health reforms; no purification in politics; no increase in wages in any of the states that have granted it that has not been equaled or surpassed in Man Suffrage states.”

But there were also other reasons – women’s reasons. There were a significant number of women who opposed suffrage, and not because they shrank from public involvement, but because they sought it – albeit on other terms. It is easy to dismiss anti-suffrage women as either downtrodden and ignorant drudges dominated by their husbands, or as upper-class matrons who did not relish the prospect of equality with the lower classes. In fact, this is not where most of the opposition came from. Research on the writings of anti-suffragists in the early 20th century showed that most were well-educated and progressive women who were socially active, and engaged many of the same reform causes as the suffragists. These women had built up their networks through social clubs and civic associations, and they saw the women’s vote as a threat to these associations. Without the vote, their views gained credibility and influence because they were disinterested and non-partisan. They also feared that women’s progress in areas such as labor rights, and the fragile new woman and child labor laws that limited the length of the work day, could be reversed by the right to vote. You can’t make the argument that women deserve special consideration because of their frailty, and also argue that they are equal.

So, the movement grew slowly. By 1914, it had been 41 years since the so-optimistic founding of the Needham Women Suffrage Club. Most of its founders had passed away without seeing more prospects for success than the school committee vote. Then, in March 1914, the MA Legislature passed a bill to allow women statewide suffrage. The bill carried both houses by significant majorities – by 81% in the House and by 92% in the Senate. The MA Women Suffrage Association staged a huge Victory Parade in Boston to celebrate and to garner support for the Constitutional fight to follow.

Then on the following November 2nd was the first of two successive referenda to amend the state’s constitution by deleting the word “male” from the voting rights article. Needham’s pro- and anti-suffrage organizations both stepped into the campaign. On October 26, the pro-Suffrage forces held a rally in Town Hall in support of the amendment. More than 500 people attended to hear the speakers, which included William Lloyd Garrison Jr, grandson of the great reformer and abolitionist. The rally was organized by the new Needham Men’s League for Equal Suffrage. On the following night, October 27, 500 people gathered in Town Hall to hear speakers who opposed the amendment, in a rally sponsored by the Needham Anti-Suffrage Association. Nevertheless, the vote failed in MA – Tewksbury was the only town to pass it. In Needham, the referendum failed by a vote of 595 to 389, or 60.5%.

“Equal Suffrage not yet Dead in Needham – prominent townspeople unabashed by election result and plan active work,” proclaimed the Needham Chronicle. Like every other pro-suffrage organization in MA, the Needham Woman Suffrage League and the Needham Men’s League for Equal Suffrage went back to the drawing board. More canvassing, buttonholing politicians, strategy meetings, and social teas. This time, however, they set their sights higher – away from MA and toward the federal government in Washington DC.

The Needham Chronicle reports, albeit reluctantly, on the registration of woman voters.

An amendment to the federal constitution to extend the vote to women was introduced into Congress in 1917 by Senator Aaron Sargent of CA. Sargent’s bill ignited a new and more confrontational wave of suffrage protests, as the Silent Sentinels chained themselves to the White House fences, followed by the widely-condemned spectacle of them being arrested and maltreated.

Also, the country had just entered World War 1, and President Wilson was facing a difficult re-election race. Wilson’s support for suffrage was mediocre at best, but he knew where his interests lay. The amendment bill had passed in the House of Representatives – by one scant vote, said (here, at any rate) to be that of William Henry Carter, Representative from Needham. Wilson then made an unprecedented appearance in the Senate to argue for the bill, tying women’s right to vote directly to the War: “Shall we admit them only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil and not to a partnership of privilege and right?” It took at least six votes in the Senate before the proposed Amendment passed and went to the states for ratification.

And the rest is history. Tennessee became the thirty-sixth state to ratify the amendment and on August 18, 1920, equal suffrage became the law. And thanks to the intrepid Needham Chronicle, we can see how Needham reacted:

August 21st – just three days later: “Madam and Miss must not miss the Registrars. The Needham Registrars of Voters… all nice, likeable fellows, each and all of them are ready to receive, not with open arms, perhaps, but with courtesy and professional skill in enrolling voters, each and every woman who wants to get her name on the register… So now it’s up to the women, whom equal suffrage advocates have often asserted, and others have hoped, would answer to the need for powerful agencies to combat the encircling forces of evil that prey upon society…” Chronicle editor George W Southworth clearly did not approve, though his son Winthrop was a member of the Men’s League. And as owner, editor, and sole writer, Southworth could and did say whatever he wanted. But whether George Southworth liked it or not, Needham women rushed to take advantage of their new right to vote.

The following week, August 28th: “Women crowd the Registrar’s office. The women flocked to the Registrar’s Wednesday night, drawn by the lure of the chance to go to the poles [sic] and be real politicians, like the people went to Ponzi in the former days drawn by investment possibilities. Many became tired of waiting in the double line that formed and decided that “Home Sweet Home” was better than a chance of voting at the primaries.”

However, they did come back, because the following week, the Chronicle reported that more than 350 women registered on the last day, and there were still others who were waiting when registration closed. In all, roughly 700 Needham women registered to vote in their first opportunity.

Two weeks later, on September 11th, the headline: “Women Slightly Better Voters than the Men.” On September 7th, the state primary and the first actual election in which women could vote, 204 women cast a ballot – 29% of the registered total. They edged out the men’s participation by 2%.

Unfortunately, we get no celebratory word from the Needham Woman Suffrage Club. The last recorded minutes we have from them dates to January 14, 1918 – “There followed a lengthy discussion of the Suffrage Amendment. Plans were formulated for a food sale. There was continued discussion of a letter sent to Hon. William H. Carter in Washington, urging him to vote for the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. Meeting adjourned.”

However, in 1931, Theresa Dubois, last president of the League, donated its records to the Needham Historical Society with the note: “The Society placed its records in the keeping of the Society, since, having accomplished its object, its work was completed.”

So, congratulations to Theresa Dubois, and Anna Kingsbury and Sarah Kingsbury and Mariana Fuller and Eliza LaCroix and all, and to the women and men who stood by them, and the Needham legislators who voted in support. They stuck it out for 47 long years to see this through.

But, we haven’t solved all the problems of the world yet, and there are new fights to come, So, on behalf of ourselves and little girls everywhere – stay indignant.

The Needham Historical Society’s acquisition card for the Records of the Needham Woman Suffrage Club, bearing the note, “having accomplished its object, its work was completed.”

Gloria Polizzotti Greis is the Executive Director of the Needham History Center & Museum. For more information, please see their website at www.needhamhistory.org.