One Hundred Years

August 18th marks the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote. Women had been voting in state and local elections in some states for decades, but not in national elections. Women could now vote in national elections in all states. Good thing, because Virginia did not ratify until 1952. By then, Virginia women not only voted, they ran for office and were elected.

Just north of our area, the facility once known as the Lorton Reformatory, was the location where suffragettes were held after being arrested for protesting in Washington, DC. The women went on a hunger strike and were force fed. The prison, now the Workhouse Arts Center, is used for performing arts, exhibitions and education. Most of the credit for this transformation goes to the late Irma Clifton (1942 - 2019), a Falmouth resident who worked as property manager at the prison. Irma realized the importance of the history, fought to preserve the solid brick buildings and lived to see it become an innovative community space.

Although our area was not a hotbed of suffragism, women did participate. In 1943, an attorney, Dorothy Vaughn McCormick Powell (1893 - 1969) ran for State delegate. She lost by only 52 votes. Over time, women have made their marks. Residents have elected women to their boards of supervisors, the city council and school boards. Fredericksburg currently has a woman mayor, Mary Katherine Greenlaw and a Commonwealth's Attorney, LaBravia Jenkins.

We've come a long way since it was news when women registered to vote. In the weeks following the ratification of the 19th Amendment, local papers published the names of the women who had registered and kept a running count. An unsubstantiated story was that the Stafford County Registrar refused to allow women to register. If anyone has any documentation of this, let us know.

Now women voters make up over 50 percent of the registered voters and tend to vote more than their male counterparts. It will be interesting to see if this holds true in the upcoming elections.

Beth Daly