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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 1, 2020)
A4 THE ASTORIAN • SATuRdAy, AuguST 1, 2020 OPINION editor@dailyastorian.com KARI BORGEN Publisher DERRICK DePLEDGE Editor Founded in 1873 JEREMY FELDMAN Circulation Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN Production Manager CARL EARL Systems Manager GUEST COLUMN The local fight for women’s suffrage newspaper focused on socialism. The Equal Suffrage Amendment, which removed the word “male” from the voting privileges outlined in the Ore- gon Constitution, finally passed on Nov. 5, 1912, after receiving 52% of the male vote. While this amendment extended the vote to the majority of Oregon women, it did not guarantee the right to vote for all Oregon women. People excluded from the full rights of citizenship based upon their race or country of origin were not allowed to vote. This included women who had migrated from Asia and Native American women, except those who were married to white men. I n celebration of the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amend- ment to the U.S. Constitution, it is important to look at the role of Clatsop County in securing this right. When Oregon ratified the 19th Amend- ment granting women suffrage — or the right to vote — on Jan. 12, 1920, Oregon women had already been voting in local and state elections for more than seven years. The efforts of Oregon women to secure their right to vote spanned decades and would include the issue being placed on the ballot a record six times, more than any other state — in 1884, 1900, 1906, 1908, 1910, and finally with the passage of the Oregon Equal Suffrage Amend- ment, in November 1912. Locally, the Clatsop County Equal Rights Association organized in May 1874. From the beginning, both men and women would take prominent roles in the organization. Early Astoria pioneer, Col. James Taylor, was appointed as the group’s first president, and proprietress of a local millinery shop, Hannah M. Morri- son, was elected vice president. Early suffrage efforts in Clatsop County were further boosted by the friendship between Dewitt Clinton Ire- land and Abigail Scott Duniway. Ireland was editor of the local paper, The Weekly Astorian. At the same time, Duniway was a leading Oregon suffragist whose own newspaper, the New Northwest, would become the primary voice of the suf- frage movement throughout the state. Ire- land began reprinting Duniway’s articles in his paper, while also providing a favor- able forum for the Clatsop County Equal Rights Association. Inez Adams Parker, along with her husband, Wilder W. Parker, was a found- ing member of the Clatsop County Equal Rights Association. In the early 1930s, Inez wrote about her husband’s role during the 1884 election that first put the issue of women’s suffrage before Oregon voters. According to Inez, “When the first measure for women’s suffrage was sub- mitted to the voters in Oregon, (Wilder) was one of the three judges of election (as they were then called), and it took them all night to count the votes. When he came home next morning to his break- fast, he casually remarked to me that there were quite a few votes for woman suf- frage and about the same against it, but the majority did not vote on it at all, so I said to the other two judges, ‘Those who failed to vote on it surely could not have been against it, or they would have said so; suppose then that we count all of them for it?’ ‘All right,’ they said and the result was that Clatsop was the only county that gave a majority for it ... the funny thing was the way this county plumed itself afterward on being the most advanced and progressive county in the state — on the strength of that vote.” Whether or not this occurred is unclear. The Daily Astorian’s unofficial results published the day after the election had the measure defeated in the county, with 336 people voting for women’s suffrage and 362 voting against it. The same paper reported less than three weeks later that, “Clatsop is the only county that gave (the vote on women’s suffrage) a majority.” ‘No fear’ Parker’s close friend, Dr. Bethenia Owens-Adair, played a prominent role on both the local and state level in the strug- gle for women’s suffrage. In 1896, Scott Duniway, in her capac- ity as president of the Oregon State Equal Suffrage Association, wrote to Dr. Owens- Adair requesting Owens-Adair’s partic- ipation in the First Oregon Congress of Women, which would feature the national suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony. Owens-Adair had met Anthony previ- ously when, as a single mother and suc- cessful businesswomen, Owens-Adair had been asked to arrange part of Antho- ny’s 1871 speaking tour. This encounter helped embolden Owens-Adair to pursue her interest in medicine, becoming one of the first women in the Pacific Northwest to earn a medical degree. Speaking before the First Oregon Con- gress of Women, Owens-Adair asked those in attendance, “Is there any differ- ence between women’s work and men’s work? Is there anything under the sun that muscle or mind can do that the new woman cannot accomplish? We have no fear that the ‘new woman’ will not find a place in the poet’s theme, as well as in his heart. “She will not cease to be the ‘minis- tering angel,’ the very inspiration of life. Like the fine gold that comes from the furnace, she will come forth, clothed in all the beauty and strength of pure wom- anhood, for she will have been cleansed of the dross of dependence, helplessness A first in Warrenton Photos by Hailey Hoffman/The Astorian ABOVE: Chelsea Vaughn, the curator for the Clatsop County Historical Society, sits in her office in the Heritage Museum. BELOW: Vaughn points out an archived postcard supporting women’s suffrage with ‘Do not do it’ handwritten on the front. Flavel (no middle initial). A widow at the and prejudice of past ages. Indeed, up to time of the letter’s publication, however, the present time, what has man done that she was more commonly referred to as woman could not do or has not done?” Mrs. Mary C. Flavel or Mrs. M. C. Flavel. Often those who supported wom- en’s suffrage were also in favor of tem- The Women’s Suffrage Society of perance, or the prohibition of alcohol, Astoria formed in June 1905 for the pur- pose of collecting signatures to get the creating a common perception that if issue of equal suffrage again on the Ore- women received the right to vote, they gon ballot. Of the 8,000 signatures of would use this power to outlaw alcohol registered voters required statewide, consumption. the Astoria group was assigned 300. Depending upon one’s ideas about This effort was successful, as the ques- alcohol consumption, then, women’s suf- frage was either a good or bad idea. tion of women’s right to vote was again In Astoria, in the late 19th cen- put before Oregon voters in 1906. They tury, an estimated 1,000 regular drink- would remain an active organization ers frequented the local saloons, consum- through the eventual passage of the Ore- ing 22,000 gallons of beer per month. gon equal suffrage bill in 1912. In a town that clearly profited from the Throughout the long battle for voting sale and consumption of alcohol, many equality, notable suffragists included Clat- sop County as part opposed women’s of their broader suffrage for this national tours, very reason. Yet including Clara this connection Bewick Colby, between temper- ance and suffrage publisher of the was not always so nationally distrib- uted newspaper strong. the Women’s Tri- Scott Duniway bune, and Emma — the leading suf- fragist in Oregon Smith DeVoe, — for example, who spearheaded refused to connect the successful the two move- 1910 campaign ments for fear of to win the right alienating support- to vote in Wash- ers. At the same ington state. Both time, Dr. Clarence Colby and DeVoe True Wilson — an visited the area in important member 1906 ahead of that ‘IS THERE ANyTHINg of the temperance year’s statewide movement — vote on women’s uNdER THE SuN THAT opposed granting suffrage. MuSCLE OR MINd CAN women suffrage, Another prom- inent suffragist, as it would extend dO THAT THE NEW Maria Raunio, the vote to, “the WOMAN CANNOT would make Asto- wives, daughters ria her home. and sweethearts of ACCOMPLISH?’ Raunio advo- gamblers, saloon- keepers and the cated for women’s owners of prop- rights in her native erty used for immoral purposes.” Finland, including the right to vote, access to educational opportunities and universal A Flavel protests health care. Finland granted women suf- frage in 1906, becoming the third coun- Many women, themselves, were not try to do so after New Zealand (1893) and interested in securing the right to vote, Australia (1902), and the first to allow with some actively fighting against it. women to hold national public office. The Oregon State Association In 1907, Raunio was elected as a rep- Opposed to the Extension of the Suffrage resentative to the Finnish Parliament to Women issued a statement of protest as a member of the leftist Social Dem- each time the question of women’s suf- ocratic Party. Raunio, along with 18 frage came up for a vote. other women, became part of the earli- Among those signing the protest letter est, democratically-elected national gov- was a “Mrs. George T. Flavel, Astoria.” erning body that allowed women full This is most likely a reference to Win- ona Flavel, wife of George Conrad Fla- membership. Upon immigrating to Asto- ria in 1911, Raunio continued her politi- vel, as her legal name at the time would cal activities, becoming the first editor for have been Mrs. George C. Flavel. Wino- na’s mother-in-law, Mary Christina Fla- the Toveritar (The Woman Comrade) — vel, would also have gone by Mrs. George a nationally-distributed, Finnish-language On Dec. 18, 1912, voters in Warrenton chose Clara “Callie” Munson as their new mayor over her male rival by a margin of 16 votes, making Munson the first woman to hold elected office in Oregon following the passage of the Equal Suffrage Amend- ment the previous month. The state newspaper noted that her election, “establishes a precedent for equal suffrage states, as it is but a little more than a month that women have had the ballot in Oregon.” Of the 65 people who voted in this election, approximately one-third were women, though, importantly, not all of the women who voted did so for Mun- son. Some women actually voted against her because of her gender, believing it improper for women to hold elected office. This was Warrenton’s second spe- cial election since the passage of the equal suffrage law. During the first special election, Munson’s 71-year-old mother, Sophia Munson, became the first woman to vote legally in Clatsop County and one of the first women to vote in the state. In 1982, Astoria elected Edith Hen- ningsgaard (later Henningsgaard-Miller) as the city’s first female mayor. Much of Henningsgaard’s appeal, and actual efforts, centered on her inter- est in revitalizing Astoria’s historic dis- tricts and courting tourism as a new mon- etary source for the town. This involved creating a plan to reimagine the use of Astoria’s riverfront properties, eventually creating the riverwalk district, and begin- ning efforts to restore the then-60-year- old Astoria Column, with Henningsgaard serving as a founding member of the Friends of the Astoria Column. Henningsgaard’s successes would aid other women in their ventures into local politics, culminating in the first-ever female majority on Astoria’s City Council in 2014 with the election of longtime city councilor Arline LaMear as the city’s sec- ond female mayor, alongside councilors Zetty Nemlowill and Cindy Price. In 1986, Janet Stevenson became the last mayor of Hammond before the small town at the mouth of the Columbia River was absorbed into nearby Warrenton in 1991. Stevenson had a significant political and literary career before taking on may- oral duties. In Clatsop County, she served as a founding member of the North Coast Women’s Political Caucus — the local chapter of the National Women’s Polit- ical Caucus that was formed by such iconic women as Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisholm and Bella Abzug. Stevens was also a noted playwright and novelist. Her last novel, “The Slope,” offered a fiction- alized accounting of Owens-Adair’s time living and practicing medicine in Clatsop Plains. On the state level, local business- woman Mary Strong Kinney became, in 1920, one of the first women elected to serve in the Oregon State Legislature. Her prior political experience included serving as the president of the Women’s Suffrage Society of Astoria during the lead-up to the 1912 passage of the Equal Suffrage Amendment. Kinney proved so successful as a legis- lator that voters in Clatsop County elected her to represent them in the state Senate in 1922, where she served during the 1923 and 1925 sessions. After Kinney, it would be 65 years before area residents selected another woman to represent them on the state level. In 1990, voters sent Jackie Taylor — an Astoria resident and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation — to Salem, where she would spend a decade serving as a state representative. Since Taylor’s election, Clatsop County voters have overwhelmingly voted for female candidates, including Joan Dukes and Betsy Johnson to the state Senate and Elaine Hopson, Deborah Boone and Tiffiny Mitchell to the state House. Chelsea Vaughn is curator at the Clat- sop County Historical Society. This article originally appeared in Cumtux, the soci- ety’s quarterly journal.
