More than 100 years ago, four Portland women stood up against voting inequality and called for citizenship rights for women. Abigail Scott Duniway, Maria Hendee, M.A. Lambert and Mary Beatty campaigned across Oregon, raising awareness of the Woman Suffrage Movement throughout the U.S. Their campaign suffered censure from liquor lobbyists and other anti-suffrage groups, but they continued on, rallying for fairness. In November 1912, Oregon voters granted women—by 52 percent— the right to vote.
This year marks the Oregon Women’s Suffrage Centennial, and in recognition of the movement Portland State will host “Nothing Will Settle It But Victory” on Wednesday as a part of the Faculty Favorite Series. It will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Women’s Resource Center and is open to the public. Janice Dilg, independent historian and PSU Capstone instructor, will speak at the event, discussing the decades-long battle Oregon women and men waged to extend voting rights to women.
“Many people, but particularly young adults, are unaware that women did not always have the same rights as men in this country, or how long and hard they struggled to gain those basic rights of citizenship,” Dilg said.
According to PSU’s website, “Dilg’s research interests focus on women and labor in the Pacific Northwest in the early 20th century.” Her have been featured in publications such as the Oregon Historical Quarterly. She the oral history project for the U.S. District Court of Oregon Historical Society and serves as the project director for of “Action: Oregon Women Vote, 1912–2012.”
Dilg, who received her master’s degree in history from PSU, views the history of women suffrage as essential, “because without that knowledge, it is difficult to understand contemporary arguments about women’s rights, in this country and around the world. There are countries in the world today that restrict women’s right to vote, to work, to hold elective office, and we need to remember that those same discriminatory practices occurred in this country at one point.”
Women across the nation were granted the right to vote in 1920 when the 19th Amendment to the Constitution prohibited any state from denying citizens the right to vote based on their sex. For suffragists like Duniway, who at age 79 co-signed Oregon’s Equal Suffrage Proclamation, the battle for citizenship had just begun.
“I don’t want students to romanticize the suffragists and their actions, but to really think about what they were saying, what their actions led to, and how much they persevered to achieve their goals,” Dilg said.
She explained that 19th century suffragists understood that the right to vote was only a stepping stone for becoming full-fledged citizens. “Running for elective office, being able to serve on juries, and voting for laws that directly affected women were the goals they aspired to achieve, and did achieve over time,” Dilg said.
Since the suffrage movement, women have taken prominent roles in Oregon’s state legislature. Betty Roberts became Oregon’s first female State Supreme Court justice in 1982 and Kate Brown currently serves as Oregon’s state secretary. However, there’s still room for growth: only a third of Oregon’s lawmakers are female, and only woman has been elected governor in Oregon’s history. Currently, both of Oregon’s senators are male and only eight of Oregon’s 30 state senators are women.
“So many of the contributions and accomplishments that women have made in this country have been overlooked,” said Malika Edden, empowerment project coordinator of the WRC. “This month gives us time to pause and celebrate.”