The Women’s Suffrage Campaign
January 1, 1919.
I dreamt of the broad days planting crops under the western sun. I tended to the fields forty eight years ago in 1871. It is now the year 1919 as I sit and tell the stories of my life to Evelyn Miller, my grandaughter. My name is Pearl Wilson. Ever since I was old enough to understand suffrage, I believed in change. When I was little I had no care of suffrage. I have always lived in Wyoming. Women here are free to do more things than the city women in places like New York. If I had lived in a large city where the buildings touched the clouds, I would have cared much more about the suffrage campaign. The women living in the big cities did not have much freedom. Most women worked in large factories, making goods. Not a woman could hunt, or run a whole farm. Everyone was limited on what they could do.
“You know, Evelyn, us women out here have to work to survive. You will once you are older.”
Whenever I was not working out in the field, I read the news to know what was happening in the east. I was interested in the Women’s Suffrage campaign since I was eighteen. By that time I was starting to get out of the house, and learning to work on the farm. After years of learning my duties, I was experienced with every job possible. Though, I never thought about jobs that women could apply to in the east besides working in factories.
“Who’s going to be President next?” Evelyn asked.
“I don’t know… It’s up to what the men vote on.”
At this period in time women cannot vote. I’ve heard that some people think that if women get the vote they will just listen to their husband’s opinion. Many people are against change, but I think that change is needed.
“We can add more opinions if women can vote.” Evelyn added.
“That is true, but Sometimes I just don’t understand inequality.”
March 22, 1919.
I went to meet my distant neighbors, Josephine Hill, and Edna Richardson. Each morning we talked about the suffrage campaign, and how many women wanted to hold in elective office just like the men could. We had done this since 1890, when the state of Wyoming got full Women’s Suffrage. At the time Josephine was my pen pal, living up in Augusta, Maine. When she heard that Wyoming had full Women’s Suffrage, Josephine wrote me a letter saying that she would move out here to Jackson, Wyoming. Josephine had her mind set on working hard on her husband’s ranch. All she ever wanted was to have equality in the world.
Everyone in Wyoming had large farms, or ranches to tend to, which meant your neighbors were not very close to you. Edna and James Richardson lived about a mile away from our farm. I met her when one of my horses got away. I had left the pen gate open so he ran out to Edna’s farm. The next morning Edna returned him to me. Soon after that all three of us gathered at Josephine’s house to ramble on for hours about the suffrage campaign.
“The Senate needs to approve the nineteenth Amendment!”
“Yes, remember in 1918 the House of Representatives approved, yet the Senate disapproved.”
“People think men are going to lose their jobs!” Edna stated.
“Nonsense,” Josephine retorted.
“We need this vote!”
“I hope that they will pass the Amendment.”
December 31, 1919
Time passed. I lay in my bed ill. Yesterday, I shared my last story with Evelyn. Well, I would not call it a story.
“Evelyn, dear, listen to my word carefully. You must know that I may not live ‘till the nineteenth Amendment is passed, and ratified. Just know in your heart that we are all equal, and that nothing makes one of us more superior than another.”
It was the late afternoon of December thirty first when I passed away. From then on Evelyn waited for the nineteenth Amendment to be passed, and ratified.
Evelyn waited until August 26, 1920, once the nineteenth Amendment had been ratified. This ratification was so important because it gave women the right to vote, and to hold an elective office. The Women’s Suffrage campaign payed off. All the Hills, Richardsons, and Millers celebrated together at Edna’s farm. That night Evelyn lay in her bed thinking of Pearl Wilson.
“We got the vote, grandma,” she whispered.