Juanita Breckenridge Bates (1860-1946)
Rev. Juanita Breckenridge came to Tompkins County in 1892 to serve as minister of the Brooktondale Congregational Church. She married Frederick Bates, Town of Caroline Supervisor, and relocated to Ithaca where her husband served for a term as mayor. Their home on North Tioga Street served as a hub for women’s activities. As a suffrage leader, Juanita Breckenridge Bates was active in the Political Study Club, City Federation of Women’s Clubs, Ithaca Woman’s Club, and the New York State Woman Suffrage Association. In 1920, she served as the first president of the Tompkins County League of Women Voters..IMAGE: Juanita Breckenridge Bates, portrait courtesy The History Center in Tompkins CountyLISTEN HERE
Lucy Hawley Calkins, 1864-1940
From a reform-minded family, Lucy Calkins came to Ithaca in 1895, when her husband became president of the Ithaca Salt Company, living at 310 N. Albany Street (now demolished). She supported temperance and suffrage, becoming one of the founding members and president of the Political Study Club. Calkins hosted meetings in her home and spoke throughout the county. She was a New York delegate at National American Woman Suffrage meetings in 1898, 1908, and 1913; chaired the Tax Suffrage Standing Committee of the New York State Woman Suffrage Association in 1913; led the Tompkins County Woman Suffrage Association, the Board of Child Welfare, and the City Federation of Women’s Clubs, and was the second president of the Tompkins County League of Women Voters, about which she wrote a short history..IMAGE: Image from 'Achieving Beulah Land' pg. 73 - List of original members of the Political Study Club, March 14th 1899.LISTEN HERE
Carrie E. Bounton, 1853-1917
Carrie E. Richardson moved with her parents from New Hampshire to the Town of Caroline and later taught at Ithaca’s Central School. In 1882 she married DeWitt Bouton, a lawyer and newspaper owner. They lived at 413 N. Cayuga Street. As Mrs. Carrie Bouton, she headed the 1894 Tompkins County Political Equality League and the Tompkins County Temperance Society, and that year attended a meeting in Ithaca with Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other state suffrage leaders in preparation for sending a petition to the New York State Constitutional Convention that would remove the word ‘male’ from the state constitution. That attempt failed. She was committed to social reform, in 1899 leading a campaign against “houses of ill fame” in Ithaca, calling for an end to the practice of shielding men’s identities while jailing women for the crime of prostitution.The Clinton House also played a significant role in the local Women’s Suffrage movement, serving in 1894 as headquarters of the 26th annual convention of the New York State Woman Suffrage Association. (The annual convention of the NYSWSA returned to Ithaca in 1911.) See pages 46-48 of 'Achieving Beulah Land - The Long Struggle for Suffrage in Tompkins County, New York' by Carol Kammen and Elaine D. Engst - pub. Cornell University Library 2019LISTEN HERE
Robert T. Jones, circa 1850-1932
Rev. Robert T. Jones served as pastor of the DeWitt Park Baptist Church from 1880-1915, and welcomed the annual conventions of the New York State Woman Suffrage Association in 1894 and 1911. He delivered the invocation at the 1894 convention and prayers at the 1911 meeting, bold actions in the face of some pastoral opposition. In 1894, as a member of the Tompkins County Political Equality League, Rev. Jones was among those elected to carry the local petition that urged the elimination of the word ‘male’ from the New York State Constitution during the constitutional convention..IMAGE Reverend Robert T. Jones, courtesy The History Center in Tompkins County photograph archivesLISTEN HERE
Cyrus Heizer, 1849-1914
Rev. Cyrus W. Heizer was Minister of the First Unitarian Society of Ithaca from 1901 until his death in 1914. The Unitarian Society was the site of many suffrage meetings, including the 1894 New York State Woman Suffrage Association conference, and significant community meetings thereafter. In 1912, Rev. Heizer preached a series entitled “Let Woman Live Out her Own Life,” voicing impassioned support for women’s equality. “I do not see why we should talk of manhood suffrage or womanhood suffrage. It is human suffrage,” he said. “...Woman’s cause is man’s; they rise and sink together.” Let her make herself her own, he wrote “to give or keep, to live and learn.” His sermon was published in 1913 as a pamphlet for the Equal Suffrage Club..IMAGE NYSWSA Convention in Tompkins County, 1914, Ithaca Journal ArchivesLISTEN HERE
Archives & Research Library - The History Center in Tompkins County
The Cornell Local History Research Library and Archives are a department of The History Center in Tompkins County and are located on the first floor of the Tompkins Center for History & Culture. Our collections contain nearly 100,000 photographs, over 1000 linear feet of archives, genealogy files for over 2,000 Tompkins County families, and 3,500 books relating to the history of Tompkins County. The Cornell Local History Research Library, named in honor of Ezra Cornell, is a place for discovery about Tompkins County's past. Use of the research space and access to archival materials is free to all Tompkins County residents ($10/day for out of county residents). Contact us in advance to see the archival collections used in the research and development of this tour, and to review our Women's Suffrage in Tompkins County collections. Or stop in to explore our current exhibit! Learn more at thehistorycenter.net/exhibit-hall.Related Archival Collections:BOOK - Achieving Beulah Land - The Long Struggle for Suffrage in Tompkins County, New York by Carol Kammen and Elaine D. Engst - pub. Cornell University Library 2019Guide to Women's History Archival Collections and written research - The History Center in Tompkins CountyIthaca Business & Professional Women's Club V-64-2-8Jane Dieckmann Book Research Collection V-64-8-3League of Women Voters Local Records V-63-9-1Mary Raddant Tomlan Collection V-64-4-3Women's Community Building Organizations Collection V-64-2-7
