In this episode, Cynthia Holmes and Elyssa Ford discuss the suffrage battle at sites in Missouri. 

• Virginia and Francis Minor were a St. Louis power couple determined to get votes for women and took their case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided citizenship did not mean the right to vote. 
• Anna Holland Jones was an African American activist who in August 1915 wrote an article entitled, “Woman Suffrage and Social Reform” in which she asked the question, why should a woman “not have the legal means – the ballot – to widen and deepen her work?”
• Alma Nash and the Missouri Women’s Military Band energetically supported women’s suffrage and travelled to Washington D.C. for the 1913 parade and were moved to the lead to open the way for marchers.  
• The Golden Lane Parade in 1916 saw 7,000 women lining the streets of St. Louis during the Democratic National Convention and silently staring-down the delegates as they walked from their hotels to the convention to illustrate how women had been silenced by the continued denial of the vote. 

About our Guests

   Cynthia Holmes is an attorney in St. Louis serving families and small businesses and is the State Coordinator for the National Votes for Women Trail. 

   Dr. Elyssa Ford is a professor of history at Northwest Missouri State University. She is a scholar of gender and sexuality with a focus on the West. Her first book Rodeo as Refuge, Rodeo as Rebellion: Gender, Race, and Identity in the American Rodeo looks at race- and group-specific rodeos across the US, and her second book Slapping Leather: Queer Cowfolx at the Gay Rodeo traces the history of gay rodeo in the United States as a site of queer activism and contestation. As a public historian, she is committed to local history and has written extensively on the Midwest and Northwest Missouri, including an article on women’s suffrage for the National Park Service.

Links to People, Places, Publications

Missouri & the 19th Amendment (here)

Virgina Minor Biographical Sketch (here)

Visit the Minor historical marker (here)

Anna Holland Jones Biographical Sketch (here) 

Visit the Jones historical marker (here)

Alma Nash Biographical Sketch (here)

Visit the Nash historical marker (here)

The Golden Lane March of 1916 (here)

Visit Golden Lane historical marker (here)

CM Marihugh is a public history consultant and currently conducting independent research for a book on commemoration of the U.S. women’s suffrage movement. She has an M.A. in Public History from State University of New York, and an M.B.A. from Dartmouth College.

Learn more about:

• National Votes for Women Trail (here)
• National Votes for Women Trail - William G. Pomeroy historical markers (here)
• National Collaborative for Women’s History Sites (here)

Do you have a question, comment, or suggestion? Get in touch! Send an e-mail to [email protected]