historical perspective
100 Years of Women’s Suffrage
A
n opinion piece published a century ago in a September 1920 issue of the Milford Citizen predicted that few Milford women would likely act on their newly acquired right to vote.
also included a color guard made up of local Cub and Girl Scouts, a speech by CT Secretary of State Denise Merrill, and Milford Council on Aging chairwoman Lillian Holmes speaking
“Milford women have never shown
which gave women the long overdue right to
passionately about the legacy and impact of
much of a desire to vote,” the unnamed
vote, Mayor Ben Blake established a Milford
suffrage on women of color. “Despite the 19th
author wrote, “and there is doubt expressed
Suffrage Centennial Committee designed to
Amendment, many women of color found
as to whether the rights given them will
celebrate this historic anniversary and the role
themselves unable to vote—disenfranchised by
include many of them to assume what was
Milford residents played in helping make the
racist politics—until the passage of the Voting
heretofore been the masculine prerogative
19th Amendment a reality.
Rights Act of 1965,” Holmes said.
and go to the polls and declare their choice for state and national officers.
Representing organizations, agencies, and
“Considering how active Connecticut
businesses from throughout the community, the
residents were in helping pass the 19th
“But time will tell,” continued the author,
all-volunteer, non-partisan committee, chaired
Amendment at the national level, you’d think
who—as time would tell—could not have been
by City Clerk Karen Fortunati and Milford Board
that it would be easy to find news stories,
more wrong about how town women would
of Education member Cindy Wolfe Boynton,
letters, and other documents from that
respond to the result of the ratification of the
kicked off the year with a standing-room-only
time. But putting together the story of how
19th Amendment.
celebration at City Hall in January. An all-
Connecticut and Milford residents contributed
volunteer choir, led by Milford resident Linda
is not easy at all,” says co-chair Boynton,
in 2020 to commemorate the 100th anniversary
As part of nationwide celebrations launched
Whittaker, sang songs written in the late 1800s
who has spent the past year researching
of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,
from “The Suffrage Song Handbook.” The event
Connecticut suffrage for a book entitled Alice
Suffragettes like those seen here marched and picketed for decades demanding the right to vote before the 19th Amendment finally made it possible.
44 Milford Living • Autumn
