Nashville History Corner

PHOTOS FROM THE TENNESSEE VIRTUAL ARCHIVE

Program for the Nashville Equal Suffrage League’s MayDay Demonstration at Centennial Park in Nashville, Tennessee on May 1, 1915. The 19th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution granted women the right to vote. When the Tennessee General Assembly passed the ratification resolution on August 18, 1920, it gave the amendment the 36th and final state necessary for ratification. Suffragists and anti-suffragists lobbied furiously to secure votes during that intense summer in Nashville. The ratification resolution passed easily in the Tennessee State Senate on Aug. 13, but the House of Representatives was deadlocked. When young Harry T. Burn of Niota changed his vote to support ratification of the 19th Amendment, he broke a tie in the House of Representatives and made history.

A photograph of Elizabeth Fry Page, of Nashville, Tennessee, who was a charter member of the Tennessee Woman’s Press and Authors Club as well as the Nashville Equal Suffrage Association. She also gave a talk called “Why Professional Women Want to Vote” at the 1914 May-Day Celebration at Centennial Park in Nashville.

View of school children in open truck during a May Day parade in 1924. The float is comprised of a May pole and poster stating “Health in Play.” Dr. Harry Mustard worked in Rutherford County, Tennessee, during the 1920s on behalf of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Commonwealth Fund. He took photographs as part of a five-year study of health and sanitation conditions of rural children. Dr. Mustard went on to become a very prominent public health administrator.