Her Legacy: Mary E. Remington & a Suffragist Takeover

Mary E. Remington & a Suff ragist Takeover

BY RUTH VAN STEE FOR THE GREATER GRAND RAPIDS WOMEN’S HISTORY COUNCIL

One of the women who took over

the Grand Rapids Press in 1914 Suffrage Edition was a professional. In 1900 Mary E. Remington began her 38-year career at the Grand Rapids Herald and Press as a critic and reviewer of music and theatrical performances. Clearly, she wanted a change when she leapt over to sports in the suffrage edition!

Always signing as M. E. R., Remington was a reviewer appreciated by performers for her softened criticisms and sought out by theatrical advance men to make sure her review would be published. “Borne to the grave” in 1944 by six former coworkers at the Grand Rapids Harold and Press, Remington’s marker reads “M. E. R. Friendly Critic.”

An honorary member of the St. Cecilia Society, Mary E. Remington was also involved in the community’s Symphony Society, Civic Players and Art Association.

During the decade prior to the 1920 rati cation of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, the National American Woman Su rage Association pushed arguments for equal su rage in modern print media and noisy street spectacles. And, when in 1914 the national organization declared May 2nd as National Su rage Day, the Grand Rapids Equal Franchise Club rose to the challenge.

 ey negotiated with the Grand Rapids Press to take over content and editing of its May 2nd edition and were tutored for months on the inner workings of a newspaper. A volunteer editor worked with nine section editors and three reporters to turn every section of the newspaper toward the promotion of equal voting rights- -including the weather (“a  ne day for su rage!”) and automotive sections (“women make the decisions”).

 e su rage edition features testimonials from the Michigan governor, a banker, baseball players, and preachers, and pokes fun at anti-su ragists. One cartoon uses a fence to illustrate the positions of prominent local men. Stalwarts stand squarely in front of it. One benighted fellow is behind, and the rest are sitting on it.

Sports editor Mary E. Remington went all out with articles featuring a young woman, who set a record at Rose’s Beach for the longest continuous swim; a local woman playing basketball at Oberlin College; and twelve young girls in a gymnastics and calisthenics contest in Akron, Ohio.  e most fun, however, is a tongue-incheek article about a su ragist going three rounds with through the downtown, ending at Veterans Park, where a

a well-known Michigan boxer. He asks that she “go light on this su rage business.” She does not. In the  rst round, he concedes that property owners and taxpaying women should vote. In the second, he takes a jab but yields to her argument. In the third, he tries to duck a wallop, but fails and goes down.  e su ragist, in three!

Some headlines were not subtle: “What Local Women Have Actually Done” enumerates e orts to improve housing, oversee honest weights and measures, ensure safe food laws, clean milk from clean dairies, and trained meat inspectors.  e newspaper’s city section notes other social reforms achieved by women and includes the photo of a young boy who would have been thrown into jail with adults if women hadn’t repurposed an old ILLUSTRATIONS BY LIBBY VANDERPLOEG

reports on a new desk designed by a woman—and illustrated in an image populated only by girls using the new desks!

 e Equal Franchise Club’s plans for National Su rage Day in Grand Rapids went far beyond the publication and distribution of their special edition.  e Furniture City Band performed from a decorated streetcar; young women gave out  owers from festooned automobiles; and teenaged boys ran a “Votes for Women” banner roadhouse as a juvenile home. And the school section

rousing rally featured choirs, orators, and the reading by su ragist leader Clara Comstock Russell of a declaration for woman su rage to be sent by the Equal Franchise Club to Congress.

Grand Rapids area women made the biggest splash in the state on May 2nd, 1914.  ey would not be ignored.

GGRWHC’s programming to honor the 19th Amendment centennial has been interrupted by the coronavirus outbreak. For now, please stay safe but celebrate with us virtually and in print! Visit the digital su rage exhibit on our website (ggrwhc.org); follow our calendar electronically and in WLM; and stay tuned about August 26th: HER VOICE HER VOTE!