Kentucky Equal Rights Association
Encyclopedia
Kentucky Equal Rights Association (KERA) was the first permanent statewide women's rights
organization in Kentucky. Founded in November 1888, the KERA voted in 1920 to transmute itself into the Kentucky League of Women Voters to continue its many and diverse progressive efforts on behalf of women's rights.
Inspired by Lucy Stone
during the national meeting of the American Woman Suffrage Association in Louisville
in 1881, a group of suffragists formed the Kentucky Woman Suffrage Association, the first statewide suffrage organization in the South. Laura Clay
served as president with affiliate groups in Louisville, Lexington and Richmond. Laura's older sister, Mary Barr Clay (vice-president for both Elizabeth Cady Stanton
's National Woman Suffrage Association as well as of Stone's American Woman Suffrage Association) hosted Susan B. Anthony
in Richmond
in 1879 to speak on the need for economic protections for women. She then founded the Madison County Equal Rights Association, the state's first permanent women's rights association. Soon afterward, Mary B. Clay invited Lucy Stone to stay at her mother Mary Jane Warfield Clay's house in Lexington, and Stone mentored the creation of the Fayette County Equal Suffrage Association (later the Fayette County Equal Rights Association).
In November 1888, Lucy Stone
invited Laura Clay
to present a paper at the AWSA convention in Cincinnati. Clay agreed and invited all the Kentucky suffragists to join her there to organize a new statewide association. On November 22, 1888, delegates from Fayette and Kenton counties joined the four daughters of the former abolitionist Cassius M. Clay – Anne, Sally, Mary and Laura – to create the Kentucky Equal Rights Association (KERA). Though Cassius Clay strongly condemned the woman suffrage movement on moral, political and scientific grounds, his daughters led the movement for women's right to vote as well as for legal, educational and industrial rights for women.
The KERA adopted the Fayette County Equal Rights Association's broad platform of reform rather than focusing only on women's voting rights. The founding officers were: president, Laura Clay; vice presidents, Ellen Battele Dietrick and MaryB. Clay; corresponding secretary, Eugenia B. Farmer; recording secretary, Anna M. Deane; and treasurer. Isabella H. Shepard. The leadership with only 66 members quickly organized campaigns with lectures and lobbying, writing petitions, newspaper columns and pamphlets, as well as organizing affiliate chapters around the state. They also encouraged women to enroll in institutions of higher education, hoping to achieve absolute equality in every profession. In 1890 a KERA petition presented to the Kentucky legislature was supported by 10,000 signatures, and by 1895 KERA membership rose to 400 members.
). A school suffrage act which gave all women in second class cities in Kentucky (specifically Lexington, Newport and Covington) the right to vote in local school board elections and educational matters also passed. This law was rescinded in 1902 after it became clear that the organizational efforts by African-American women had a large impact in election results. Women consigned to asylums in the state gained strong advocates when by 1898 the Kentucky legislators agreed with KERA that all state asylums should have women physicians.
which finally opened its doors to women in 1889. In rapid succession other central Kentucky colleges became co-educational.
Juveniles wonder restlessly about why child labor laws are changed from 12 years of age to 16 years of age. Anonymously children and young teenagers are curious about their rights being taken away as far as working for their own money and accomplishing their hopes to pay their own ways into and out of situations. After researching the problems and listening to young adults acusations on the case, I was able to find the Child Labor laws should be Changed once again from 16 years of age to 13 years. Parents also are making acusations about their children not working and not being able to pay or help pay bills. While 16 year olds are mostly worried about their own car payments, I personaly imagine the law being Changed from 16 to 13 in order for Young teens and Yound adults to help parents in these hard times of Dark and none working evironments. In Ashtabula County, in the state of Ohio, Juveniles are trying to sell drugs and "Hustle" as they say.. In order to pay for food and home services for their families. I have a unusual understanding of the statement that the Laws should be change in order for Young Adults to grow up and learn to provide for themselves and their families.
By: Malverie Coles
started out from Lexington, Kentucky
on their tour and stopped in Wilmore, Louisville, Owensboro (where they formed a local clob for the KERA) and Paducah. From there, Anthony and Catt spoke in Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Souther Carolina and Virginia. Many Kentucky women activists held leadership roles in all the national organizations.
By 1910, the woman suffrage issue had become more fashionable and big donors had created larger coffers from which state and national suffrage organizations could draw for lobbying and extended publicity campaigns. The KERA constitution was amended in 1910 to make the term for presidency three years and no longer allow an incumbent to win a succeeding term. Laura Clay who had continuously won election as president since the founding of KERA stepped down in 1912 stepped down and Madeline McDowell Breckinridge, a strong Progressive reformer, was elected to serve until 1915 – also serving as second vice-president of the NAWSA. On January 14, 1914, Breckinridge and Clay addressed the Kentucky legislature in joint session in celebration of the woman's suffrage bills finally moving out of committee. The daughter of Mary B. Clay (now Bennett) and niece of Laura Clay, Mrs. Elizabeth Bennett (wife of T. Jefferson) Smith, won the presidency in 1915. She served for only one year then moved on to work for the national association. Her term was carried out by Christine Bradley South, and then Breckinridge was elected president again in 1919.
When the U.S. Senate finally approved a federal amendment for woman suffrage on June 4, 1919, Laura Clay resigned from KERA. In a public debate with KERA President Breckinridge, Clay argued that KERA had made a error in abandoning efforts for a state law for presidential suffrage which was needed in order to be consistent with the Kentucky constitution.
During contentious debate, the Kentucky General Assembly approved ratification of the 19th Amendment
by a vote of 72 to 25 in the House and 30 to 8 in the Senate. In the photograph above, KERA members watch as Governor Edwin P. Morrow
signs the ratification bill on January 6, 1920. Madeline McDowell Breckinridge
, KERA president, is standing behind Governor Morrow (second from right). Kentucky was the twenty-third state, one of only four Southern states, to approve the proposed amendment which became law on August 26, 1920.
At the thirtieth annual meeting, held in early January 1920, the KERA membership voted that as soon as the ratification of the federal amendment was complete, the Kentucky Equal Rights Association should transmute itself into a Kentucky League of Women Voters. This is what finally happened in December 1920.
Women's rights
Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...
organization in Kentucky. Founded in November 1888, the KERA voted in 1920 to transmute itself into the Kentucky League of Women Voters to continue its many and diverse progressive efforts on behalf of women's rights.
Inspired by Lucy Stone
Lucy Stone
Lucy Stone was a prominent American abolitionist and suffragist, and a vocal advocate and organizer promoting rights for women. In 1847, Stone was the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. She spoke out for women's rights and against slavery at a time when women were discouraged...
during the national meeting of the American Woman Suffrage Association in Louisville
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
in 1881, a group of suffragists formed the Kentucky Woman Suffrage Association, the first statewide suffrage organization in the South. Laura Clay
Laura Clay
Laura Clay , co-founder and first president of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association, was a leader of the American women’s suffrage movement...
served as president with affiliate groups in Louisville, Lexington and Richmond. Laura's older sister, Mary Barr Clay (vice-president for both Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an American social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early woman's movement...
's National Woman Suffrage Association as well as of Stone's American Woman Suffrage Association) hosted Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony
Susan Brownell Anthony was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President...
in Richmond
Richmond, Kentucky
There were 10,795 households out of which 24.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 35.2% were married couples living together, 12.8% had a female householder with no husband present, and 48.6% were non-families. Of all households, 34.7% were made up of individuals and 8.8% had...
in 1879 to speak on the need for economic protections for women. She then founded the Madison County Equal Rights Association, the state's first permanent women's rights association. Soon afterward, Mary B. Clay invited Lucy Stone to stay at her mother Mary Jane Warfield Clay's house in Lexington, and Stone mentored the creation of the Fayette County Equal Suffrage Association (later the Fayette County Equal Rights Association).
In November 1888, Lucy Stone
Lucy Stone
Lucy Stone was a prominent American abolitionist and suffragist, and a vocal advocate and organizer promoting rights for women. In 1847, Stone was the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. She spoke out for women's rights and against slavery at a time when women were discouraged...
invited Laura Clay
Laura Clay
Laura Clay , co-founder and first president of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association, was a leader of the American women’s suffrage movement...
to present a paper at the AWSA convention in Cincinnati. Clay agreed and invited all the Kentucky suffragists to join her there to organize a new statewide association. On November 22, 1888, delegates from Fayette and Kenton counties joined the four daughters of the former abolitionist Cassius M. Clay – Anne, Sally, Mary and Laura – to create the Kentucky Equal Rights Association (KERA). Though Cassius Clay strongly condemned the woman suffrage movement on moral, political and scientific grounds, his daughters led the movement for women's right to vote as well as for legal, educational and industrial rights for women.
The KERA adopted the Fayette County Equal Rights Association's broad platform of reform rather than focusing only on women's voting rights. The founding officers were: president, Laura Clay; vice presidents, Ellen Battele Dietrick and MaryB. Clay; corresponding secretary, Eugenia B. Farmer; recording secretary, Anna M. Deane; and treasurer. Isabella H. Shepard. The leadership with only 66 members quickly organized campaigns with lectures and lobbying, writing petitions, newspaper columns and pamphlets, as well as organizing affiliate chapters around the state. They also encouraged women to enroll in institutions of higher education, hoping to achieve absolute equality in every profession. In 1890 a KERA petition presented to the Kentucky legislature was supported by 10,000 signatures, and by 1895 KERA membership rose to 400 members.
Economic Protection
The KERA organized several campaigns to change the laws regarding women's financial dependency and economic rights. In 1894 Governor John Young Brown signed the Married Woman's Property Act (spearheaded by Josephine K. HenryJosephine K. Henry
Josephine Kirby Henry was an American Progressive Era women's rights leader, suffragist, social reformer, and writer from Versailles, Kentucky in the United States. Henry was a strong advocate for women and was a leading proponent of legislation that would grant married women property rights...
). A school suffrage act which gave all women in second class cities in Kentucky (specifically Lexington, Newport and Covington) the right to vote in local school board elections and educational matters also passed. This law was rescinded in 1902 after it became clear that the organizational efforts by African-American women had a large impact in election results. Women consigned to asylums in the state gained strong advocates when by 1898 the Kentucky legislators agreed with KERA that all state asylums should have women physicians.
Women and Higher Education
Since 1838 female heads of households in Kentucky could vote in school board elections. However, few women who qualified for this right knew about it, and in many other ways, Kentucky's laws regarding women were the most repressive in the South. In 1880 the Kentucky Agricultural and Mechanical College was the first college in Kentucky to begin admitting women. The Louisville School of Pharmacy started enrolling women in 1890. The Fayette County Equal Rights Association recruited women to enroll there, and meanwhile lobbied the leaders of Transylvania UniversityTransylvania University
Transylvania University is a private, undergraduate liberal arts college in Lexington, Kentucky, United States, affiliated with the Christian Church . The school was founded in 1780. It offers 38 majors, and pre-professional degrees in engineering and accounting...
which finally opened its doors to women in 1889. In rapid succession other central Kentucky colleges became co-educational.
Temperance
Before the creation of the KERA, Laura Clay and Henrietta Chenault of Lexington planned a lecture tour by the popular Zerelda G. Wallace of the Women's Christian Temperance Union who would include the less popular topic of woman's suffrage in her speeches. The idea was to assure conservative locals that giving women the right to vote would guarantee victory for prohibition as well as other social improvements.Child Labor Laws Being Changed
As part of their efforts for the protection of children, especially those living in poverty and violence, the KERA lobbied for and won legislation in 1896 to establish reform schools for both girls and boys. By the turn of the century, Kentucky established juvenile courts to allow for children to be treated differently in the justice system. KERA won Kentucky's child labor law despite the agrarian and mining business interests, and raised the age of consent from twelve to sixteen...-
- My Response to the Child Labor Laws Changing**
Juveniles wonder restlessly about why child labor laws are changed from 12 years of age to 16 years of age. Anonymously children and young teenagers are curious about their rights being taken away as far as working for their own money and accomplishing their hopes to pay their own ways into and out of situations. After researching the problems and listening to young adults acusations on the case, I was able to find the Child Labor laws should be Changed once again from 16 years of age to 13 years. Parents also are making acusations about their children not working and not being able to pay or help pay bills. While 16 year olds are mostly worried about their own car payments, I personaly imagine the law being Changed from 16 to 13 in order for Young teens and Yound adults to help parents in these hard times of Dark and none working evironments. In Ashtabula County, in the state of Ohio, Juveniles are trying to sell drugs and "Hustle" as they say.. In order to pay for food and home services for their families. I have a unusual understanding of the statement that the Laws should be change in order for Young Adults to grow up and learn to provide for themselves and their families.
By: Malverie Coles
Nineteenth Amendment
The National American Woman Suffrage Association, determined to impress Southern legislators with the urgency of their cause, determined to tour the South. In 1894, Susan B. Anthony and Carrie Chapman CattCarrie Chapman Catt
Carrie Chapman Catt was a women's suffrage leader who campaigned for the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution which gave U.S. women the right to vote in 1920...
started out from Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 63rd largest in the US. Known as the "Thoroughbred City" and the "Horse Capital of the World", it is located in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass region...
on their tour and stopped in Wilmore, Louisville, Owensboro (where they formed a local clob for the KERA) and Paducah. From there, Anthony and Catt spoke in Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Souther Carolina and Virginia. Many Kentucky women activists held leadership roles in all the national organizations.
By 1910, the woman suffrage issue had become more fashionable and big donors had created larger coffers from which state and national suffrage organizations could draw for lobbying and extended publicity campaigns. The KERA constitution was amended in 1910 to make the term for presidency three years and no longer allow an incumbent to win a succeeding term. Laura Clay who had continuously won election as president since the founding of KERA stepped down in 1912 stepped down and Madeline McDowell Breckinridge, a strong Progressive reformer, was elected to serve until 1915 – also serving as second vice-president of the NAWSA. On January 14, 1914, Breckinridge and Clay addressed the Kentucky legislature in joint session in celebration of the woman's suffrage bills finally moving out of committee. The daughter of Mary B. Clay (now Bennett) and niece of Laura Clay, Mrs. Elizabeth Bennett (wife of T. Jefferson) Smith, won the presidency in 1915. She served for only one year then moved on to work for the national association. Her term was carried out by Christine Bradley South, and then Breckinridge was elected president again in 1919.
When the U.S. Senate finally approved a federal amendment for woman suffrage on June 4, 1919, Laura Clay resigned from KERA. In a public debate with KERA President Breckinridge, Clay argued that KERA had made a error in abandoning efforts for a state law for presidential suffrage which was needed in order to be consistent with the Kentucky constitution.
During contentious debate, the Kentucky General Assembly approved ratification of the 19th Amendment
Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits any United States citizen to be denied the right to vote based on sex. It was ratified on August 18, 1920....
by a vote of 72 to 25 in the House and 30 to 8 in the Senate. In the photograph above, KERA members watch as Governor Edwin P. Morrow
Edwin P. Morrow
Edwin Porch Morrow was an American politician who served as the 40th Governor of Kentucky from 1919 to 1923. He was the only Republican elected to this office between 1907 and 1927. He championed the typical Republican causes of his day, namely equal rights for African-Americans and the use of...
signs the ratification bill on January 6, 1920. Madeline McDowell Breckinridge
Madeline McDowell Breckinridge
Madeline McDowell Breckinridge was a leader of the women’s suffrage movement and one of Kentucky's leading Progressive reformers. She was also known as Madge Breckinridge and Mrs...
, KERA president, is standing behind Governor Morrow (second from right). Kentucky was the twenty-third state, one of only four Southern states, to approve the proposed amendment which became law on August 26, 1920.
At the thirtieth annual meeting, held in early January 1920, the KERA membership voted that as soon as the ratification of the federal amendment was complete, the Kentucky Equal Rights Association should transmute itself into a Kentucky League of Women Voters. This is what finally happened in December 1920.
See also
- Madeline McDowell BreckinridgeMadeline McDowell BreckinridgeMadeline McDowell Breckinridge was a leader of the women’s suffrage movement and one of Kentucky's leading Progressive reformers. She was also known as Madge Breckinridge and Mrs...
- Laura ClayLaura ClayLaura Clay , co-founder and first president of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association, was a leader of the American women’s suffrage movement...
- Emma Guy CromwellEmma Guy CromwellEmma Guy Cromwell was a suffragist, women's rights activist, and early female Democratic Party politician from Kentucky in the United States. Cromwell became the first woman to hold a statewide office in Kentucky when she was elected state librarian in 1896 by a vote of the Kentucky State Senate...
- Josephine K. HenryJosephine K. HenryJosephine Kirby Henry was an American Progressive Era women's rights leader, suffragist, social reformer, and writer from Versailles, Kentucky in the United States. Henry was a strong advocate for women and was a leading proponent of legislation that would grant married women property rights...
- Edwin P. MorrowEdwin P. MorrowEdwin Porch Morrow was an American politician who served as the 40th Governor of Kentucky from 1919 to 1923. He was the only Republican elected to this office between 1907 and 1927. He championed the typical Republican causes of his day, namely equal rights for African-Americans and the use of...
- Eliza Calvert Obenchain
- American Woman Suffrage Association
- Daughters of the American RevolutionDaughters of the American RevolutionThe Daughters of the American Revolution is a lineage-based membership organization for women who are descended from a person involved in United States' independence....
- Equal Rights AmendmentEqual Rights AmendmentThe Equal Rights Amendment was a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution. The ERA was originally written by Alice Paul and, in 1923, it was introduced in the Congress for the first time...
- League of Women VotersLeague of Women VotersThe League of Women Voters is an American political organization founded in 1920 by Carrie Chapman Catt during the last meeting of the National American Woman Suffrage Association approximately six months before the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution gave women the right to vote...
- National American Woman Suffrage AssociationNational American Woman Suffrage AssociationThe National American Woman Suffrage Association was an American women's rights organization formed in May 1890 as a unification of the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association...
- National Woman Suffrage Association
- Nineteenth Amendment to the United States ConstitutionNineteenth Amendment to the United States ConstitutionThe Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits any United States citizen to be denied the right to vote based on sex. It was ratified on August 18, 1920....
- Women’s Christian Temperance Union
External links
- Kentucky Federation of Women's Clubs
- Kentucky League of Women Voters
- League of Women Voters
- Fayette County Equal Rights Association membership card signed by Edgar M. Hawkins, of Lexington, KY. Men, as well as women, supported the Women’s Rights Movement through writing, speeches, and association membership.
- Banner of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association