Feb
1
Votes for Women - Celebrating 96 years
The U.S. presidential campaign has been on my mind lately. It’s not the one you might expect, given the barrage of news coverage on the eve of the Iowa Caucuses. I have been thinking about the election of 1920.
That was the first year that my great-grandmother Islea Graham Riggs was allowed to vote. She was 45 years old and had been an accomplished pianist and music teacher for nearly three decades. She had organized and participated in women’s music clubs in several different towns. She had given birth to four children and had lost two of them. Yet it was not until November 2, 1920, that she was allowed to do what so many U.S. citizens—men and women—now take for granted: cast her vote for president.
Islea and her husband, G.
That was the first year that my great-grandmother Islea Graham Riggs was allowed to vote. She was 45 years old and had been an accomplished pianist and music teacher for nearly three decades. She had organized and participated in women’s music clubs in several different towns. She had given birth to four children and had lost two of them. Yet it was not until November 2, 1920, that she was allowed to do what so many U.S. citizens—men and women—now take for granted: cast her vote for president.
Islea and her husband, G.
