Dutchess County was leader in women’s suffrage

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The Dutchess County Bar Association celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2019.

POUGHKEEPSIE – The role of Dutchess County in the women’s suffrage movement was highlighted on Thursday as the Dutchess County Bar Association held its monthly luncheon.

The year 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote.

Dutchess County Historical Society Executive Director Bill Jeffway told the room of judges and lawyers about the lead-up to suffrage in Dutchess, noting that in the 1800s, Dutchess County had one of the largest Quaker populations in the country, second only to Philadelphia.  Quaker women played a substantial role in the suffrage movement.

Bill Jeffway, standing, of the DCHS, speaking about the Suffrage movement.

The Nine Partners Boarding School in Millbrook was a Quaker institution, considered to be somewhat radical in thinking, including the belief of equal pay for educators, regardless of sex.  

The Town of Milan’s Julia Wilbur attended the boarding school and was arguing for equal pay for women teachers in the mid-1850s.  Another Quaker, Elizabeth Powell Bond, was from the Town of Clinton and went on to become the dean of Swarthmore College for 25 years.

Jeffway cited examples of women being allowed to vote in New York as early as the 1880s, including Union Vale electing Nancy Boyd Duncan as school district clerk.

Vassar College became an influence in the Suffrage movement in the early 1900s with Professor Laura J. Wylie heading up the Equal Suffrage League of Poughkeepsie.  

In 1915, a state-level referendum allowing women to vote failed.  It was brought up again in 1917 and passed.  The Town of Clinton was once again making news when, in 1919, they elected Anna Hewitt Pozell for the position of overseer of the poor.

Bar Association President Rachel Frost, an attorney from Fishkill, called the presentation by Jeffway and Historical Society board member Melodye Moore “wonderful,” noting that “Dutchess County had an imperative role in the Suffrage movement.’

Poughkeepsie attorney Kelley Enderley said, “But for the brave tenacious women like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, I would not be the attorney I am today.  They paved the way for women to have not just the equal right to be heard and vote but for women like myself to become lawyers who can make a difference in their communities.”

Additional information on the presentation can be found at https://dchsny.org/1920path/




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