In 1880 the School Suffrage bill passed the Vermont House of Representatives, with only four dissenting votes. When the bill came to a third reading and only four men stood up for the negative, there was so marked an expression of derision that the speaker called for "order," and reminded the House that "no man was to be scorned for voting alone any more than with a crowd." The action and the voting came cheerily. More than one man, to the objection of "an entering wedge," said "he was ready to grant the whole." The bill passed the Senate triumphantly and was approved by the governor, December 18, 1880:
Women shall have the same right to vote as men have, in all school-district meetings and in the election of school commissioners in towns and cities, and the same right to hold office relating to school affairs.
An item in the Woman's Journal, from Vergennes, March 22, 1881, says:
At the city election to-day General J. H. Lucia, a staunch friend of woman suffrage, was elected mayor, and principally through his management Miss Electa S. Smith has been chosen to the office of city clerk, which office he has held for the past two years. The legislature of 1880 authorized the election of women to the offices of superintendent of schools and town clerk, and some of the friends of the cause were disposed to try the working of the law here. They selected a candidate whose ability, qualifications and thorough fitness all had to concede, and against whom the only objection that could be raised was her being a woman. It took the conservatives some time to get over their surprise at the first suggestion of her name, but they admitted the propriety of the thing and gallantly lent a hand, so that when the election came all the candidates who had been talked about were conspicuous by their absence, and Miss Smith was elected by acclamation. Surely the world does move.
Your letter is at hand. I think but few women have, as yet, availed themselves of the privilege of voting in school meetings in this State, and I am not able to say what the effect upon our schools has been up to the present time.
Notwithstanding the above reply from the state-superintendent of the public schools of Vermont, the Associated Press reports of every year[1]since 1881 make mention of women being elected to school offices in the various towns and counties of the State.
- ↑ In 1885 there were thirty-three women elected to the office of school superintendent in eleven of the fourteen counties of the State, as follows: Addison, Miss A. L. Huntley; Bennington, Mrs. R. R. Wiley; Caledonia, Miss Nellie Russell, Mrs. A. F. Stevens, Mrs. E. Bradley, Miss S. E. Rogers; Chittenden, Mrs. S. M. Benedict, Mrs. L. M. Bates, Mrs. J. C. Draper; Essex, Mrs. Henry Fuller, Hettie W. Matthews, Jennie K. Stanley, Mrs. S. M. Day; Franklin, none; Grand Isle, Miss I. Montgomery; La Moille, Carrie P. Carroll, Miss C. A. Parker; Orange, Miss F. H. Graves, Miss A. A. Clement, Miss V. L. Farnham, Miss F. Martin; Orleans, none; Rutland, Mrs. I. C. Adams, Miss H. M. Bromley, Miss M. A. Mills, Lillian Tarbell, Mrs. H. M. Crowley; Washington, none; Windham, Mrs. J. M. Powers, Mrs. J. E. Phelps; Windsor, Mrs. E. G. White, Miss C. A. Lamb, Mrs. H. F. VanCor, Clara E. Perkins, Mrs. E. M. Lovejoy, Mrs. L. M. Hall.
