Women’s Rights in Westford timeline

1780                   Massachusetts State Constitution restricts voting to males only but omits “male” as a qualification for holding public office.

1819                   Susan Prescott becomes the first woman assistant preceptor (assistant principal and teacher) at Westford Academy.

c1833               Led by Mrs. Patty Blake, wife of Rev. Caleb Blake (former minister of First Parish), and Mrs. Rebecca E. G. Luce, wife of Rev. Leonard Luce (pastor of the Union Congregational Church), 254 Westford women sign a petition to the Board of Selectmen “not to appropriate any to receive license for the Sale of ardent spirit within this town. …”

Aug. 9, 1837      Angelina and Sarah Grimké, abolitionists and early women’s-rights advocates, speak in Westford to an audience of “only 250.” The Grimké sisters defended women’s right to speak out against slavery in public.

1850                   Lucy Stone and several other New England women organize the first National Woman’s Rights Convention in Worcester. Sojourner Truth is among the speakers. Annual conventions continue until 1860.

1869                   Miss Amanda M. Hale and Miss Eliza H. Herrick are the first women to serve on a Westford town board, as members of the Library Committee.

1875                   Miss Eliza M. Babbitt and Miss Olive A. Prescott are the first women to serve on the Westford School Committee.

1879                   The Massachusetts Legislature votes to allow women to vote for School Committees.

1879/1880?         Seven Westford women “request their names [be] placed on the list of voters” to vote for School Committee. They are Catharine Abbot, Elizabeth R Abbot, Eliza A. Babbitt, *Emily F. Fletcher, Betsy Groce, Eliza J. Herrick, and Clara A. Smith. (*Emily F. Fletcher is on the 1879/80 list & is still listed as a woman voter in 1920.)

Jan. 8, 1880        In his first inaugural address, Massachusetts Gov. John D. Long, a former Westford Academy preceptor (1857-1859), tells the Legislature: “I repeat my conviction of the right of woman suffrage.” In his next inaugural address, the following year, he explicitly calls for a Constitutional amendment to give women the right to vote “because suffrage is a right and not a grace.

Mar. 7, 1881       “Westford Town Meeting dismisses an article placed on the warrant at the request of the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association: “To see whether the Town will, by its vote or otherwise, ask the Legislature to extend to women who are citizens, the right to hold Town offices and to vote in Town affairs on the same terms as male citizens.”

Mar. 6, 1882       Westford Town Meeting again dismisses article requested by the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association.

Nov. 5, 1895       Massachusetts holds a non-binding referendum concerning allowing women to vote in municipal elections. Although women are allowed to vote, the vote statewide is overwhelmingly against the referendum. Ninety-six percent of women vote yes (23,000 out of 24,000; but only 4% of eligible women voted); only 32% of male voters (87,000 of 274,000) voted yes. In Westford 91 men and 11 women vote yes; 134 men and no women vote no.

June 1, 1914        At a meeting at the home of Miss Ella Hildreth [10 Hildreth St.], “a society for the promotion of suffrage was formed with the following officers: Miss Ella F. Hildreth, pres.; Miss May Balch, sec.; Mrs. Homer M. Seavey, treas. Suffrage literature was distributed to those present.”

Aug 21, 1915        An open-air meeting was held in the interest of equal suffrage on Wednesday evening at Westford common.  The speakers were Teresa A. Crowley and Gertrude Halladay Leonard, both good speakers, who presented their cause to a good number of listeners. (Westford Wardsman)

Oct. 16, 1915      Six Westford women attend a rally in Boston in support of the ballot question to amend the Massachusetts Constitution to grant women the right to vote in Massachusetts. They are Mary (May) Balch, Mary Etta Fletcher, Jennie Abbot Hartford, Alice M. Lambert, Flora May Merritt, and Gertrude Skidmore.

Nov. 2, 1915       With only men voting, ballot question to give women the right to vote in state elections fails, with only 35% statewide voting yes. Westford votes no, too, by a vote of 184-no to 165 yes, though it passes in precinct 4 (Forge Village) by one vote: 29-28.

Feb. 24, 1919      22 suffragists are arrested in front of the Massachusetts State House for trying to picket President Woodrow Wilson during his visit to Boston and are sentenced to eight days in jail. They are the last women arrested in a suffrage protest.

May-June 1919   US House and Senate approve the Susan B. Anthony 19^th Amendment granting women the right to vote.

June 25, 1919      Massachusetts becomes the 8^th state to ratify the 19th Amendment.

Feb. 14, 1920      National League of Women Voters is formally organized during the convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

May 27, 1920      League of Women Voters of Massachusetts is organized.

Aug. 26, 1920     U.S. Secretary of State certifies ratification of the 19th Amendment.

Mar. 7, 1966       Alice Hildreth is the first woman elected as Town Clerk.

Nov. 1968           League of Women Voters of Westford recognized as a local League.

Mar. 6, 1972       Ellen Harde becomes the first woman elected to Board of Selectmen.

June 30, 2019      Of 242 elected and appointed Westford town officials, 116 (48%) are women.

(This is part of Westford Celebrates Women’s Right to Vote, a joint project of the Westford Historical Society, Westford League of Women Voters and Westford Cultural Council. With special thanks to Bob Oliphant.) 

Catherine S. (Kate) Hamlin (1847-1937)

REMINISCENCES of Westford: Immediately after the war, and probably for years before, to a certain extent, the question of “Women’s Rights” was constantly brought up.  It is largely to the brave women of those days that we are indebted for the many blessings we enjoy today. When the agitation was at its height, I attended a Women’s Suffrage meeting in Boston one day.  On the platform, sat Julia Ward Howe, Susan B. Anthony, and many other women, all earnest workers for the cause. On the platform sat Wendell Phillips, a staunch advocate. He was called upon to speak. Absolute quiet was in the vast audience, for all knew of his eloquence.  His speech consisted simply of the following story: “In Concord, on the morning of the Concord fight, a woman walked behind the militia with a broom on her shoulder. She was jeered at, and asked what she could do with that broom. She replied, “I can show which side I’m on!’”

This meeting of the women Suffragettes was during the popular lecture period.  This period, which lasted for several years after the close of the war, was a most delightful and inspiring influence after the death and horror of four years.  Lecture courses were a prominent feature in every town, and the most intellectual and eloquent speakers were to be heard. In cities, the largest halls were filled to the very doors with eager listeners and the conversation everywhere was of the latest lecture.

When a town was not large enough, or rich enough, to arrange for an independent course of lectures, several towns would unite; a part of the lectures being given in one town and a part in other towns.  The audience then composed of subscribers from all the places. The sleigh rides over the snow to the jingling of many bells was not the least of the pleasures. My memory fails me to name all those we heard: Julia Ward Howe, Wendell Phillips, Henry Ward Beecher, John F. Gough, are but a few of them.

Although far from the excitements of city life, and knowing comparatively little of the questions and movements of the world at large — save that gleaned from the newspapers — news of what was passing elsewhere, occasionally, reached the quiet of the town.  Click here to read more  of Kate’s REMINISCENCES of Westford Massachusetts

Registration of Westford Women Voters 1920

Title on spine: “Town of Westford Annual Registration of Voters” in Town Hall vault

Title at top of most pages: Annual Registration of Voters, Town of Westford, 1920, except p. 135 (says 1921), p. 136-139 (say 19_) pp. 113-140

Transcribed Jan. 29- Feb. 7, 2020 (Lynn Cohen)

*Man in household registered on same day

 18 women who had registered to vote in school elections prior to 1920
 121 women registered on Aug. 28, 1920 of 279 women who registered in 1920, or 43%.
(Complied by Lynn Cohen) 

Mary G. (May) Balch (1875-1962)

Westford Wardsman Saturday, October 23, 1915

Miss Mary G. Balch represented Westford in the suffrage parade in Boston last Saturday afternoon. Among interested Westford women who viewed the parade were Mrs. J. Herbert Fletcher, Mrs. W. J. Merritt, Mrs. A. W. Hartford and Mrs. Gertrude C. Skidmore. We understand Mrs. Alice M. Lambert, of North Westford marched with the Lowell delegation.

Women on the Board of Selectmen Westford, Massachusetts

1972-1974         Ellen S. Harde – first woman elected to the board

1974-1978          none

1978-1981          Marjorie Cook

1981-1982          none

1982-1985          Avis S. Hooper

1985-1992          none

1992-1998          Madonna McKenzie – first woman to serve two terms; first woman to serve as chairman, 1994

1996-2008         Dini Healy-Coffin first woman to serve four terms; first time two women were on the board, 1996

1999-2002          Elaine McKenna

2005-2014          Valerie Wormell

2007-2010          Nancy Rosinski (2007: first year three-women majority on the board)

2010-present    Andrea Peraner-Sweet

2017-2020          Elizabeth Almeida

2020 to present Anita Tonakarn-Nguyen

A 20/20 Perspective with Barbara Berenson

Barbara Berenson’s second talk will address women’s rights after they finally achieved access to the ballot in 1920.  How have women fared politically and legally over the past century? Berenson will consider how women activists have built alliances and shaped laws in an effort to combat stereotypes, discrimination, and gender-based violence at home, at work, and in the public sphere.  She will review some of the key developments over the past century and include a discussion of the long and still-ongoing campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment. She will also discuss the historical connections between women who opposed suffrage and those who oppose women’s rights today. Following Barbara’s talk we will have a discussion with Westford Women Leaders: Elizabeth Almeida, Ellen Harde and Beth Morrison.