Women’s fight for the right to vote here in Kansas is 100 years old… and counting

Under the Kansas Constitution, women had limited voting rights. Women could vote in school elections.

But full suffrage for women here in Kansas took focused work from real visionaries.

We could use the leadership of Clarina Nichols, Susanna Madora Salter and Lucy B. Johnston even today, as extremists in the legislature continue their attacks on voting rights for everyone.

Nichols made her name as a journalist in the Quindaro settlement but was also an abolitionist and a suffragist. She was present at the Wyandotte Constitutional Convention of 1859 where she advocated for women’s property rights, equal guardianship of children, and “the right to vote on all school questions.”

Slater actually served as a mayor 25 years before women had state-level voting rights. She was mistakenly voted into office in Argonia in 1887, after men placed her name on the Prohibition Party ticket, “as a joke.”

Johnston served as president of the Kansas Equal Suffrage Association and the Kansas Federation of Women’s Clubs. She played a key role in the 1912 amendment that gave Kansas women the right to vote.

This is a short list. Many other Kansas women strategized and fought for the right to vote.

Sadly, this work must continue in the face of perpetual and persistent attacks on voting rights.

At the moment, there are seven bills pending in the Kansas legislature aimed at limiting early, in-person voting, placing additional restrictions on mail-in ballots, ending the three-day grace period for mail-in ballots and much more.

In their memory and for our future, we have to keep fighting.

Learn more about the women’s Suffrage Movement in Kansas at: The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Kansas | Blog | Museum of World Treasures