19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Saturday, October 3, 1914: <<no entry>>
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Is Grandma still remembering all the fun that she had at the Milton Fair earlier in the week? When she was at the fair, did she stop by the suffragettes’ booth?
I love how the women’s suffrage question was framed — Motherhood has become a public function; therefore women need to be allowed to vote.
P.S. There’s a new Friday Update on my author website, Sheryl Lazarus. com. This week I’m thinking about the nuts and bolts involved in developing a new blog that tells the story of my Great-Aunt Marion who was in the Women’s Army Corps (WACs).
A Hundred Years Ago 
I’m happy to know you have another blog. I just followed 🙂
Thanks for checking it out and following!
Sheryl, I need reminders of the blog title. Thanks.
I’d love to know what Helena thought about the suffrage issue!
So would I. It would be really interesting to know if young women in rural areas had perspectives similar to those of women in more urban areas.
So interesting – other than the fight for the right for women to vote I wonder if there was a consistent policy platform?
I think that some of the “women’s issues” a hundred years ago included: temperance, pure (unadulterated) food, and the dangers of patent medicines.
Well, well… It’s interesting to see the implicit opposition toward an increasingly intrusive government being a part of the Suffragist movement. Far too often, we hear about women fighting for the vote as an abstract issue. This adds some really crucial context.
I found it really interesting how suffrage was framed–and wondered if it would have been framed differently for groups of highly educated women in more urban areas.
How exciting to be around in the time that women were working for the right to vote!
Diana xo
It agree! It must have been an exhilarating time to be a woman.
Very interesting argument. Obviously directed to the conservatives among the crowd. Good politics I’d say.
That was my thought, too. I’ve previously read some articles about suffrage in national magazines–and I don’t remember any discussion of government and motherhood. I think that suffrage was probably framed this way to make it more appealing to conservative women in the rural areas.
Interesting article. What a way to go after the vote! Funny they thought the government was in the business of mothering. Certainly not as much as today!
Since women had fewer rights back then than now, this article makes me wonder what women considered to be their sphere of influence back then.
So hard for us to comprehend life for women at that time.
I agree!
Fascinating speech Ms Hall gave. I’m so grateful for the women who became politically active in the face of social ostracism!