{"id":4486,"date":"2017-04-14T20:27:00","date_gmt":"2017-04-14T20:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=4486"},"modified":"2017-04-16T15:14:30","modified_gmt":"2017-04-16T15:14:30","slug":"women-get-the-right-to-vote-in-school-elections-in-illinois-in-1891","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=4486","title":{"rendered":"Women Get the Right to Vote in School Elections in Illinois in 1891"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-4487\" src=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/1891-illinois-women-voting-school-elections-title-1903-213x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"213\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/1891-illinois-women-voting-school-elections-title-1903-213x300.png 213w, https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/1891-illinois-women-voting-school-elections-title-1903.png 310w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 213px) 100vw, 213px\" \/>On 19 June 1891, the Illinois General Assembly gave women in Illinois the right to vote&#8211;in school elections.<\/p>\n<p>The 1891 act was specific in stating that women could only vote in school elections. But it was a start and does mean that women could vote in at least some elections in Illinois before the 19th amendment was passed to the United States Constitution.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not certain if any of my female ancestors living in Illinois would have been interested enough in school elections to actually vote. I am curious as to what the local reaction to women&#8217;s suffrage was in Adams and Hancock Counties where my families were living at the time this law was passed.<\/p>\n<p>Which of my 1891 female ancestors living in Illinois would have been eligible to vote? For native-born citizens who married native-born citizens, the answer is easy. The problem occasionally comes into play with individuals born outside the United States are involved. There are several categories (the list is not meant to be exhaustive), some of which I have people in:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>native born and married to a native born citizen<\/strong>&#8211;Nancy Jane (Newman) Rampley, born in 1846 in Rush County, Indiana, married to Ohio native Riley Rampley and living in Hancock County, Illinois in 1891. Eligible.<\/li>\n<li><strong>native born and married to a naturalized immigrant<\/strong>&#8211;Anna (Dirks) Goldenstein, born in 1861 in Adams County, Illinois, married to naturalized German native Focke Goldenstein and living in Hancock County, Illinois, in 1891.<\/li>\n<li><strong>foreign born and married to a naturalized immigrant<\/strong>&#8211;Noentje Lena (Grass) Ufkes, born 1848 in Backemoor, Ostfriesland, Germany, married to naturalized German native Johann Ufkes and living in Hancock County, Illinois, in 1891.<\/li>\n<li><strong>foreign born and married to a native born citizen<\/strong>&#8211;I don&#8217;t have any of those.<\/li>\n<li><strong>native born and married to an un-naturalized immigrant<\/strong>&#8211;I don&#8217;t have any of those either<\/li>\n<li><b>[this was a repeat<\/b>&#8211;thanks to a reader for catching that]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>An interesting &#8220;side project&#8221; would be to try and determine which of my female ancestors would have been eligible to vote under the 1891 act. The Act indicated that women who would be eligible to vote under the Illinois Constitution in effect in 1891 would have been able to vote.<\/p>\n<p>And there&#8217;s the answer. Maybe.<\/p>\n<p>Women&#8217;s citizenship was still tied to that of their father or husband in 1891. That muddied the waters as we will see in a future post.<\/p>\n<p>And&#8230;the &#8220;being entitled to vote if the constitution in effect at the time allowed them to vote?&#8221; That caused problems also&#8211;as we&#8217;ll see in another future post.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4488\" style=\"width: 675px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4488\" class=\"wp-image-4488 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/1891-illinois-women-voting-school-elections-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"665\" height=\"465\" srcset=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/1891-illinois-women-voting-school-elections-1.jpg 665w, https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/1891-illinois-women-voting-school-elections-1-300x210.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 665px) 100vw, 665px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-4488\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">&#8220;School Law of Illinois: With Annotations,&#8221; Alfred Bayliss, Superintendent of Public Instruction, 1903, Springfield, Illinois, page 165.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On 19 June 1891, the Illinois General Assembly gave women in Illinois the right to vote&#8211;in school elections. The 1891 act was specific in stating that women could only vote in school elections. But it was a start and does mean that women could vote in at least some elections in Illinois before the 19th [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4486\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}