It was August 18, 1920 and America had only secured 35 states that were FOR ratifying the 19th Amendment. Tennessee was the last state that was going to vote and it wasn’t looking good. They called it the “War of the Roses” with pro ratifiers, aka “suffs” donning yellow roses and the antis donning red ones. The suffs were short one vote when a 24 year old representative, Harry T. Burn, with a red rose pinned to his lapel and a letter from his mother in his pocket, voted “aye” in favor of the amendment. His mother, Febb Burn, had sent him a letter stating “Dear Son, … Hurrah and vote for Suffrage and don’t keep them in doubt. With lots of love, Mama.”

Harry T. Burn

Years later he wrote, “I had always believed that women had an inherent right to vote. It was a logical attitude from my standpoint. My mother was a college woman, a student of national and international affairs who took an interest in all public issues. She could not vote. Yet the tenant farmers on our farm, some of whom were illiterate, could vote. On that roll call, confronted with the fact that I was going to go on record for time and eternity on the merits of the question, I had to vote for ratification.” 

Hurrah and vote for suffrage!

The Nineteenth Amendment guarantees all American women the right to vote, this included African American women (but unfortunately that part of the fight continued until Jim Crow laws were abolished). The 19th amendment reads, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” The amendment was first introduced to Congress in 1878 but it was not ratified until 1920. Tennessee became the “Perfect 36” on Aug 18, 1920 when it became the last state needed to ratify the amendment. 

To celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment, we’re going to look at some of the early Memphians that helped push for suffrage in America. Their hard work and determination helped further the cause and change the future for all women. 

The first on our list are two sisters...

Elizabeth Avery Meriwether and her sister in law Lide Smith Meriwether shared a home with their husbands, on Peabody Avenue. The sisters spent their time working together in the fight for women’s rights. 

Elizabeth and her husband, Minor,  were quite progressive for their time. Upon their marriage, they signed a contract agreeing to share and invest equally. Elizabeth was one of the South’s first suffragettes and one of the first to publicly push for suffrage. She used her own money, that she received from maintaining properties, to start her own small newspaper, The Tablet, which promoted votes for women in every issue. This paper also voiced its support for equal pay for the sexes and advocated for Ms. Clara Conway to be elected to the school board. 

Elizabeth once rented out the The Memphis Theatre, the largest in town, to deliver a public speech on women’s rights. Over 500 women attended and the Memphis Appeal wrote an article on how she “was a worthy advocate of her sex and that she was met with frequent bursts of applause”.

In 1872, after hearing that Susan B. Anthony was arrested after attempting to vote, Elizabeth said that she was going to vote in the next Memphis election and if she was arrested, she would gladly share a cell with Miss Anthony. In the next election, she did just that, except she was not arrested. She felt that was due to her status in the community, while some believed her friends were the ones to accept the ballot, but then they threw it away. 

During the 1880s, she began to travel with Susan B. Anthony across the country to advocate for women...