Your 19th Amendment Moment: Women’s Suffrage in Oregon

By Cindy Parker

The fight for Women’s Suffrage here in Oregon took 42 years and 6 different votes, more than any other state. Led early on by Abigail Scott Duniway, it took another generation to finally succeed in 1912, incidentally the same year as Eugene-Lane AAUW was founded.

Esther Pohl Lovejoy was the second woman graduate of the University of Oregon medical school (1894) and appointed the first woman city health officer in Portland. Her dedication to public health was underscored by the death of a young son, Freddy, due to contaminated milk. She and others recognized that “men do not have society’s best interests at heart” and in order to achieve the goals of pure food, clean water, and safe workplaces women needed to be able to influence policies through the ballot.

Women of the early 20th century were better educated and worked outside the home in increasing numbers. These Suffragists waged a more modern campaign. They organized handbills, public lectures, and parades all over Oregon.

  • In Klamath Falls they held a Suffrage Ball where the men and women both came in dresses.
  • In Roseburg there were several community picnics.
  • They entered a float in the Rose Parade in Portland and won the grand prize. Throughout the Rose Festival they distributed sandwiches, ice cream, and drinks from a lunch wagon along with pamphlets lectures.
  • National leader, Dr. Anna Howard Shaw and Dr. Lovejoy went on a whirlwind tour of the state in an automobile, starting at the Pendleton Round Up.

They won the support of many influential men of the time, keeping in mind that all the voters they needed to convince were men. Governor Oswald West said, “I have every reason to believe that women will clean up politics.” And Senator Warren M. Sutton said, “I do not know what our women are going to do with the ballot but it makes no difference. It is their right and they should have it.”

On November 5, 1912, Oregon voted in favor of women’s suffrage by a margin of less than 4,000 votes, becoming the 7th state to do so. Lane County votes were 1279 yes, and 840 no.