Suffragist of the Month – January, 2015

MAUD WOOD PARK

maud-wood-park-1871-1955-joined-susan-everett

Maud Wood Park was born in Boston January 25, 1871. In her senior year at Radcliffe College she heard a speech by Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, daughter of Lucy Stone, which inspired her to join the Massachusetts Suffrage Association. She and fellow student Inez Haynes Irwin later founded the Equal College Suffrage League, which operated under the premise that the young women of that day owed a debt of gratitude to the women such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton whose work for suffrage and equal rights now allowed the younger women the freedom to enter universities and professions. It was now up to those younger women to take up the cause, and “pay their debt to the pioneers.”

The College Equal Suffrage League formed chapters throughout the states; Maud Wood Park went on to work in Washington DC with Carrie Chapman Catt, and eventually became the first head of the League of Women Voters in 1920. She died in 1955.

One Response

  1. jovana January 8, 2015 at 2:11 pm | | Reply

    Beautyful piece
    toni there is sp much to learn about. We sometimes dont dig our way out of our own little world. I am learning how. thanks Love Jovana

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