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During the summer of 1963, Elizabeth Butters ‘66 spent eight weeks in rural North Carolina working in a voter education program organized by the American Friends Service Committee. Upon her return, she was interviewed by the school newspaper about…

Jeannette wrote “Reasons for the Opposition of the Further Extension of the Suffrage,” for her English I class. Because she has not been fully convinced by any of the pro-suffrage arguments she has heard, she explores the logic behind the…

Jeannette Marks, English professor and life partner of Mount Holyoke President Mary Woolley, was a strong supporter of the women’s rights movement. Marks and Woolley had several collies which were popular with students; one is shown here wearing a…

In a letter to her mother written mid-November, Jennie ‘11 gleefully describes leading a parade of her friends through campus dressed as suffragists. The group was clad in identical black gowns and gloves, white stockings, hats, glasses, and…

This list shows the names of the 29 students from Mount Holyoke who went to the March on Washington in August of 1963. Over 250,000 people marched to protest the inequalities faced by African Americans. The march was influential in the passing of…

President of the National College Equal Suffrage League as a senior, Louise Dunbar ‘16 often appeared with a sign bearing the text: “SHOW YOUR FAITH IN THE WOMEN OF MASSACHUSETTS: VOTE YES ON THE AMENDMENT ENABLING WOMEN TO VOTE.” Although the…

Matilda mentions the school-wide suffrage vote in three of her letters home in the fall of 1895. In the letter dated October 21, she announces that she will lead the pro-suffrage faction and gauges her family’s opinion by asking, “what does papa…

Mock ballots were used by Mount Holyoke students to vote in campus-wide elections every four years. Just as in the real national election, Roosevelt won the mock election at Mount Holyoke. Unlike Taft and Wilson, Roosevelt was a long-time advocate of…

During the 1912 mock election at Mount Holyoke, presidential candidates Roosevelt, Taft, and Debs received the highest number of votes while almost no students voted for Wilson. The student who owned this particular ballot voted for Taft. An opponent…

A group of Mount Holyoke and Amherst students went to Washington D.C. to lobby for the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill. In this photo, they are shown with Senator Keating, a member of the House of Representatives. Keating was influential in…

Before Mount Holyoke’s mock national election, where the student representatives from each state would meet to vote, the students held a mock state convention. In a letter at the time, a student explains that at this mock convention, students were…

Florence Tuttle ‘16 (left), Dorothy Phelps ‘18 (center), and Helen McConkey ‘18 (right) formed a band of trumpets and drums on Suffrage Day May 9th, 1916. The three students wear ‘Votes for Women’ sashes, one of which is featured in this…