Women’s History

Read what Susan B. Anthony had to say when she spoke in Red Hook. Meet the national and international leaders who visited Red Hook, and the local women from all walks of life who created change through political actions, or through simply being “first!” The first woman lawyer. The first Village President. Or scroll down within window / click on chapter heading:

This article is part of a year-long program recognizing the 100th anniversary of national women’s suffrage, other articles here: How Farming and Nursing Organizations Advanced Women’s Suffrage in a Rural Dutchess County Town By Bill Jeffway The bookends of the path to women’s right to vote are generally considered to be the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention with its “Declaration of Sentiments,” and the August 1920 adoption of a US Constitutional Amendment granting women’s suffrage nationally. Within that period, while cities like Poughkeepsie had dedicated suffrage organizations like the Poughkeepsie Equal Suffrage League, rural areas were less likely to have them. Three organizations supported the path to women’s right to vote in rural areas in Dutchess County; two did so overtly, and one did so indirectly. Equality evolved from starting points where society felt comfortable seeing women in active roles: as Christian believer and moral bulwark, as wife and mother, in this instance farmer’s wife and mother, and as nurturer and healer in the form of a nurse. The respective, corresponding organizations were (or “are” in that each is still active to varying degrees) the Women’s Christian Temperance Union or WCTU, the Grange movement, and the Red Cross. Profile photos left: Top row shows Red Hook residents active in women’s suffrage: Mrs. Margaret Chanler Aldrich, in a photo c. 1920, is wearing a Red Cross pin she proudly wore throughout her life for important public occasions. For her Red Cross work in Puerto Rico during the Spanish American War she received a Congressional Medal, awarded personally by FDR in 1939. Christine Sayre Eno led the Red Hook Suffrage Workers in 1914 and 1915 as President. She was chairing committees of the League of Women Voters into the 1940s. Justine de Peyster Martin was elected in March 1919 as the county’s first woman Village President. At the same time Wilhelmina Freeborn ran and was elected to the Tivoli Village Board. Bottom row shows Red Hook visitors: Susan B. Anthony spoke in 1879 to a small, but appreciative audience. Kathleen Burke spoke to a large picnic gathering of townspeople at Rokeby in 1916, Jessie Hardy Stubbs spoke locally and was a guest of Christine Eno in 1913. All photos courtesy of Library of Congress except: Eno, courtesy of Eno family. Martin, courtesy of New York Herald. Let’s examine the Town of Red Hook as an example. Less has been found on the activities of the WCTU in Red Hook, which is the opposite of a town like Millbrook that had a dedicated WCTU building. Much more has been found on the Grange and Red Cross, which are the focus of this article as a result. Red Hook has the wonderful added dimension of the talent, ambition, deep conscience and unassuming humility of one of its oldest river estate family members, Mrs. Margaret Chanler Aldrich at Rokeby. She was an internationally active, long-time pro-suffrage advocate and Red Cross worker. Her involvement ranged from meeting with US Presidents, to traveling to Europe and Asia, to nursing in war zones, to attending, speaking, or hosting Red Hook Grange meetings. She was affectionately referred to as “Sister Chanler” among the local Grangers. In December of 1912, the lack of a local suffrage movement was described by Mrs. Aldrich. She said, “In a town like Red Hook it has been impossible to form a suffrage club because everybody is so busy with church societies, the Grange and social clubs, they could not endure the idea of another club. Almost everybody in Red Hook is a suffragist, anyway.” While the claim about the degree of suffrage support may be called an optimistic overstatement, the point she makes about existing social organizations is what we examine here. Mrs. Aldrich was speaking upon the December 23, 1912 arrival of Rosalie Jones and a team of women who were marching from New York City to Albany. They were marching through the cold and snow with a suffrage message for the Governor. Greeted by a large group of residents and the Red Hook Village President, William Massonneau, against the backdrop of the whistle of the chocolate factory, a genuine and enthusiastic welcome was offered. The Red Hook Hotel was festooned in the colors of “Votes for Women.” The Tobacco Factory manager handed out cigars. The ladies spent the night in Upper Red Hook at the home of Mary Ham, wife of the Upper Red Hook postmaster and storekeeper, Alvin Ham. When “General” Rosalie Jones led a late December march from New York City to Albany to bring the Governor a message and demonstrate women’s “grit,” she and her team spent five nights in Dutchess County. Their last night in the county  in Upper Red Hook. Image of Upper Red Hook in the winter courtesy of Historic Red Hood. The Grange formed after the Civil War to support the life of the farming family. From inception, the Grange put an equal emphasis on the participation of men and women. But its support of suffrage was uneven. The NY State Grange formally, publicly endorsed women’s suffrage in 1881, but far from unanimously. In 1912, the Dutchess County Pomona Grange formally voted a majority against endorsing women’s suffrage. No doubt with that vote in mind, in 1913 Mrs. Aldrich hosted a luncheon for “Grangers” at Poughkeepsie’s finest hotel, the Nelson House where she gave a talk. She then took a “straw poll” that yielded 75% support, not of women’s suffrage specifically, but of having a statewide referendum. Step by step, was the tide turning? In February of 1914 the Red Hook Grange hosted a debate, “Resolved: the women of Red Hook Grange favor equal suffrage.” While we don’t know the outcome, one can imagine the debate was encouraged by the “pro” suffrage forces. By December 1916 the local Grange movement was formally endorsing women’s suffrage. By 1917, the NY State Grange said that words were not enough, Grangers needed to “take aggressive action.” The Red Cross did not come out in support of Women’s Suffrage