Beyond Shingle Diggins

Published November 15, 1995

Woman Suffrage: those who worked for it

I ended the previous column with a plea from Michigan’s Governor Sleeper in early 1918, for women to register for volunteer work to help the war effort. Later, in October’s Watervliet Record, Governor Sleeper’s message may have been the final spur which brought Michigan women the vote in 1918, two years ahead of the national suffrage amendment.

Speaking at the Republican Convention, he said, “If anything were lacking to convince us that women of this state have a right to the ballot, surely the magnificent war work they have done in the past 18 months and the willing sacrifices they have made in the cause of freedom have supplied the lack. The splendid, self-sacrificing labors of all our women, the devotion of mothers who have given up sons, of young wives who have given up husbands, are beyond praise. Can we do less than confer upon them the privilege of the ballot? ...

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