After the Vote: The Next Steps
The first election in which local women could vote took place in April 1918. Under a “local options bill,” all Ithacans could vote on the question of prohibition of alcohol. Juanita Breckinridge Bates, Gertrude Shorb Martin, and Helen Brewster Owens spoke to women’s groups, reminding women that they needed to register in order to be able to vote, and supporting prohibition. Women continued to support the war effort, joining the Red Cross, contributing to a hospital unit in France, promoting Liberty Loans, and assisting young men registering with the Selective Service system. The Tompkins County Woman Suffrage Party convened a countywide convention in May 1918, reminding women that they could officially declare party affiliations as of May 25. In the City of Ithaca, 323 women registered as Republicans, 118 as Democrats; 4 as Socialists; and 123 joined the Prohibition Party.
When New York State granted women the right to vote, Cornell offered courses in history and political science “adapted to the needs of women voters” for juniors and seniors. The Cornell Reading Course for the Farm Home published “Civic Duties of Women” (Lesson 120) by Professor Blanche Hazard in August 1918, because as Hazard wrote: “the average farm woman… would want to be and need to be an intelligent voter and worker in public life.”
Edith Anna Ellis became the first woman to run for regular office in Tompkins County, as the Democratic candidate for county clerk in 1918. Edith Ellis grew up in Varna, graduated from Cornell in 1890, worked in the Cornell University Library, was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Ithaca Woman’s Club, the Political Study Club, the Cornell Women’s Club, and the Campus Club, and was locally well known. Her ancestors had been the original settling family in the Ellis Hollow area, which was named for them. While Edith Ellis was not elected, she became the first woman in Tompkins County to serve as a delegate to the Democratic State Convention, held in Saratoga Springs in 1918, and she was elected a vice-president of the convention. She would continue to be active in Democratic politics for the rest of her life.
In 1920, after the ratification of the 19th amendment to the Constitution extended the vote to women, Harriet May Mills ran for New York State Secretary of State on an unsuccessful ticket with Alfred E. Smith, candidate for reelection as Governor. Afterwards she continued to be active in state politics, supporting Franklin D. Roosevelt in his campaign for Governor.
1920 was the first Presidential election in which women across the country could vote. The 1920 election was notable for the number of women nominees for local and state offices nationally. While Democratic candidate James Cox had been a strong suffrage supporter, by 1920, Warren G. Harding had also come out in favor of the passage of the federal amendment. In Tompkins County, the Republican ticket at all levels swept the election. Bad weather may have limited the vote, since the Ithaca Journal reported that only one third of eligible voters actually voted—12,963 men and women.
The National American Woman Suffrage Association honored Martha Van Rensselaer in 1920, for her “distinguished service to the cause of Woman Suffrage in America.”
Martha Van Rensselaer had been elected school commissioner of Cattaraugus County, N.Y. as the candidate of the Cattaraugus County Political Equality Club, the county temperance union, and the Republican Party. Although she was an early member of the Ithaca Political Study Club, and corresponded with Susan B. Anthony, Carrie Chapman Catt, Mary Garrett Hay, and other state and national suffrage figures, there is little evidence that she participated actively in any local suffrage group except as an occasional speaker. She may have been so concerned with solidifying her own position and the position of the new Home Economics program in every way, that she avoided overt political activities that might alienate potential supporters—or male Cornell faculty, who weren’t pleased to have women colleagues. We do not know whether the national suffrage group recognized her because of the position she held or for activities that are not evident in the existing local records.