Voices, and Votes, for Women: Concord's Early Pioneers

By Beth van Duzer

It should come as no surprise that the early laws of this country were derived from English laws, or that those laws were written exclusively by men for men. While Concord of the 19th century was relatively progressive, a wife was still considered merely an extension of her husband, and the laws did not provide her with the right to vote as an individual. Men felt it was good enough for them to cast a vote for both husband and wife, while unmarried women or women of color simply had no say at all.

Not all women agreed. One of these outspoken voices was Abigail Adams, third cousin to Louisa May Alcott. According to a letter dated March 31, 1776, Abigail reminded her husband John not to forget about the rights of women. “I long to hear that you have declared an independency – and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors,” she entreated. “Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar (sic) care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.” [1] Abigail was rightly concerned about women being left out of public discussion, which is exactly what happened in the country’s newly adopted laws. It would take more than a century to right the wrong through the cohesion of many women’s voices from around the nation, including several of Concord’s own.

By the 1830’s, Anti-Slavery Societies were being formed throughout the United States, including in Concord, MA. The Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society (CFASS) had its first meeting on October 18, 1837. Founding members included Susan Robbins Garrison (the group’s only woman of color), Cynthia, Helen, and Sophia Thoreau (Henry David Thoreau’s kin), as well as Abigail May Alcott (mother of Louisa May Alcott), and Lidian Emerson (wife of Ralph Waldo Emerson). Eventually, the children of the members, including Louisa May Alcott, Ellen Tucker Emerson, and Ellen Garrison, would help not only with the abolitionist cause, but with keeping women’s rights in the forefront. Their generation became the backbone of the movement.

In 1870, Ellen Tucker Emerson broke a proverbial glass ceiling by being elected to the Concord School Committee. Apparently, not all of the family thought being on the school committee to be a desirable position, as Ellen seemed to be defending herself in a letter to her cousin, John Haven Emerson, on May 6, 1870, when she wrote “You needn’t be sorry I am on the school committee. I think I shall like it very much.”[2] She served until 1876, when her brother Edward Emerson became Superintendent of Schools. It is particularly worth noting that it was not until 1879 that Massachusetts gave women the right to vote in school elections, which means the men of Concord voted Ellen onto the committee nine years before it was officially sanctioned.

In another first, on July 23, 1879, the first woman to register her name to vote in Concord was Louisa May Alcott. She wrote the following in her journal, “Was the first woman to register my name as a voter,” and playfully mused after voting in her first election that “no bolt fell on our audacious heads, no earthquake shook the town.”

The 1879 Register of Female Voters in the Town of Concord is held by the Town of Concord Archive, Special Collections, Concord Free Public Library. Used with permission.

Louisa May Alcott enjoyed puns and included hidden messages in her stories, including a reference to the suffrage movement in her 1886 novel Jo’s Boys. “The first figure was a stately Minerva; but a second glance produced a laugh, for the words ‘Women’s Rights’ adorned her shield, a scroll bearing the motto ‘Vote early and often’ hung from the beak of the owl perched on her lance, and a tiny pestle and mortar ornamented her helmet.”[3] Minerva is the goddess of wisdom. The mortar and pestle were a nod to a woman’s work in the kitchen. Louisa’s message was clear: voting and cooking were compatible; women wouldn’t shirk their home responsibilities in order to gain their equal right to be heard.

Thanks to the many women in Concord’s history, along with an entire nation of brave, determined suffragist voices over many decades, August 18th of this year will hold special meaning. Together, we will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, guaranteeing Women’s Right to Vote. Those early Concord pioneers of women’s freedom would be proud.