Women’s History Month – Emma Smith DeVoe
From the Desk of Marlys Rudeen
The Manuscript Collection of the State Library holds a treasure for Women’s History —the Emma Smith DeVoe Papers. This collection consists of 6 archival boxes of correspondence and several scrapbooks chronicling the activities of Washington State’s most famous suffragist. Mrs. DeVoe was an impassioned organizer, leader, and lecturer for the National American Woman Suffrage Association. She eventually became president of the Washington Equal Suffrage Association.
These letters and manuscripts came into the possession of fellow suffrage worker, Bernice A. Sapp, who assembled and indexed them. The Digital and Historical Collections staff decided to undertake the digitization of the collection to prolong the life of these manuscripts and to provide expanded access to citizens – especially students and teachers. The project was funded by a grant from the Washington’s Women’s History Consortium and the collection can be viewed at their web site at: http://www.washingtonhistory.org/research/whc/WHCcollections/wsl/
DeVoe was one of the major personalities involved in moving Washington State being the fifth state in the country to adopt full suffrage for women in 1910 – ten years before the national constitutional amendment was passed. While she occasionally clashed with some of the other strong personalities in the movement she was a tireless worker and keen strategist. Unlike their counterparts in England, American woman suffragists adopted the tactic of the “still hunt”, using ladylike demeanors and calm reason to persuade the men of the state to grant them the vote as a matter of simple justice.
DeVoe went on to found the National Council of Women Voters in 1911 to bring together western voting women in order to move toward national suffrage. The group eventually merged with the League of Women Voters in 1920. She later became active in the Republican Party and wrote from that viewpoint for the Tacoma News Tribune.
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