Many classroom teachers work diligently to improve social conditions in their community. One was Kansas teacher Anna C. Wait, who worked tirelessly to win the right to vote for women. Photo credit: Public domain.
I have often noted that often excellent classroom teachers work diligently to improve social conditions in their community. One of these is Anna C. Wait, a 19th-century schoolteacher who also campaigned for the right to vote for women.
Anna was born on March 26, 1837, in Hinckley, Medina County, Ohio. She attended first the Richfield Academy and then the Twinsburg Institute. As a young woman, she married fellow educator Walter Scott, and the newlyweds moved to Missouri. The couple had a son there. When the Civil War broke out, Walter joined the Union’s 50th Volunteer Infantry, Company H. He served three years during some of the most fierce fighting of the War Between the States. During these years, Anna relocated to Ohio, where she taught school in order to support herself and her young son. When the war was won, the family reunited, and then moved first to Indiana and then to Kansas.
Once Anna settled in Kansas, she re-established her teaching career, eventually founding a normal school there to train others to become excellent teachers. She also became active in the Suffrage Movement. In 1879 Anna and fellow suffragists, Emily J. Briggs and Sarah E. Lutes, founded the local branch of the Equal Suffrage Association. In 1884 a Kansas Equal Suffrage Association was formed, and Anna served as the organization’s Vice President. In 1911 Anna was elected President of the Sixth District of the Equal Suffrage Association. Because of her efforts, legislation granting the right to vote to women was passed in the state of Kansas.
Anna C. Wait passed away on May 9, 1916, in Lincoln County, Kansas. She was 79 years old. For her tireless work as a suffragist, Anna was included in A Woman of the Century, by Charles Wells Moulton and published in 1893. To read more about this amazing pioneer teacher, see the reprint of a 1909 article printed by the Lincoln Republican.
