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.

Teacher and suffragist Emily Burton Ketcham. Photo credit: Grand Rapids History and Special Collections (GRHSC), Archives, GRPL, GR, Michigan.

Dedicated educators often become involved in movements that benefit society as a whole. One of these is Emily Burton Ketcham, a school teacher who was active in the struggle to secure the right to vote for women.

Emily was born on July 16, 1838, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her parents were Josiah and Eliza (Freeman) Burton. As a young girl, Emily attended first Mary B. Allen’s School for Girls and then Henrietta Academy. She earned her degree from St. Mark’s College, a private theological institution located in Grand Rapids. When she was only 15 years old, Emily became a school teacher.

Emily’s work in the suffrage movement began in 1873. She became active in the initial effort to remove gender as a qualification for voting in Michigan. Later, Emily met with suffragist movement leaders Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, and by the 1890’s had developed long-lasting professional relationships with them.

Emily was heavily involved in many community improvement groups. She was a member of the Grand Rapids Woman’s Suffrage Association, the Political Equality Club, the Susan B. Anthony Club, the Woman’s Civic League, and the Woman’s and Children’s Protective League. She was a charter member of the Michigan Equal Suffrage Association, she would serve as its president from 1892-1893, and again in 1900.

As part of her work as a suffragist, Emily was a featured speaker at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. Due to Emily’s indefatigable work and outstanding organizational skills, Stanton and Anthony brought the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) to Grand Rapids for its annual convention in 1899.

This amazing Chalkboard Champion passed away on January 13, 1907, in Detroit, Michigan. She was 68 years old. She is interred at Rosedale Memorial Park in Tallmadge, Ottawa County, Michigan.

To honor her work as a suffragist and educator, Emily Burton Ketcham was inducted into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame in 1999. To read more about Emily, see her page on the website for the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame.

Educator and suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt established suffrage schools that helped women in the United States earn the right to vote.

When I read about remarkable teachers, I often come across terms that describe varieties of schools I have never heard of before. One such example is the term “suffrage schools.”

These schools were first developed in 1917 by suffragette Carrie Chapman Catt, a trained and experienced teacher. Her purpose in establishing these schools was to train women volunteers to become politically active and effective in their efforts to win the vote for women.

For the suffrage schools, Carrie developed innovative courses that focused on theories of government, political institutions, and practical applications. She also encouraged women to study state laws, identifying those that were specifically unfair to women, and working to change them. The curriculum also included such topics as public speaking, the organization of the US government, the history of the suffrage movement, how to develop a good relationship with the press, and how to use the press for influencing the electorate. Eventually the lessons taught in these schools paid off, for women won the right to vote with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1919.

You can read more about Carrie Chapman Catt and her suffrage schools in my second book, Chalkboard Heroes, available on amazon.