Voting with Purpose
Sophie Liebman, who turned 18 in September, voted for the first time in a suffragette outfit she made to honor the nation’s Aug. 1920 passing of the 19th amendment.
On November 8, voters from Precincts 4 and 6 headed to Marjorie Milne Battin Hall to make their choices and determine the outcome of four important questions. Men and women came from all different directions and converged on the gray granite steps of the town’s historic hall on Massachusetts Avenue.
The sun shone on this breezy leaf-blown day as some walked, some drove, and a few bicycled toward the ornate brick and white-trimmed building built in 1928.
One woman used a shiny maroon foldable walker, her compact companion pooch parked on its built-in seat. Another woman came in a van and was lowered in a lift to the sidewalk. Once there, she flipped a few switches and motored herself up the ramp and through the doorway to cast her ballot.
Sophie Liebman, who turned 18 in September, stood out among the rest. She came dressed in a suffragette outfit she made to honor the nation’s Aug. 1920 passing of the 19th amendment giving women voting rights. (The 19th amendment did not provide voting access to women of color. See sidebar for further information.) Wearing a straw hat accented in green and white stripes, Sophie made the standard white shirt with an intricately pleated brown skirt. It was accented with a white sash across her shoulder, stating, “Votes for Women.” To get warm, her 20th-century garb was covered with a 21st-century navy blue coat.
“Democracy only works if everybody participates,” Sophie said at the end of a seven-minute YouTube video that chronicles her making the suffragette outfit.
Sophie, soft-spoken and thoughtful, and her proud father, Judd Liebman, stood at the end of the steps waiting. Kathy Seidl, Sophie’s mother, and her grandmother, Vera Seidl, arrived a few minutes later. Judd and the three generations of women would vote together – something unlawful 102 years ago. (Sophie’s twin, Peter, opted to come later.)
In an earlier conversation, Sophie said she was already fascinated with historical fashion. As Covid began, she started sewing on her mother’s old machine making face masks from old tablecloths and a pre-covid pattern her mother found.
“There was a shortage of surgical masks, and Sophie and I wanted to help,” Kathy said. “We had a sewing machine from the 1960s. Sophie had shown interest in learning how to sew, but there hadn’t been an opportunity. Using ‘YouTube University’ I first taught myself and then Sophie how to make cloth masks. She made them for family and friends and then for my and my husband’s co-workers.”
Later Sophie would get pre-made mask packages at a sewing shop in Arlington.
“She caught the sewing bug,” Kathy Seidl said. “Once masks were no longer needed, she turned her attention to more complex patterns.”
Sophie graduated from sewing face coverings to creating outerwear. A Jane Austen-style empire-waisted blue dress followed. She wore that to a Sudbury muster. From there, she made a stunning and timeless teal 1930s gown that she wore to her junior prom.
“It was a big hit,” Sophie said. “I was very proud of it.”
It’s not just the outfits. Sophie pairs them with handmade undergarments that match the century and the outfit. Her successful progression brought her a new sewing machine and a dress form.
Sophie, who also plays violin, is not alone in her love of the past. “My son, her twin, plays the fife in the William Diamond Fife and Drum Corp,” Kathy said.
After posing for photos with her mom, Kathy, dressed in red, white, and blue, and her grandmother, Vera, Sophie donned her coat again and walked toward the desk to get her ballot. Voting Warden Mary Dixson permitted photographs at the end stall where no one else was within photographic aim.
Dixson admired Sophie’s outfit and was happy this was her first vote. Before leaving, she and Sophie shook hands. “Congratulations,” Dixson said. A hug from her dad followed. This reporter was also impressed, not just with her first vote, but with the outfit, Sophie’s serious and kind demeanor, and the meaning behind her ballot voice.
A poll worker from another precinct said that when they learn of a first-timer everyone claps for the new voter.
When asked how much the suffragette outfit resonated with her and the town’s history, Sophie, who has lived here since 2004, noted that the entire village is filled with the nation’s history – and that the dress was but a small part.
For her parents and poll workers, it meant a whole lot more.
“I was pleased to see Sophie’s enthusiastic embrace of both celebrating the opportunity to vote for the first time and commemorating the suffragettes’ push to pass the 19th amendment,” Judd Liebman said. “It’s a perfect combination of her interests in United States history, historical costumes, sewing, and social justice.”
LEXINGTON’S SUFFRAGETTE JOURNEY
Lexington’s fabric is embroidered with the history of our country’s birth and residents are dedicated in preserving that historic record.
It’s natural to believe that our village embraced the idea of women voters. But, after scouring newspapers from 1919 and 1920, it became clear that was not the case until after the 19th amendment became law.
Officially, women’s voting journey began in July of 1848 at the two-day Seneca Falls Convention, where 300 women and 40 men discussed women’s voting rights. However, it’s worth noting that the attendees were all white. No person of color was invited except Frederick Douglass.
More than three decades later, in 1879, the Massachusetts Legislature granted women the right to vote – for School Committee members. Concord’s Louisa May Alcott was the first woman to register. A few months later, on March 29, 1880, Louisa and 19 other women went to Concord Town Meeting and voted.
According to the New England Historical Society, “…the Massachusetts Legislature had bowed to pressure from the suffragists and agreed to let the commonwealth’s women have that limited franchise.”
The New England Historical Society notes that Ashfield and Monroe were more progressive. In 1868 officials allowed women to serve on local school boards. Six years later, Boston did the same.
Seeing the writing on the wall, Lexington women formed its own branch of the League of Women Voters on February 14, 1920.
According to the March 5, 1920, Lexington Minuteman newspaper reported on the Annual Town Meeting. “Only a few more than half the 1,293 registered male voters in town cast their ballot, the total male vote numbering 658. Four women voted,” the newspaper reported. (The absolute nerve!) “The ballot box again proved faulty, the dial indicating at the close of the election that 712 ballots had been pulled.”
(The women’s names aren’t mentioned. Frankly, they deserve a monument.)
An anti-suffragette group made their views known. Later the newspaper offered the newly minted voters (presumably male) opinions on how best to vote and what should or should not be considered.
Men’s opinions seemingly turned around once the amendment passed. On November 2, 1920, voters helped determine whether Warren G. Harding or James M. Cox would take the country’s helm. The Lexington Minuteman of November 5, 1920, noted (in one overly long paragraph) that “Lexington, like most every other town and city in the country, experienced its busiest presidential and state election day ever. The unusual interest in the presidential balloting, coupled with the unprecedented number of women voters, because of the ratification of women’s suffrage, was the cause of the largest number of votes ever polled. The total voting strength of the town is now 2,486, including 1,375 men and 1,111 women, and of this number, 2,252 voted.” The newspaper noted that only 234 men and women did not come to the polls.
Anticipating the increased volume, ten more voting booths were installed at Town Hall.
To relay vote counts, two telephone lines were installed. One was for women and the other for men. Apparently, Lexington needed another amendment to use the same telephone.
A RESTRICTED AMENDMENT
The nineteenth amendment made its way to Congress in 1878, decades before its Aug. 1920 passage.
According to government archives it stated:
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
That should mean everyone, right? Well, it didn’t. The passage gave white women the right to vote even though women with varying shades of melanin fought alongside the same white-hued women. Prejudice, racism, and unreasonably constrictive Jim Crow laws prevented anyone of color from voting.
Even more ironic, the 19th amendment came five decades after the 1870 passage of the 15th amendment, intended to give Black men the right to vote.
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Section 2 gave Congress the power to enforce the amendment.
Again, that should mean everyone, right? Again, the answer is no. Men of any color could vote, just not women.
We know Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, and other well-known names who fought for the eventual right.
However, other suffragettes with little-known names fought just as hard but never saw a ballot box. Here are a few:
- Mary Church Terrell (African American)
- Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (African American)
- Mary Ann Shad Cary (African American)
- Nanny Helen Burroughs (African American)
- Ida B. Wells (African American)
- Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin (First Nations; group unknown)
- Dr. Mabel Pin-Hua Lee (Chinese American)
- Nina Otero-Warren (Mexican American)
It would take almost 45 years and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 before every woman in America had the right to vote.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
Sophie Liebman’s YouTube
I made a suffragette outfit to vote
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1nx4Ymg3Xo
The Nineteenth Amendment
www.history.com/topics/womens-history/19th-amendment-1
The National Park Foundation
www.nationalparks.org/connect/blog/four-african-american-suffragists-you-should-know
The 19th Amendment and African Americans
www.history.com/news/black-suffragists-19th-amendment
Seneca Falls Convention
www.history.com/topics/womens-rights/seneca-falls-convention