Draft:Phoebe Jordan

• Comment: The style of this with all the odd line-breaks makes it look like this has been copy-pasted form some place. What this just authored some place else, or is this a copyright-violation? KylieTastic (talk) 17:39, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

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Phoebe Jordan (February 26, 1864 - January 14, 1940) was the first woman to legally vote in a national election in the United States following the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Early Life

Born on February 26, 1864, in Washington, Massachusetts, Phoebe was the daughter of Emily Middlebrook and Sidney Deloss Jordan. 1 She attended school – which only lasted an hour or two at most. Her parents encouraged “book learning” but like their neighbors knew the practicality of chores and farmwork, especially for girls who would most likely grow up to be wives and mothers.

At only seven years old, Phoebe was sent to live with her Aunt Josephine Jordan in New Ashford, Massachusetts. 2 It would became a turning point in her young life as she was never return to her childhood home. Phoebe was surprised at how quickly her homesickness passed – the farm was bustling with busyness and she soon discovered her Aunt Josephine was a powerful force. Phoebe attended the little schoolhouse at New Ashford, excited to be studying with boys and girls, without the differentiated curriculum that was predominant at the time.

Phoebe Jordan house

Phoebe’s grandfather, Francis Jordan had made New Ashford his home at the beginning of the 19 th century, when the town’s farmers gathered to help him “raise” his house and barn in May, 1831. When Phoebe arrived, the home, barn, and the farmland belonged to her Aunt Josephine who was mistress of the farm, an unusual occupation for a woman in the 1870s. Though she had not realized it at the time, under the tutelage of her Aunt Josephine, Phoebe grew more intelligent, self-confident, and independent and thus began her drive for challenging the conventional wisdom of the day which left women unable to vote, without personal wealth or property, limited their professional opportunities, and forced them to work for lower wages than their male counterparts.

Adult Life

Phoebe Jordan

With her Aunt Josephine’s passing, Phoebe found herself as mistress of the farm. She was successful thanks to her Aunt Josephine’s guidance, her own tenacity, and her thirst for knowledge, ultimately growing the farm to more than 400 acres. There were those who saw her as “only a woman” but she proved herself, doing much of the work on the family farm with never more than two hired hands, having learned not only from her Aunt but from a number of neighbors who deemed her worthy. She was an expert marksman, who as a teenager killed a fox trying to raid her chicken coop with a single shot from 102 feet. 3 She was also skilled at operating the farm’s horse drawn mowing machine in summer and snow plow in winter.

She remained at the New Ashford school until it had nothing left to teach her. In fact, the townspeople often encouraged her to pursue teaching and take over the school. She knew it was not her calling for it would mean leaving her beloved Berkshires to pursue a career elsewhere because at the time, New Ashford was the lowest paying area in the state for teachers, paying only a fourth of what Boston and others paid. 4 Instead, Phoebe grew her farm successfully, raising prize-winning turkeys, as well as supplying firewood to the school and running her charcoal kiln. Phoebe never married. No one knows for sure, but the long held New Ashford rumor says Phoebe had been in love once, with a sweet young man who drowned in nearby Phelps pond when she only 30 years old. 5

Suffragist

Phoebe Jordan’s rise as a suffragist was likely inspired by Susan B. Anthony, a fellow Bay Stater but also by others who had gone before. Phoebe could see the roots of the suffragist’s movement in the efforts of abolitionists like Abigail Adams and Frederick Douglas. Both movements were founded solidly in the desire for freedom and equal rights for all citizens.

Phoebe knew the story of Lydia Chapin Taft, the first woman who legally voted in New England in 1756 in Uxbridge, Massachusetts. As an adult, Phoebe heard about Maud Malone who had organized the first women’s suffrage march in 1908, though the news came late because the local newspaper carried very little in the way of efforts of the suffrage movement, beyond running cartoons contrary to cause.

The 19th Amendment

Phoebe no doubt read about the more “militant” suffragists, led by Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party, picketing at the White House in an effort to change the President Wilson’s position on women’s suffrage. Known as the “Silent Sentinels” the women were provoked and even attacked by onlookers. Many of the suffragists were arrested and charged for the cause but remained resolved, adding to their numbers daily with women from across the country. 7 Finally, the President met with Carrie Chapman Catt (president of the National American Women Suffrage Association). Shortly after, he changed his position and went before Congress opening endorsing women’s suffrage. 8 On June 4, 1919, the 19 th Amendment, which read, “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” passed the House and was sent to the states for ratification. 9 Three-fourths of the states (36 of the 48) were needed to ratify the amendment. Like the rest of the country, Phoebe waited.

In March, 1920, the 19th Amendment was close to being added to the Constitution, but was short one vote. Tennessee was scheduled to vote in August, and the state became a battleground with suffragists wearing yellow roses and anti-suffragists wearing red, bearing the nickname the “War of the Roses.” 10 The Tennessee Senate passed it with ease, but the Tennessee House was divided until 24-year old Harry Burn cast the deciding “aye” and the amendment was ratified.

The Historic Day

As the historic election of 1920 neared, Phoebe watched as her friends and neighbors were more excited about their efforts to be the first polling place to record election results and less about women being able to legally vote in a national election for the first time. Even so, on the morning of November 2, 1920, Phoebe’s alarm awakened her at 4 a.m. She dressed warmly and lit her lantern, making her way along the rugged dirt path through the woods and into town. The early morning air and the darkness sent a chill over her as she made the 2.5 mile trek from her farmhouse to the small schoolhouse to vote. 11 The terrain was rough and the temperature had already dipped below freezing,

but Phoebe, unlike others in town who were hitching a ride with reporters from Pittsfield, made the walk as she often did into town. Well aware of the many dangers – like wolves and bears – Phoebe chose to walk knowing her journey was much more important than any risk.

With the help of The Berkshire Eagle and The Pittsfield Journal,

the polls would open early as New Ashford hoped to again be the

poll box

first place in the country to cast and record its ballots. 12 The newspapers had shuttled many to the polls by automobile for the publicity stunt. Their plans, which Phoebe supported, was designed to help New Ashford beat the previous record set in 1916 when they were first in the nation to record their vote at 10:02 a.m. 13 When Phoebe arrived at 5:53 a.m., she made her way to form the “line” behind Mr. Walter Smith. The kerosene lamp flickered as the other members of the community arrived. Following Mr. Smith, Phoebe Jordan filled in her ballot with her choice for President and cast her vote in the old hand cranked box – making her the first woman to legally vote in a presidential election.

Phoebe knew she made history with the other women voting across the country that day, but she had no idea she would later be known as the first woman in the United States of America to legally cast her vote in a national election. Phoebe decided to wait at the polling place, after all it was a historic day. Twenty-two minutes after the final vote was cast, the votes were counted and on the telegraph wires – because there was no telephone in New Ashford. 14 Reporting their results at 7:38 a.m., New Ashford set a new record for the earliest vote in a presidential election, but maintained its position as the first to vote and report in a presidential election.

The Aftermath

After the historic vote on November 2, 1920, Phoebe continued to work her farm, follow the news and use her influence as much as possible – even running for a seat on the New Ashford Board of Selectmen. She only received a single vote – women were finally welcomed to vote, but seats in elected political arenas remained difficult to attain.

Phoebe remained a loyal Republican until she “became dissatisfied with the manner in which the Republicans were running the state and the nation and left the party flat” and became “as firm a Democrat as she was a Republican.” 15 She cast her vote in subsequent presidential elections – 1924, 1928, and 1932.

When Phoebe Jordan passed on January 14, 1940 in Dalton, Massachusetts. Her obituary, printed on January 15 in the North Adams Transcript read: MRS. JORDAN DIES, OFTEN FIRST VOTER New Ashford Woman Who Marked First Presidential Ballot in Four Elections, Succumbs Miss Phoebe Jordan, 75, of New Ashford, the first person in the United States to vote for President in four successive national elections died yesterday in Dalton where she had been ill since Jan. 4. In the elections of 1920, 1924, 1928, and 1932 when New Ashford got all its voters to the polls at 5:45 o’clock in the morning so as to be the first town in the nation to reports its results, Miss Jordan was the first in line and the first to cast and mark a ballot, and she was proud of the distinction thus gained. Living 2 ½ miles from the schoolhouse where the voting was done she insisted on walking “cross lots” from her home to the polling place. 16 Phoebe Jordan never realized she was the first woman to vote legally in a national election and would have likely been surprised when in 1992, she was publicly identified as such. Always one to buck convention, Phoebe Jordan pushed the prevailing boundaries – mistress of a successful farm, owner of a charcoal kiln, and the first woman in the United States to legally vote in a national election.