1915-1925
1920 Ledgers of Women Voters
Another group of compelling artifacts in the WCSU Archives are the voter rolls of women voters for the election of November 1920. Included in these ledgers are Achsah Dauchy Kerrigan 
and Susan Street who were among the first women to register in 1893 (see the first page of this exhibit).
Also represented on these ledgers were recent graduates of the Danbury Normal School (precursor to WestConn).
WestConn's first African-American graduate Burchia Stewart and her sister are shown above to have voted in the 1920 election. Here is Burchia with her college class.
In the fall of 2019, Dr. Lindenauer's Womens Studies 210 class researched a group of women voters selected at random from the 1920 voting ledgers. This research shows a cross section of women who chose to exercise their newly won right to vote.
Below is a table of these research papers:
Elsie Hill
Among one of the most interesting artifacts in the WCSU Archives' collections is a 1963 interview with Elsie Hill. Hill was from Connecticut and worked closely with prominent suffragist Alice Paul.
Although Paul and Lucy Burns oversaw these efforts, as they did the Suffragist, the press department also involved many paid and volunteer employees. Press efforts began with preparation for the first parade, in March 1913, which was led by Paul and Elsie Hill, a daughter of Congressman Ebenezer J. Hill from Connecticut, who had graduated from Vassar and was then teaching French at a Washington high school. Each day, Paul wrote press bulletins and Hill came in after school to take them to the newspapers.
Hill was on the Congressional Union of Woman Suffrage’s executive committee and after the passage of the 19th amendment, she chaired the National Women's Party's convention and later chaired the Party's National Council.
Newspaper Clippings
Newspapers provide a unique glimpse into the passions of the day - both for and against suffrage.
Danbury News (and Evening News - the precursor to the News-Times) provides insight into the Danbury's first election to truly allow women the vote.
According to the Danbury News, the total vote cast by the women was approximately 3,100 out of a total registration of 3,368, which means that only about 200 women failed to take advantage of the right of suffrage. In the First District, incomplete figures show that 966 women voted. In the Second district, practically the entire woman vote was cast, with only 28 out of the 792 women registered not voting. In the Third District 724 out of the 826 women voted yesterday. In the Fourth District 688 out of the 734 women registered voted.
Women had a 92% participation rate in Danbury.
