After Women's Suffrage
National Council of Women Voters
Officers of the National Council of Women Voters. L to R: Maud Bjorkman, Jane Addams, Emma Smith DeVoe, and Dr. Cora Smith King (Eaton). WSHS - All rights reserved.
Shortly after the Washington suffrage victory in 1910, Emma Smith DeVoe spearheaded
the creation of the National Council of Women Voters (NCWV), a nonpartisan coalition
of women from voting states. DeVoe organized this separate group partly in response
to her rebuff by NAWSA at their 1909 national convention in Seattle. She also wanted
to show the dissatisfaction of western states with the organization. The goals of
the NCWV were to create an educational organization for women voters, to lobby for
legislation, and to extend women’s suffrage nationally. DeVoe envisioned an evolving
group that would add members from states as they enacted women’s suffrage. Creation
of this coalition highlighted the differing strategies among western suffragists
and NAWSA and enfranchised women who desired to take a more active role in the national
campaign.
Cover, NCWV brochure. WSHS - All rights reserved.
DeVoe successfully encouraged Idaho governor James Brady to call a meeting to form
the NCWV. The meeting took place on January 11, 1911, in Tacoma. Brady asked each
suffrage state to appoint a recognized suffragist as a council delegate. Idaho appointed
Margaret S. Roberts; Wyoming, Zell Hart Deming; Colorado, Mary C. C. Bradford; Utah,
Susan Young Gates; and Washington, Virginia Wilson Mason. DeVoe was named president
at the initial meeting in Tacoma, which was sparsely attended because a snowstorm
kept Wyoming and Utah delegates from attending. Anna Howard Shaw said she recognized
DeVoe’s ambitions to control NCWV and Cora Smith Eaton’s tactics in supporting her
as similar to those they had used to take control at the 1909 WESA convention. DeVoe
and Eaton’s actions elicited outcry from opponents in Washington State, with Hutton
noting, “It looks like Tammany to me.” Other groups, including Washington’s Federation
of Labor, Grange, Farmer’s Union, and women’s clubs also condemned DeVoe’s actions,
which appeared to have gained her a “railroaded” presidency. From its headquarters
in Tacoma, the NCWV, however, moved forward as part of the national campaign for
women’s suffrage.
Additional Resources
Emma Smith DeVoe Papers, Washington State Library
Emma Smith Devoe: Practicing Pragmatic Politics in the Pacific Northwest by Jennifer Ross-Nazzal
Teaching Citizenship to Women, from the Portland Oregonian February 1, 1912