Program

National Votes for Women Trail

Subject

People

Location

GM3G+69 Espanola, FL, USA

Lat/Long

29.5031105, -81.3240439

Grant Recipient

National Collaborative for Women's History Sites

Alice Scott Abbott (1856-1920) fought for women’s right to vote and worked as a temperance activist. She lived in Bunnell in Flagler County, Florida. Abbott advocated for women’s suffrage at the national and state level, and served as a lecturer and organizer for the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) of Florida.

Thanks to the efforts of suffragists like Abbott, on June 4, 1919, the United States Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment which states, “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.” By August 1920, the necessary 36 states had ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, securing women’s right to vote across the United States, including in the state of Florida.

After this, Abbott continued to advocate for women’s suffrage, encouraging women to register to vote. In October 1920, she penned a letter “To the Dear Women of Flagler County” published in the Flagler Tribune. In the letter, Abbott urged Flagler women to register to vote so that they might exercise their newly acquired right in the coming election. Abbott noted her poor health at the time and reminisced about her role in the women’s suffrage movement:

It was my privilege to give the first lecture on Votes for Women ever given in Florida at the State Convention held in St. Augustine, November, 1893. It did not take very well, but oh! What a change since then!

Sadly, Abbott died later that month, without ever having exercised the right she worked for over two decades to secure. She is buried in Espanola Cemetery in Bunnell, Flagler County, Florida.