Program

National Votes for Women Trail

Subject

People

Location

400 Forest Ave, Oak Park, IL 60302, USA

Lat/Long

41.89339, -87.79945

Grant Recipient

National Collaborative for Women's History Sites

Grace W. Trout, author, and President of the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association from 1915-1920 once lived here. As president of the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association, Trout was an outspoken advocate for woman’s suffrage and tirelessly campaigned for women to gain the right to vote. In a December 22, 1912 article published in the Chicago Tribune, Trout’s leadership and speaking abilities were described in great detail:

It would have been impossible to find a woman better fitted for the office of president of such a state as Illinois with its large rural population as well as its tremendous city population than Mrs. Trout, whose talents are as numerous as they are diversified. To begin with she is a practical business woman and never has been known to let her artistic tastes get the better of her common sense so that every undertaking in which she has had a hand has been a financial success. She is a brilliant speaker, with good sound arguments as the basis for her addresses and plenty of, wit and humor to make them palatable. Mrs. Trout’s services as a speaker are especially valuable to the state organization, as she presents the suffrage arguments in an entirely new and most convincing manner. She does not treat the subject in the old “women’s rights” way by accusing the men of the injustice of denying women the ballot. Instead Mrs. Trout affirms “there is no class of men on earth who average up so well and who are so kind, so considerate, so fine in every way as our American Man. Men are not to blame for present conditions.”

Grace Trout along with several other women led a successful campaign in Illinois for the ratification of a state suffrage amendment.  In a June 15, 1913 edition of the Chicago Tribune, the success is described as follows:

The victory of the limited suffrage bill in Illinois is one of the most significant victories woman’s suffrage has had in the United States because of the peculiar conditions existing in the state and the fact that the bill gives great political power to the women in the second largest city in the country. Illinois is the first state east of the Mississippi to extend the franchise to its women. The women of every state in the union realize this progressive step taken by the Illinois legislature is the opening wedge for suffrage in the conservative middle and eastern states.  Its effect will be immediate in Illinois where the sane, practical understanding and work of the women as “half citizens” will convince the legislatures that full suffrage should be given them at the first opportunity.

This amendment to the Illinois state constitution was a major victory for the woman’s suffrage movement and helped move the United States closer to the passage of the 19^th Amendment.