Program

National Votes for Women Trail

Subject

Industry & Commerce, People

Location

20 E 5th St, Peru, IN 46970, USA

Lat/Long

40.755035585839, -86.068937483189

Grant Recipient

National Collaborative for Women's History Sites

In 1861, suffragist Lizzie Bunnell (Read) (ca. 1832-1909) founded her newspaper, The Mayflower in Peru, Miami County, Indiana. Bunnell was editor and proprietor of the paper, which was “devoted to literature and the elevation of women.” A “Prospectus of The Mayflower” included in the first few issues, noted the intended subject matter of the paper:

“The great question of the enfranchisement of Woman, will be discussed and considered in all its bearings. That woman, as one-half of humanity, has the same natural inalienable rights as man; that Woman as the Mother of the race, has a natural right to the guardianship of her children; that as a co-worker with man in all that is good and ennobling, she has the same right to herself, and her individual sovereignty; that her social equality is as important, her right to her earnings, her choice of occupation as natural and self-evident, and that our social compact should be free from all antagonizing causes, will be earnestly and dispassionately maintained. These and all kindred truths, will be fearlessly and candidly examined in our paper.”

In addition to women’s suffrage and equal rights, the “Prospectus” included the topics of temperance and education as points of discussion to be taken up in the pages of The Mayflower. In 1861, one could subscribe to the semi-monthly paper for one copy at fifty cents a year or eleven copies for five dollars a year.

Her biographical sketch included in the 1893 publication, A Woman of the Century, stated that after her marriage in 1863, Bunnell moved to Des Moines, Iowa where she continued to be involved in journalistic endeavors, serving as an editor and proprietor of the Upper Des Moines, a small regional newspaper, and as a contributor to various other papers. In 1893, she was associate editor of the Iowa publication, The Woman’s Standard, a journal focused on women’s suffrage and temperance.

On the front page of the May 26, 1909 edition of the Upper Des Moines Republican, a memorial to Bunnell was published a week after her death. Referring to Bunnell as a “pioneer newspaper woman,” it read in part:

“She was an ardent advocate of the ballot for woman at a time when the notion was much more unpopular than it is now. While not apparently a woman of a wide range of sympathies, she was a woman of intellectual vigor and was fearless and aggressive.”

Bunnell is buried in Riverview Cemetery in Algona, Kossuth County, Iowa.