Program

National Votes for Women Trail

Subject

Event, People

Location

Millard Tydings Memorial Park, 908 S Washington St, Havre De Grace, MD 21078, USA

Lat/Long

39.538717, -76.089653

Grant Recipient

National Collaborative for Women's History Sites

Hartford County Suffragist and Vice President of the National Woman’s Party, Elizabeth Forbes, coordinated the Prairie Schooner Woman’s Suffrage campaign to stop and speak in the riverside community of the Havre De Grace in 1915. Mrs. Forbes describes the mission of the Prairie Schooner the Volume IV Issue no. 9 of Maryland Suffrage News dated May 29, 1915:

The caravan is coming to Hartford county with a message to all, both men and women, immediate wrongs to be set right, but the little band of pilgrims come also as heralds to the women of the countryside with greetings from their sisters from all over the world, and the story of what mothers of this century can do for their sons. When we watch the caravan going up the road I hope that we will wish the five faithful women Godspeed, with a little prayer for the great sister of the world that is bravely journeying into a future they only half understands, but are forced irresistibly to desire.

The Prairie Schooner, a simple covered wagon crewed by a handful of suffragists, traversed the countryside of Maryland, campaigning for the cause of woman’s suffrage. The Prairie Schooner campaign was extremely successful and a short time later, woman across the United States were give the right to right to vote with the passage and subsequent ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment August 18, 1920.