Program

National Votes for Women Trail

Subject

People

Location

1726 Jenks St, Evanston, IL 60201, USA

Lat/Long

42.067635646639, -87.696808542328

Grant Recipient

National Collaborative for Women's History Sites

Catharine Waugh McCulloch (1862-1945) was a lawyer, suffragist, and political activist who dedicated her life to the fight for women’s rights and equal suffrage. For decades, she served as chair of the legislative committee of the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association. She also served as a legal advisor for the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

McCulloch’s address to the Illinois General Assembly was published in part in the February 13, 1891 edition of the Chicago Tribune. As part of a delegation of suffrage leaders calling on the state legislature to pass a women’s suffrage measure, McCulloch stated:

Women should be allowed to vote for every question and on any side of it – taxation, children, appropriations, moral questions, wage questions, everything. The ballot should be given to every woman – Democrat, Republican, Prohibitionist or F.M.B.A., Congregationalist, Baptist, Catholic, infidel, rich women, poor women, wage-workers, good women, bad women.

For the next twenty years, McCulloch continued to fight for women’s suffrage in the state. She served as the legal strategist for Illinois women’s suffrage, preparing the bill that would finally secure partial suffrage for women in the state in 1913.

Catherine Waugh McCulloch Park was named in her honor by the City of Evanston, Illinois.