Suffragists Sue Over Disenfranchisement
After Washington's territorial courts stripped women of the right to vote in 1887, three Walla Walla women took the fight to the courthouse.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Mrs. J. D. Laman, Mrs. S. B. Davenport and Mrs. Charles Burroughs, of Walla Walla, have brought suit against the inspectors and judges of the different wards there for refusing to count their votes, cast at the last election, laying their damages each in the sum of $5,000.
“Mrs. J. D. Laman, Mrs. S. B. Davenport and Mrs. Charles Burroughs, of Walla Walla, have brought suit against the inspectors and judges.”
This reflects the volatile history of women's suffrage in Washington, where the right was granted by the territory in 1883 and then invalidated by the Supreme Court in 1887, leading to a long struggle to restore the franchise by the 1910 state amendment.
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