The Suffragist in the Hall: How One Woman’s Plea Shook Washington’s Constitutional Convention
In the sweltering heat of 1878, a delegation from Seattle petitioned the territorial convention for women's voting rights. Mrs. Dunaway was invited to speak, delivering an eloquent appeal that momentarily softened the hearts of the 'sage' delegates before the vote closed.
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.
Walla Walla, Feb 27.—Now that, to all human probability, there will ere long be a convention formed wherein and whereby the enduring foundations will be laid for the future empire state of the Pacific coast, the great commonwealth of Washington, the presentation of some facts and figures bearing on the former constitutional convention, held here in 1878, will prove not uninteresting.
On Tuesday, June 11, 1878, the duly elected delegates numbering 15, eight Republicans and seven Democrats, assembled in what was then called Science Hall, now occupied by the library, a large room in the Reynolds building on Main street, for the purpose of formulating a constitution for the then proposed new state. The following named composed the body: W. A. George (of Walla Walla), Edward Kidridge (Shelton), R. M. Gilmore (Kittitas), were the delegates at large; S. M. Wait, B. F. H., representing the First, Second and Third judicial districts respectively; from the council districts were Charles M. Bradshaw, Jefferson county; Henry B. Emery, Kitsap county; L. B. Andrews, King county; D. B. Hanna, Pierce county; Francis Henry, Thurston county; A. S. Abernathy, Cowlitz county; George H. Stewart, Clarke county; O. P. Lacy, Walla Walla county; J. N. O'Dell, Whitman county; and Alonzo Perce, Nez Perce county, Idaho.
Of whom it may be said they were the flower of the territory and were without exception sedate and thoughtful men, many of them having had large legislative and judicial experience and by reason of the inspiration afforded by the importance of the work they were called to perform commenced their labor with a strength of purpose and an earnestness that was most complimentary, and whose zeal was emphatically manifested throughout the entire 40 day session in the sweltering heat of mid-summer.
The members were duly qualified by P. B. Johnson, notary public, and organized by roosting A. S. Abernathy president, W. B. Daniels of Clarke county, secretary; William Clark assistant secretary, Henry D. Cook sergeant-at-arms, John Bryant and John Norris messengers, Arthur Sharp scribe.
Other than getting the machinery in running order no notable business was transacted until the evening of the fourth day when the committee heretofore appointed 'on the best mode of framing the constitution' reported the following classification of articles, preambles, boundaries, declaration of rights, distribution of powers, legislative, administrative, judiciary, finance, eminent domain and property of the state, suffrage and elections, officers, state institutions, education, corporations, rights of married women and exemptions from forced sale, amendments, miscellaneous, schedule, resolutions. Nineteen articles in all which on the fifth day were segregated into three parts and referred to three committees authorized to report from time to time.
On the sixth day Judge Harrison presented a petition signed by 300 names, male and female, bringing before the convention the subject of the right of women to vote, which, by a vote of seven to six resulted in the appointment of Messrs. George Kidridge and Stewart as a committee to wait upon Mrs. Dunaway, then in our city, inviting her to appear before the convention at 10 a.m., on the seventh day, and present her memorial on female suffrage. A motion made at the time that Mrs. Dunaway be made a member of the convention failed to pass.
The lady, at the time stated, made an eloquent appeal on behalf of womankind to a crowded hall, a majority of whom were ladies of this city, 'who by their smiling faces, light, gay laughter, sweet speech and winning looks lent a softness to the otherwise grave and sage aspect of the assemblage of a short time before.' At the close of which a local reporter heard one of the constituents say to another: 'I've spotted two of them; that sage from Inland, Mr. Larabee, clad in robes of spotless purity, with the white eyebrows on his upper lip, and that handsome man with the white vest, Mr. Stewart, are opposed to us, and I am going straight to tell Mrs. Dunaway, so that she can give 'em fits.'
This 1878 account captures a pivotal moment in Washington's political history: the struggle for women's suffrage nearly two decades before the 19th Amendment. While the convention ultimately rejected full voting rights for women in the state constitution, the public pressure and eloquent appeals like Mrs. Dunaway's kept the issue alive, contributing to the eventual success of the suffrage movement in Washington State in 1910.
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