Community Corner
This Summer Marks 100 Years of Women Getting the Right to Vote
The women's suffrage movement culminated 100 years ago in women gaining the right to cast their ballots. So where does that leave us today?
One hundred years ago this summer, women around Illinois had a special reason to celebrate independence.
On June 26, 1913, Illinois Gov. Edward F. Dunne signed the Women’s Suffrage Bill into law, granting women the right to vote in presidential and municipal elections, and making Illinois the first state east of the Mississippi to grant suffrage to women, according to the Illinois League of Women Voters.
Evanston lawyer Catherine Gouger Waugh McCulloch drafted the initial text of the bill, which passed thanks to the hard work of people like Oak Park advocate Grace Wilbur Trout, who traveled the state to encourage grassroots support.
Trout was present when the bill was signed, and told the governor he had “won the everlasting gratitude of the women of Illinois,” according to a newspaper report from the time.
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“We feel confident that they will prove worth of the great responsibility which has been granted them,” she said.
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