News from CSL

Gladys Bragdon Suffrage Interviews Notebook Available in Flickr Monday, April 18, 2011

The Connecticut State Library has just completed digitizing the Gladys Bragdon Suffrage Interviews Notebook, 1918, (RG 106) is now available online at our Flickr site. The notebook contains handwritten entries of interviews conducted with approximately 129 prominent men both in and outside local and state government about their position and views on giving women the right to vote. Bragdon recorded in the small black notebook the men’s names, job title or position in government, party affiliation, if they signed a petition, interests, changed views, and if they supported the federal amendment. The interviews helped the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association (CWSA) and the New Haven Equal Franchise League (NHEFL) gather information about who and who did not support voting rights for women.

On June 19, 1919 the 66th United States Congress passed the suffrage amendment, also known as the Susan B. Anthony amendment, and sent it to state legislatures for ratification. Tennessee became the necessary 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution on August 18, 1920. The Connecticut General Assembly, in a special session, ratified the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution on September 14, 1920. The passage of the amendment by three-fourths of the states guaranteed women the right to vote.

The (Mrs. R.) Gladys Bragdon Record of Suffrage Interviews notebook submitted on July 1, 1918 documents Connecticut women’s push for the right to vote. Some of the more prominent men’s names in the notebook include: former Governor Simeon E. Baldwin, Walter Camp, Robert O. Eaton, former New Haven Mayor Frederick Farnsworth, former New Haven Mayor David E. Fitzgerald, John Fitzgerald, former Congressman James P. Pigott, J. Henry Roraback, Isaac M. Ullman, and former Governor Rollin S. Woodruff.