100 years ago: Republican Abigail Duniway’s victory

Abigail Duniway (OR Hist Soc)

by NW Spotlight

100 years ago today, Oregon voted to give women the vote. “Oregon’s strongest voice for the cause of Women’s suffrage,” pushing for women’s right to vote, was Abigail Scott Duniway – a Republican.

Katy Muldoon at the Oregonian wrote an article yesterday on a century of voting rights for women, and talked about Abigail Duniway’s leading role, but neglected to mention that Abigail Duniway was a Republican.

Abigail Duniway wasn’t the only Republican fighting for women’s right to vote. Salem’s Reed Opera House history notes that Cyrus Adams Reed was the “founder of the state’s Republican party and a proponent of women’s rights.  He was the first president of Oregon Woman’s Suffrage Association, and allowed Susan B. Anthony and Abigail Duniway to use the Reed stage in 1871 as a pulpit to campaign for votes for women.”

Additional source:

 Women in Pacific Northwest History, Volume 1 (pg 36) “Duniway was always a Republican”