Belva Ann Lockwood (1830-1917):
Belva Ann Lockwood, an attorney in Washington, D.C., was the first woman to run a full, national campaign for the presidency. She announced her candidacy in 1884 after the two major parties again refused to endorse suffrage for American woman. She ran with Marietta Stow, a California women’s rights activist and newspaper publisher. Lockwood argued that women should run for political office to demonstrate their competence and interest in politics. She also wished to demonstrate the irony of women’s position: that the law permitted women to be political candidates although, under the law, most women in the United States were not permitted to vote.
Lockwood campaigned across the country and organized electoral tickets in several states. Many journalists wrote about her campaign and, like the male candidates, she was the subject of numerous political cartoons. She polled fewer than 5000 votes but succeeded in making the point that women cared about politics and public policy. In 1888 Lockwood again accepted the presidential nomination of the Equal Rights Party but this time ran a smaller campaign that attracted less public attention.
Party Affiliation:
Equal Rights Party
Photographs/Cartoons:
See images and cartoons of Belva Lockwood from her presidential campaigns
Resources:
Belva A. Lockwood, “How I Ran for the Presidency,” 17 (6) National Magazine (March 1903)
Belva A. Lockwood, “My Efforts to Become a Lawyer,” Lippincott’s Magazine (February 1888)
Jill Norgren, Belva Lockwood: The Woman Who Would be President (New York University Press, 2007).
Jill Norgren, Belva Lockwood: Equal Rights Pioneer (Twenty-First Century/Lerner Books, 2009)(for young adult readers).
Primary Resources
Lockwood’s papers are scare and scattered. Documents and small collections may be found at the League of Nations Library, Geneva, Switzerland; the Library of Congress; the National Museum of American History (Smithsonian); the National Archives, the New York State Historical Association (Ormes/Winner Collection, Cooperstown); the Niagara County Historical Society; the Swarthmore College Peace Collection; the Syracuse University Library.
[Additional notes]:
Lockwood was active in the affairs of the National Woman Suffrage Association. In her 1884 and 1888 campaigns a number of its members declined to support her. Some activists continued to put their faith in the major political parties, while other suffrage women thought that a woman presidential candidate would bring ridicule upon the suffrage movement.
After the 1884 election Lockwood used the public notice that she achieved as a pioneering woman attorney and presidential candidate to launch a career on the paid lecture circuit. She was also an active member of the Universal Peace Union (UPU). She lobbied its peace and arbitration policies at the White House and Congress, and represented the UPU at international meetings, attending her last foreign peace conference in 1913. In 1914, aged 84 and still not permitted to vote, she told a reporter that she nevertheless had confidence that women would be elected to both houses of Congress and “some day” would occupy the White House (Norgren, 2007 at 142)