The Women of the Xenia, Ohio School Board (1895):
In April, 1895, only months after the passage of the school suffrage bill in Ohio, a group of « pietistic » women organized to use their newly won right to vote for local school board members to elect righteous women. Activists in few other Ohio towns moved as quickly to make use of the 1894 school suffrage statute. Drawing upon organizing experience obtained in twenty years of temperance crusades, dozens of Xenia women came together to sponsor a nominating convention and then to elect their candidates. The nominating convention meeting was racially integrated, with an African-American woman declining a nomination but promising to support the candidates selected by the group.
On election day, activists encouraged voting on the part of women by organizing places where female voters could meet and walk as a group to the polls (which were often located in places women did not frequent). They also arranged child care, and carriage rides for those who could not walk. Mrs. Eliza Carruthers and Mrs. George Moore were elected to the school board as the result of the activists’ skilled campaigning. They defeated three male candidates. They won the support of white Protestant wards as well as the African-American community. Both women were members of United Presbyterian congregations. Eliza Carruthers was president of the missionary society and helped Mrs. Moore publish Missionary Magazine.
Resources:
Cynthia Patzig, « Pietism As a Motivating Factor in Women’s Participation in the School Board Election of 1895 : Xenia, Ohio » (History Paper, 1973, University of Dayton)