Reverand Mary Page Wright (
1848-?):
Mary Wright, a teacher and missionary, was elected County Superintendent of Schools, Coffey Co., Kansas in 1874. Her election may have been part of a woman suffrage strategy to test, in the courts, woman’s right to public office and to vote. A state district court sided with Noell but, on appeal by Wright, the higher state court, in 1876, issued an opinion supporting the right of Kansas women, at a minimum, to run for county office. Whether the Wright v. Noell decision applied to other county offices was contested when Jessie Patterson sought to become Davis (later Geary) County register of deeds. This dispute was not settled until 1886 when the Kansas attorney general issued an opinion that women could legally hold office in Kansas.
Party Affiliation:
Unknown
Photograph:
"Woman's Life in Asiatic Turkey," by Mary Page Wright A Celebration of Women Writers [includes photograph of Wright]
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/eagle/congress/wright.html
Resources:
Woman’s Who’s Who of America
Lorraine A. Gehring, “Women Officeholders in Kansas, 1872-1912.” Kansas History (Summer 1986), pp. 48-57.
Wright v. Noell , Supreme Court Case Files, case 566, subseries 2. Archives Department, Kansas State Historical Society.
Additional Notes:
Wright became an ordained missionary, to Turkey, in 1881 and served eight years under the American Board; was field secretary for the Woman’s Board of Missions of the Interior, 10 years; speaker at World’s Congress of Representative Women at Chicago, 1893; served under the Armenian and Indian Relief Association in Asiatic Turkey, 1903-06; and was ordained as a Congregational minister, 1910.