HARTFORD – In October 1920, with the passage of the 19th Amendment, thousands of Hartford women queued up to register for the newly acquired right to vote in the upcoming presidential election. Their voter registration card, along with thousands of other city residents’ cards, are preserved and made accessible in Hartford Public Library’s Hartford History Center (HHC).
October 1920, a new online exhibition that focuses on the Hartford women who registered to vote for the first time, goes live September 14, 2020, the 100th anniversary of the day when the state of Connecticut ratified the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, giving women the right to vote. Through these historical public records, we are introduced to a diverse contingent of civic-minded women – whether single, married, or widowed; black or white; Jewish or Christian; housewives, stenographers, undertakers; native born or foreign born – who took advantage of this long-fought opportunity to register to vote.
“The Hartford History Center at HPL houses a remarkable record of Hartford’s public history including the Town and City Clerk Archives from 1639 through 1970, the records of the Hartford City Parks Commission from the 1850s through the present, and Hartford’s voter registration records from the 1840s through the 2000s. Taken together these three huge collections contain a wealth of information about Hartford and its citizens. They reflect the city’s rapid growth and prosperity and its increasing diversity,” said Brenda Miller, the Library’s Executive Director, Culture and Communications.
The spine of the October 1920 project comes from a collection of voter registration cards from that landmark year, a trove of demographic and biographic information about who came to the polls in that historic election.
In the early 1900s, voter registration was only open twice a year, March and October, and only every two years. Only a few hundred people would apply. In 1920, somewhere between 15,000 and 17,000 women registered to vote out of 19,000 women eligible. Hartford’s overall population was about 138,000 people.
“We started thinking about this this past Fall. We really wanted to do something that would highlight what we have in the collection. The voter registration cards are very unique,” said Jennifer Sharp, HHC Archivist.
“We wanted to release it on the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment. It was too monumental an anniversary not to recognize it,” said Maureen Heher, HHC Historical Research Specialist.
In the lead up to the election, women lined up to practice what to do at the polls. They caught up on the issues at stake and in the positions of the people on the ballot. “They were very engaged. There was a real push to make sure that women understood what they were doing,” Heher said.
Sharp and Heher said that while doing research they were struck by the patriotism of the people of that time period. The women who fought long odds to get the vote believed in government’s ability to help people and in their own
“The biggest takeaway for me was how many people wanted this,” Sharp said. “These were people who wanted to participate in the process.”
“When these women were given the right to vote, it was treated as a sacred duty. It was an obligation – now that we have it, it is our duty to do this, they felt,” Heher said.
Sharp said it’s hard to look at the time period, where over 90 percent voter turnout was not uncommon, and to not feel a level of concern about the current state of our democracy where turnout is low and some people feel as if their vote is meaningless. “We have this right and we have to use it,” Sharp said.
The digitization of the Hartford Voter Registration Collection held in the Library’s Hartford History Center, and the subsequent transcription of the cards and making the cards’ digital images accessible online through the Connecticut Digital Archive was made possible through the generous support of Abraham Ford Jr., Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, Michael Howser, Janice Mathews, Anne E. McAloon, B. Miller and Pradeep Bajaj, Pomeroy-Brace Fund, Brenda Roggeveen, Gilda and David Roncari, and Stephen and Amy Saunders.
To see the exhibit, visit hplct.libguides.com/October1920.
For more information about the Hartford History Center, visit its webpage.
For more information about Hartford Public Library, visit hplct.org.
By Steven Scarpa, Manager of Communications and Public Relations
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