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President of the Washington Equal Suffrage Association; state organizer for NAWSA;

Emma Smith DeVoe

born: 1848
died: 1927
county: Pierce
Emma Smith DeVoe When Emma Smith DeVoe was eight years old, she attended a speech by Susan B. Anthony on women’s suffrage and when the crowd was asked who was for women voting, she rose to her feet. Born in Illinois to an abolitionist family in 1848, Emma Smith had a fine education for the period and taught at Eureka College in Illinois in the music department. She married John DeVoe in 1880 and moved to the Dakota Territory. Supported by her husband John, Emma Smith DeVoe’s interest in politics and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union naturally led her to women’s rights. Well-known eastern suffragist Susan B. Anthony recognized her attractive appearance, singing voice and talent as an organizer and her “feminine” political style. DeVoe worked as an organizer for NAWSA, for many years under the tutelage of Carrie Chapman Catt, traveling to many states including North Dakota, Illinois, Iowa and Kansas. In 1905, the DeVoes moved to Washington after she had taken a hiatus from organizing for several years. She worked first in Oregon and then started work in Washington for National American Woman Suffrage Association in late 1906. Emma Smith DeVoe was the great organizer for the Washington campaign and has been credited with its victory in 1910 but not without controversy because of her sometimes autocratic style. DeVoe went on to found the National Council of Women Voters in 1911 to bring together western voting women. The group eventually merged with the League of Women Voters in 1920. She pressured Governor Louis Hart to call a special legislative session for Washington to ratify the national women’s suffrage 19th amendment in 1920. She later became active in the Republican Party and wrote from that viewpoint for the Tacoma News Tribune. The Republican Party appointed her to a position on the Republican National Committee in the early 1920s. At aged 76, she campaigned for Calvin Coolidge but died in 1927. Emma Smith DeVoe was elected to the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2000. She was posthumously awarded the Washington State Medal of Merit on February 11, 2009. Ross-Nazzal, Jennifer, “Emma Smith DeVoe: Practicing Pragmatic Politics in the Pacific Northwest,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly, Spring 2005, Vol. 96, No. 2, pg. 76-84. Ross-Nazzal, Jennifer. “Always be Good Natured and Cheerful”: Emma Smith DeVoe and the Woman Suffrage Movement.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Washington State University, 2004.

Resources:

  • HistoryLink profile
  • Women of the West Museum, Suffrage Biographies
  • National Women’s Hall of Fame
  • Emma Smith DeVoe Papers
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    Seattle General Hospital Nursery.

    Three suffragists post signs advocating women's suffrage on the side of a low wood structure in Seattle. Asahel Curtis took this photogrpah for the Washington Equal Suffrage Association.

    Ten raspberry pickers, all women, stand in a row at the edge of a raspberry field in Western Washington.

    Three American Red Cross women wearing heavy coats and Red Cross caps, offer bottles of milk and doughnuts from baskets to rows of African American soldiers returning to Fort Lewis at the close of World War II. Photo by Turner Richards, Tacoma, WA.