Not be Denied
Westport Suffrage Influencers
Emily B. Fuller (center right, behind CWSA president Katharine Ludington) in Bridgeport at the 1919 CWSA Jubilee to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the organization. A key effort was lobbying a group of state Republicans who were “hindering the calling of a special session of the legislature” on the 19th amendment. Courtesy, Connecticut State Library, State Archives, CWSA Records.
In 1912—the year the Westport Equal Franchise League (WEFL) was organized—the membership of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association (CWSA) exploded from a mere three leagues (Hartford, Greenwich and Norwich) and 300 participants in 1910 to 47 local chapters with 10,000 members. By 1917, there were 100 branches with 38,000 registered supporters.
The women below are among those from Westport who merit being remembered for leading by example and impacting the movement’s growth.
Mary Elizabeth Wright Smith (1851-1921) served on the CWSA’s board from 1902-1903, elected in the wake of her nationally publicized civil suit against her husband, manufacturer Eli C. Smith. An early woman’s rights advocate, the Westport native hired female lawyers to rebuff his demand to control her property, particularly $300,000 ($9 million today) in U.S. bonds. The “proud, self-willed mother” spent three weeks in a Bridgeport jail, a penalty for not disclosing the bonds’ whereabouts and being in contempt of court. Her maiden name was taken for Wright Street, where many artists and pro-suffragists coincidently lived
Ann Holden Mazzanovich (1871-1941) was the daughter of “Amber,” a pioneering female columnist also known as the fulcrum of Chicago’s bohemian society. Ann and her husband, landscape painter Lawrence Mazzanovich, made Westport home in 1907 after time in France. In 1912, she helped Agnes Lewis Mitchill (1865-1934) and Mary C. Dolge (1886-1954) establish the WEFL. Ann succeeded Mitchill and Sarah Potter (1868-1940) as president, serving in 1914 and 1915. From the Wright Street house and studio, she hosted local and regional meetings and spurred on fellow wives of artists and writers in the cause.
Ann Boylan Wright (1878-1954) and Emily Boylan Fuller were sisters from New York City who moved to Westport in 1907 and by 1913, respectively. With Natalie Mitchill and actress Mabel Ballin, Mrs. George Hand Wright delivered soapbox speeches at local factories to arouse female workers. Wright’s determination carried over into politics. In 1922, Wright was one of two women delegates at state Democratic conventions and, in November, the first woman to run for state representative of Westport.
Emily Boylan Fuller (1874-1923), owner of Mrs. Robert W. Fuller Real Estate & Insurance, stridently urged women to exercise their school vote long before they had full franchise. The wife of a teacher, she organized mass meetings on school issues “with full and free discussion.” Fuller paired these with endless telephoning to help elect women to the school board. In 1915-16, she used her skills as a CWSA congressional district leader to lobby legislators and embolden local leagues to action.
Ann Holden Mazzanovich. Courtesy, Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, Georgia.
Ann Boylan Wright, shown here with her artist husband, George Hand Wright, was unsuccessful in her 1922 bid as state representative, but the election was the liveliest in town history, with 73% of registered voters casting a ballot. Courtesy, Edward F. Gerber and Nancy Healy.
WEFL presidents brought in notable speakers and CWSA leaders —Katharine Houghton Hepburn, Annie G. Porritt, Josephine Bennett and Alyse Gregory among them—to Westport for public rallies and league meetings. Courtesy, Dr. Kenneth Florey.