September 30, 1875 – Birth of Anne Henrietta Martin – Women’s Suffrage Activist and First Woman to Run for the U.S. Senate

Anne Henrietta Martin was born on this date in Reno, Nevada. She was no shrinking violet. As the entry on Martin in the Nevada Women’s History Project reports, at the age of eighteen, she wrote:

‘Will I never have any ambition, will I never accomplish anything…? O, I must do something. I suppose I should live more for others, but I don’t understand how. I must do something.’”

Anne attended the University of Nevada (1891-1894), where she earned a B.A. in history at the age of 19. She earned a B.A. and M.A. in history at Leland Stanford Junior University. She returned to Reno to found the Department of History at Nevada State University and was on the faculty there from 1897-1901.

Anne Henrietta Martin

According to the Nevada Women’s Website:

She took a leave of absence 1899-1901 and studied at the Universities of London, Leipzig and Columbia, and was a student at Chase’s Art School in New York City 1899-1900. She traveled and studied in Europe and the Orient in 1904-1907 and 1909-1911.”

During her leave from the university, Martin recommended the Board of Regents replace her with Jeanne Wier, a friend of hers from Stanford who was just finishing her degree.

Meanwhile, Martin became active in the suffrage movement in England during her years there in 1909-1911. In January 1910 she was arrested along with 114 other women and four men.

Back in Nevada in 1910, the Nevada Equal Franchise Society was established and the first suffrage legislation was passed by the Nevada Legislature.

Nevada NPR explained that as early as 1869, Nevada had considered women’s suffrage:

Assemblyman Curtis Hillyer of Storey County introduced legislation to amend the constitution. He argued that politics was corrupt, and women historically had been a civilizing, moralizing influence. Hillyer’s bill passed, but it had to be approved by two sessions. But the 1871 session rejected votes for women, due to controversy over the issue and a large turnover from the previous session.”

The first leaders of the Nevada Equal Franchise Society included Jeanne Weir, whose career Martin had helped advance. Martin came back to Nevada and succeeded Weir, and was elected president of the society in 1912. By early 1913, there were five hundred members in eleven Nevada counties.

Anne Henrietta Martin, Photo Credit:
Nevada Historical Society, Reno

But as NPR informs us:

… opponents also formed an anti-suffrage group that included the wives of several leading Nevadans . . . . They enjoyed financial support from the most powerful mining, banking and political boss in the state. He even announced that if Nevadans approved women’s suffrage, he would shut down his enterprises and leave the state.”

The Society focused its lobbying efforts in rural, small towns where there were no operators of casinos and saloons worried about women being “moral arbiters of society.” NPR writes:

Martin and her allies proved wise. In the 1914 election, the suffrage amendment passed, 10,936 to 7,258, or by more than three thousand votes. The question went down to defeat in Carson City and Virginia City, and in every ward in Reno. In Clark County, Las Vegans voted 296 to 153, but in outlying towns the vote was 359 to 56. Women had won the vote in Nevada.”

Martin continued her activism, both in national suffrage organizations and in civic leagues and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. She authored numerous articles on women’s equality and in her spare time, managed to be the first woman tennis champion in the state!

In 1918 and 1920, Martin ran (unsuccessfully) for the U.S. Senate as an Independent. Her speeches and writings emphasized that the government was not doing enough to help women. In 1920, in Good Housekeeping magazine, for example, she pointed out:

Last year our government spent $47,000 to protect farmers against avoidable losses of hogs, corn and cattle. In the same period it spent, in an effort to prevent the avoidable loss of mothers and babies, just $47,000 less. And we lost 250,000 babies and nearly 23,000 mothers died in childbirth. Such discrimination in favor of hogs and corn should cease.”

In 1921 Martin and her mother moved to Carmel, California, where she continued to advocate on behalf of women’s equality and causes for children.

In recognition of her leadership in the fight for state and national suffrage and her work in other fields, the University of Nevada in 1945 conferred upon her the degree of Doctor of Laws. She died in Carmel in 1951.