Description: Portrait of Caroline M. Severance of Cleveland, Ohio. Severance (1820-1914) was included on the "Ohio State Honor Roll" from the League of Women Voters of Ohio, ca. 1930, which listed prominent Ohio women involved in the suffrage movement. Her brief biography from the Honor Roll reads: "Caroline M. Seymour Severance was born in New York in 1820 and died in Los Angeles in 1914. Mrs. Severance spent the first sixteen years of her married life in the frontier city of Cleveland. She was the first woman to lecture in Cleveland in behalf of woman's suffrage. Later she returned to New England, where with Julia Ward Howe and others she organized the first Woman's Club of New England, and became its first president. Moving later to Los Angeles, she was the founder of the first kindergarten there. She was a Unitarian, an abolishionist, devoted to the cause of world peace, a staunch believer in woman's suffrage, in birth control, and in a single standard of morals. She was known as 'The Mother of Clubs.'" This photograph comes from the League of Women Voters of Ohio Collection. The League of Women Voters was first formed at the national level in early 1920 by Carrie Chapman Catt, President of the National Woman Suffrage Association. Soon, additional leagues began to form at the state and local level, with the League of Women Voters of Ohio being organized in May 1920 in Columbus. The League was first formed to empower women to use their newfound right to vote, and today its primary purpose remains citizen education. To this goal, it supports voter registration efforts, provides information on candidates and issues, sponsors debates and offers publications on public policy and voter engagement topics. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: MSS354_B10_LWVO_CarolineSeverance
Subjects: Women--Suffrage; Social movements; League of Women Voters of Ohio; Suffragists; Activism; Educators
Places: Cleveland (Ohio); Cuyahoga County (Ohio)