Program

National Votes for Women Trail

Subject

People, Site

Location

824 3rd Ave S, Fort Dodge, IA 50501, USA

Lat/Long

42.502349, -94.185579

Grant Recipient

National Collaborative for Women's History Sites

Adeline M. Swain (1820-1899), Iowa and Illinois State suffrage leader and Honorary VP of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, once lived in Fort Dodge, Iowa.  An advocate for woman’s suffrage with notable abilities in speaking and writing, Adeline M. Swain was a tremendous asset in the fight for equal voting rights for women.  When she passed away in 1899 her loss was felt by many.  A June 17, 1899 edition of The Woman’s Journal includes her obituary which detail her achievements:

Adeline M. Swain passed away from Odin Illinois, where she was president of the suffrage club, but she was best known in Iowa, whither she and her husband moved from New York in 1858 Mrs. Swain was one of the first woman in the nation to make political campaign speeches. Mrs. Swain was teaching at Fort Dodge when, in 1883, the Greenback party of Iowa, at the time prominent in the State, looking around for a woman candidate that they might demonstrate their belief in equality for women, nominated her for the office of State superintendent of public instruction. She was an artist, of a retiring disposition, but she determined that the party, in whose principles she thoroughly, should not lose by indorsing her. In 1884, she was a delegate to the Greenback National Convention at Indianapolis. She was a clear and able writer on political topics and for several years edited a department of political science in the Woman’s Tribune.

While she died before seeing women gain the right to vote, Adeline M. Swain helped pave the way for future generations of women to have the right to vote and to seek public office.