Program

National Votes for Women Trail

Subject

House, People

Location

307 Tunnelton St, Kingwood, WV 26537, USA

Lat/Long

39.4688, -79.68945

Grant Recipient

National Collaborative for Women's History Sites

The house at 307 Tunnelton Street in Kingwood, West Virginia is the former home of actor and suffragist, Izetta Jewel Brown (1883-1978), who helped organize state support for the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, helping to secure women’s right to vote. From 1917 to 1920, Brown worked with the National Woman’s Party (NWP) to ensure the passage and ratification of the federal women’s suffrage amendment.

The NWP was formed by national suffrage leaders in 1916 to fight for the immediate passage of a federal women’s suffrage amendment. According to the October 13, 1917 issue of The Suffragist, the official publication of the NWP, West Virginia was the last state to form a branch of the NWP during the final push for the women’s suffrage amendment. Brown was a member of the newly formed West Virginia NWP branch, and also served on the NWP National Advisory Council.

After decades of suffrage activism, on June 4, 1919, the United States Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment which states that the right to vote cannot be denied on account of sex. The amendment then went to the states for ratification. West Virginia suffragists, including Brown, worked to ensure the state legislature ratified the amendment. Their efforts paid off when West Virginia ratified the amendment on March 10, and by August, the necessary 36 states had ratified the amendment, finally securing women’s right to vote in the United States.