Program

National Votes for Women Trail

Subject

People

Location

105 G St, Oakland, MD 21550, USA

Lat/Long

39.39489, -79.381579

Grant Recipient

National Collaborative for Women's History Sites

West Virginia suffragist, Julia Walker Ruhl (1861-1956) served as president of the West Virginia Equal Suffrage Association from 1917 to 1920, during the final push for women’s right to vote. Prior to this, Ruhl was active in the suffrage movement, serving as an officer in the West Virginia Equal Suffrage Association and speaking in support of women’s suffrage. The June 13, 1914 edition of the Baltimore Sun, records Ruhl in attendance at a national convention of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, when the organization was debating whether to adopt a resolution in support of women’s suffrage. The Sun reported that in voicing her support for the cause of women’s suffrage, Ruhl “was on her feet less than a minute, but this was long enough for her to declare herself heart and soul for the movement,” which “elicited prolonged applause” from those in attendance.

Ruhl’s summer home was located in Mountain Lake Park, Maryland. The August 2, 1916 edition of the Clarksburg Daily Telegram published a message Ruhl sent from her Mountain Lake Park home to the paper in response to a recent suffrage edition of the paper. Ruhl encouraged West Virginia to support votes for women:

All agree that nation-wide equal suffrage within a few years is inevitable. May West Virginia honor herself by being the first among the conservative eastern states to grant full citizenship to her women.

After decades of suffrage activism, finally, on June 4, 1919 the United States Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution which states that the right to vote cannot be denied on account of sex. By August 1920, the necessary 36 states had ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, securing women’s right to vote across the country. According to the West Virginia state report in volume six of The History of Woman Suffrage, the West Virginia Equal Suffrage Association became the West Virginia League of Women Voters on September 30, 1920. After serving as president of the state suffrage association, Ruhl then transition to president of the newly transformed organization, that now had the goal of educating women and encouraging them to use their newly acquired right to vote.