Program

National Votes for Women Trail

Subject

People, Site

Location

Elizabeth Moore Hall, University Ave, Morgantown, WV 26501, USA

Lat/Long

39.634902, -79.9549

Grant Recipient

National Collaborative for Women's History Sites

West Virginia suffragist, Lenna Lowe Yost was a leader in the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and served as president of the West Virginia Equal Suffrage Association (WVESA) from 1916 to 1917. Her husband Ellis A. Yost, was an attorney and served as a West Virginia state legislator.

During her career, Yost worked as a national representative for the WCTU, serving as a legislative superintendent and also as state president of the West Virginia WCTU. She was largely involved with the passage of a West Virginia prohibition law that banned alcohol in the state. What was known as the Yost Prohibition Law went into effect in July 1914. It was introduced to the West Virginia state legislature as House Bill No. 8 by Yost’s husband, who was then chairman of the house committee on prohibition and temperance. Yost herself campaigned throughout the state in support of the law.

Yost applied her temperance campaigning experience to her suffrage activism, as noted in the January 23, 1916 edition of the Clarksburg Sunday Telegram, when she was appointed chair of the WVESA state campaign committee:

“Mrs. Yost has had extensive experience in political campaigning in West Virginia, having been active through the state at the time of the prohibition campaign, when she asserted in effecting the ratification by the people of the state of the Yost prohibition law.”

Yost served as chair of the WVESA state campaign committee when West Virginian suffragists were working for the passage of a women’s suffrage amendment to the state constitution. The November 20, 1917 edition of the Fairmont West Virginian reported on the WVESA annual meeting being held in Fairmont. At the morning meeting of the WVESA executive board, Yost was asked if she believed women would win the right to vote, to which she replied:

“Are the women of this country going to win the ballot? Yes. Practically everybody who has a vision beyond the end of his nose sees that.”

Yost continued, making reference to the war effort enacted on the part of West Virginian suffragists after the country’s entry into World War I in April 1917, explaining why the suffragists continued to fight for the right to vote despite the country being at war:

“They love their country, they believe in democracy, they serve because every impulse in them demands that they serve. At the same time they see that this country has a government not wholly true to its principles. We will not cease to ask for the ballot. Is it logical that women who are assisting in every possible way to win the war for democracy over the seas should wholly cease to strive for democracy at home?”

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. Yost worked to ensure the state legislature ratified the amendment, serving as chair of the WVESA state ratification committee. The efforts of the WVESA paid off when West Virginia ratified the amendment on March 10, 1920, and by August, the necessary 36 states had ratified the amendment, finally securing women’s right to vote in the United States.

Working with the West Virginia chapter of the American Association of University Women, Yost helped to establish Elizabeth Moore Hall on the West Virginia University campus in Morgantown. The building was dedicated on November 28, 1928.