Program

National Votes for Women Trail

Subject

People

Location

711 W Washington St, Greenville, SC 29601, USA

Lat/Long

34.854851, -82.409122

Grant Recipient

National Collaborative for Women's History Sites

South Carolina suffragist, community leader, and businesswoman, Mary Putnam Gridley (1850-1939) worked for women’s right to vote starting in 1890, when she pledged to work for suffrage at a women’s rights conference held in Greenville, South Carolina. Out of this 1890 conference, the South Carolina Equal Rights Assocation was formed. Gridley was a leader in the state association, eventually serving as treasurer of the group.

In 1895, South Carolina held a constitutional convention to draft a new state constitution. Suffragists urged the convention to include women’s suffrage in the new constitution. Despite their efforts, women’s suffrage was rejected by the convention and it was not included in the 1895 constitution.

After this, Gridley continued to work for women’s right to vote. In 1916, the Greenville News reported that Gridley had presented a talk to the local women’s suffrage club in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Her talk addressed the question, “Why are the women of South Carolina not more enthusiastic in their work for equal suffrage?” The Greenville News reported that Gridley “gave a brief but vivid sketch of the whole suffrage movement” and noted that:

She concluded that the present inertia and lack of enthusiasm in our State must be due to the fact that the women, from long habit, were simply waiting for the men to give them the ballot.

Later, in January 1919, Gridley urged women in the state to fight for the right to vote, encouraging them to write to South Carolina State Senator William P. Pollock to demand that he take action on the federal women’s suffrage amendment. However, both senators from South Carolina ultimately voted against the amendment. Despite this, on June 4, 1919, the United States Congress finally passed the Nineteenth Amendment which stated that the right to vote could not be denied on account of sex. The amendment then went to the states for ratification. While the state of South Carolina rejected the amendment, by August 1920, 36 other states had ratified the amendment, securing women’s right to vote across the United States, including in South Carolina.

In 1933, the Greenville News published a tribute to Gridley given by a group of Greenville women:

Mrs. Gridley, one of Greenville’s most beloved citizens, has been a prime mover in many of the city’s charitable, cultural, civic and otherwise helpful enterprises for 50 years and a wise and thoughtful advisor to the Business and Professional Woman’s Club. A woman of broad intellect, good judgement and tactful and charming manner, she possesses the qualities of leadership which inspired others to work with her to the successful accomplishment of the undertaking in view.

Gridley passed away in 1939 at the age of 89 years old. She is buried in Christ Episcopal Church Cemetery in Greenville, South Carolina.