The Wayside, where the Alcott family lived from 1845 to 1848. As activist Harriet Hanson Robinson, wrote, “it was thought to be a rash and dreadful act for a woman to appear at the polls, or near the ballot box, in company with the MEN.” And even the small concession of letting women vote for school committee was too much for some. The struggle for full access to the polls would continue until 1920. Those votes for school committee would have to satisfy women for decades. Ashfield and Monroe let women serve on local school boards starting in 1868. In a couple of small towns, women could already vote for school committee. When Louisa May Alcott voted, though, she wasn’t the first woman in the commonwealth to cast a ballot. It would take another 40 years for the 19th Amendment to pass recognizing women’s right to vote - or at least white women’s right to vote. The year before, the Massachusetts Legislature had bowed to pressure from suffragists and agreed to let the commonwealth’s women have that limited franchise. The only thing they could vote for, though, was school committee. On March 29, 1880, Louisa May Alcott voted with 19 other women for the first time at the Concord Town Meeting.
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