MONTAGUE — The Montague branch of the Muskegon Area District Library welcomed the Muskegon Museum of History and Science for a presentation on the history of women’s suffrage in Muskegon County and surrounding areas Wednesday. Jennifer Reeths and Wendy VanWoerkom shared photos and articles from past suffragettes and local women’s suffrage groups stretching from Hart to Grand Rapids.
A series of women were credited for their ongoing fight for women’s freedom, including Montague’s own Nellie B. Chisholm, for whom the middle school is named. She was just one of many credited for being part of the Muskegon organization for women’s suffrage.
Attendees encouraged the idea of placing their “I voted” stickers on the headstones of local suffragettes, in honor of their fight. This is a common practice throughout the country.
“The push and pull of the progress the suffragettes would think they’re making, then having to fall back again,” VanWoerkom said. “I can’t imagine how frustrating that was to persevere through. But the women did. There were some issues they had with each other with strategies and things like that, but they ultimately pushed through and kept going for 72 years.”
Other things included in the presentation were copies of anti-suffrage cartoons that were printed in newspapers nationwide and locally throughout the movement.
“I really like looking into anti-suffrage cartoons,” said Reeths. “I find those fascinating in the arguments they would make and the crazy, off-the-wall things they would say. But also the mud-slinging back then has connections to the same things we have today. For example, they’d say ‘look at these catty women’ and they’d have pictures of cats. We have politicians today that are calling people ‘childless cat ladies.’ It was very interesting for me to see that clear overlap.”
Other historical pinpoints in women’s history included this year marking only the 50th anniversary of women being able to get credit cards without being married and/or needing a man’s signature.
“It’s amazing to see how far we’ve come, how much work was done by women who came before us,” Montague Library team leader Christina Le Vey-Rowland said. “There’s still work to be done, but it’s also amazing to know that some of the women who started the movement never got to actually see the vote.”
