Town Meeting Minute - Women, the Vote and Schools

Women had to wait until 1919 before they could vote in town, state or federal elections but about 40 years earlier, they got the right to vote in school district meetings. In the mid-1800’s, each tiny one-room school district was run by a local committee. Maybe because they needed more people to share the work, in 1872, women were granted the right to sit on those committees. Former state legislator Doug Hall dug into the history on this.

HALL: At that point, women still couldn’t vote for who was on the committee, but they could be on the committee. So the state legislature six years later in 1878, said, if we’re going to let them be on the committee, we might as well let them vote.

That change affected how things run today. Only men could vote on town matters but both men and women could vote on schools. The solution was to separate the meetings. And even though now everyone can vote, that’s the way it stayed.

With this Town Meeting Minute, I’m Jon Greenberg.