Margaret W. Campbell

Margaret W. Campbell (January 16, 1827-November 5, 1908) was an American women's suffrage advocate.

Campbell was born in Hancock County, Maine, on January 16, 1827.^[1][2] She attended the district schools there.^[1] She moved to Iowa in 1857, locating in Linn County.^[1] During the American Civil War, she was active in soldiers' aid societies.^[1][2]

As early as 1850, her attention was called to the subject of women's suffrage by reading the proceedings of the first Woman's Rights Convention held in Worcester, Massachusetts.^[1][2] She soon became a firm believer in the reform but did not enter the field as a worker until 1863.^[1] It was at this time made her first public speeches in the suffrage cause, writing also on the subject for the newspapers.^[1]

In 1869, she was sent as a delegate to the convention of the American Woman Suffrage Association at Cleveland, Ohio.^[1] From this time on, Campbell became one of the prominent public speakers in the cause in New England and New York.^[1] For more than 20 years she was an officer of the American Woman Suffrage Association and for a long time was connected with the Woman's Journal.^[1] She was associated with Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, Susan B. Anthony, and other national leaders in the reform, often speaking with them at conventions in various states.^[1][3][4]

As she toured the country working for the cause, her husband, a painter, often painted portraits to cover their expenses.^[2]

In February 1869, she attended a suffrage convention at Springfield, Massachusetts, where a number of the national leaders were among the speakers.^[1] Here Campbell made an eloquent address which attracted general attention.^[1] At one point in her life, she lived in Springfield.^[2]

In 1870, Campbell was a delegate to the state convention of the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association.^[1] She organized women's suffrage societies in Berkshire, Essex, Hampden, Plymouth, and Worcester Counties.^[2]

In November 1879, Campbell settled in Iowa and continued active in the suffrage cause, taking part in all of the state campaigns.^[1] She was four years president of the State Suffrage Association and for two years corresponding secretary.^[1]

She worked with American Woman Suffrage Association to attempt toamend the Michigan Constitution to allow women to vote, in 1874 but it was defeated, 136,000-40,000.^[5]

In 1875, it became increasingly likely that the United States Congress would admit Colorado as the 38th state.^[6] Campbell moved to the territory, spending much of 1875 and 1876 trying to convince the Colorado constitutional convention to give women the right to vote.^[7] On January 10, 1876, she helped organize a women's suffrage convention at Unity Church in Denver.^[6] It was timed to coincide with the convention drafting a constitution for the territory, and was publicized with pamphlets placed on the desks of territorial legislators and delegates to the constitutional convention.^[6] The convention established the Territorial Woman Suffrage Society, the precursor to the Non-Partisan Equal Suffrage Association.^[6]

The convention did not grant women the right to vote, but it did agree to hold a referendum on the issue in 1877.^[7] Campbell returned to work on that campaign, giving lectures to drunken miners in small schoolhouses and on the banks of rivers.^[7] To get to some locations, she traveled up the sides of mountains on a "sure-footed little burro" along dangerous trails where they could have plunged thousands of feet to their deaths.^[7] Despite her efforts, the referendum failed by a margin of nearly two-to-one.^[7][6]

Campbell spent much of 1872 in Maine, organizing the Maine Women Suffrage Association.^[2] She then spent two years organizing in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado.^[2] She then returned to work in New England before focusing her attentions on Iowa, Indiana, and Nebraska.^[7]

In 1901, she removed to Joliet, Illinois.^[1] She died there in 1908, with the funeral services held at the home of her son, George.^[4]

Berenson, Barbara F. (9 April 2018). Massachusetts in the Woman Suffrage Movement: Revolutionary Reformers. History Press. ISBN 978-1-4671-1862-0. Retrieved 9 February 2020.