Nina DeLong Sands and the Women’s Suffrage issue in Pentwater

The Susan B. Anthony Amendment was certified by the 66th Congress on August 26, 1920.  It reads “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account  of sex.” Congress passed the amendment on June 4, 1919 and Michigan was one of the first states to ratify it on June 10, 1919 along with Illinois and Colorado.  Georgia and Tennessee were the last.  Women’s right to vote was officially certified by the 66th Congress on August 26, 1920.  And so we cheer those who came before and persisted.

This VOTES FOR WOMEN Timeline highlights selected dates when the fight for suffrage and equality for women at the national and state level intersected with events in the Village of Pentwater.  Historical records state the first woman arrived in the Village in 1853, the first family came in 1854, and the first Pentwater cake was baked in 1854. Women in Michigan had been campaigning for the vote since 1855.  The Village of Pentwater was incorporated in 1867.

In 1848 at the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York, suffragists demanded the franchise. For the next 72 years, a diverse group of white and black women leaders lobbied, marched, picketed, and protested for the right to vote.  In 1868 Susan B. Anthony founded a newspaper, Revolution.  In 1869 Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed the National Women’s Suffrage organization with Stanton as the first president. In 1872 Susan B. Anthony was arrested for voting, was tried and fined $100 for her crime, and although she did not pay the fine, national attention was drawn to the movement.  Anthony gave a rousing but unsanctioned speech at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial.

From 1870-1874 the Michigan Suffrage Association was active. Members were also part of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union which was divided on the issue of full suffrage for women.  On April 3, 1874 The Pentwater Temperance Society was formed after “the Visit of Mr. C.P. Russell of Detroit who spoke at Gardner’s Hall and found an enthusiastic audience still waiting for him at 10pm after he missed connections. “ Among the 40 founding members were Mrs, G.D. Lee President, Mrs. G.W. Fisher, Mrs. A. Dresser, Jr.,  Mrs. Maxwell, and Mrs. Charles Lamont.  On July 10, 1874 the True Northerner (Paw Paw, Michigan newspaper) reported that “Pentwater has not a single saloon within her limits.  The woman’s movement did the business.”

May 4, 1874 Pentwater News Owner Amos Dresser, Jr. endorses suffrage in a letter. To Mrs. L. H. Stone, Secretary of the M.S.W.S. Association—“Dear Madam— Not until tonight did I give up the design of attending your (Michigan State Suffrage) meeting on the 6th, but a variety of circumstances has combined to render this impossible.  I write you briefly to express my warm sympathy for your cause, and to pledge my earnest endeavors toward securing a glorious victory at the coming election. Any plan of work that may be adopted at your council I shall be Pleased to aid in carrying out.   Fraternally Yours, Amos Dresser Jr.  Pentwater News.”  It was stated by the Northerner newspaper, Paw Paw, Michigan, in 1874, that 66 of the state’s newspapers were for women’s suffrage and only 12 were against. 

October 2, 1874 Suffrage Spokesperson and Educator Lelia E. Patridge speaks in Pentwater. Patridge was an educator and the author of the Quincy Method and taught in Philadelphia, Chicago and Kentucky. The Pentwater News reported “Miss L. E. Patridge spoke in Ludington last Monday evening (October 1, 1874) and was well received, several of the prominent citizens of that place uniting in an urgent request for a second address, the night having been so stormy on Monday as to prevent a large attendance…We (Pentwater News) regret that a combination of circumstances prevented a large attendance at her address in Pentwater on Tuesday evening.” 

November 3, 1874 a Michigan constitutional suffrage amendment was defeated by 77.23%. The vote was 135, 957 to 40,077 votes.  Pentwater voted 72 yes, 121 no.  The Michigan’s Woman’s Suffrage Association disbanded. 

In 1875 Education Suffrage passed in Michigan and women could vote in school elections.  When the Pentwater Women’s Literary Club was formed an urgent priority was to seat a woman on the school board.

1879 Susan B. Anthony visits Pentwater in a fundraising tour of the Lakeshore.  Anthony gave her stirring speech  “Woman want Bread, not the Ballot” on a fundraising tour from Traverse City south to Saugatuck including on March 14, 1879 speeches in Ludington and in Pentwater at Rice Hall on third street between Carroll and Hancock.  She said, “It was We the People, Not We the Male Citizens, but We the Whole People, who formed the Union.” The Pentwater News, stated that “Susan B. Anthony seems to delight in the dark side of things in general and marriage in particular. But very few who hear her once care to listen to her again.”  A later article in the Ludington Daily News states the Pentwater News described Anthony as a woman of commanding presence. “Her sarcasm is as sharp as a razor and wit as bright as a diamond-hilted dagger.  Her ideas are visionary and some of them communistic and impractical but with all that, from an intellectual point of view she is a bright ornament to womanhood.” 

1880 Minnie Stebbins was one of the 7 women making up the first Pentwater High School graduating class. Her reading of her senior essay on suffrage at the graduation ceremonies was described as outstanding.  Other graduates included Lou Pringle, Emma Pringle, Emma Brillhart, Hattie Fincher, Ida Wittington and Annie Jensen.

January 27, 1898 the Pentwater Women’s Literary Club was formed for literary and scientific pursuits. 23 progressive women met for the first time at Melinda A. Maxwell’s house, the first club president.  By 1899 they joined the Michigan Federation of Women’s Clubs and in 1904 the Greater (national) Federation. Early achievements included adding music, art and home economics to the school curriculum, reflecting the new curriculum initiatives offered at land-grant colleges that admitted women.  Club charter member Nina DeLong Sands was elected to the Pentwater School Board from 1907 to 1912, fulfilling another club goal.  DeLong Sands was born in Muskegon and moved to Pentwater after marrying Herbert Sands of the Sands & Maxwell lumbering, furniture manufacturing and mercantile partnership.  The club was also noted by the Ludington Daily News for working “tirelessly for the suffrage amendment” In fact, DeLong Sands was a member of the Speakers’ Bureau of the Michigan Equal Suffrage campaign in 1912.   By 1909-13 Nina DeLong Sands served as a Michigan Federation of Women’s Clubs Board Director and the Vice President until the Sands moved to Chicago around 1913. The support of the Federation of Women’s Clubs was critical to the success of the national woman’s suffrage campaign. In 1957 the Pentwater Women’s Club honored both Nina DeLong Sands and Anna Flagg (see March 14, 1922 below) at their 59th Anniversary Meeting.

A Michigan Suffrage Amendment lost again in 1912 and 1913 but in 1918 Michigan approved a state constitutional amendment granting Michigan women the vote.  It passed by 54.92% in favor.  On February 15, 1918 Ludington (which formed a suffrage association in 1914) held a day to register women to vote.  544 women registered.

The 19th Amendment was passed by Congress June 10, 1919 and ratified by states August 18, 1920. The 19th Amendment was officially certified by the 66th Congress on August 26, 1920.

March 14, 1922 Anna Jepson Flagg was the first woman elected to the Pentwater Village Council. Following the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, Pentwater elected Anna Flagg as the first woman to the Village Council in a landslide.   The newspaper reported that she was voted in on slips - which may have meant a write-in candidate.  The Grand Rapids Press reported that “a heavy vote was registered.”  Anna also ran unsuccessfully for state representative but few details are known about this run.  The history of Anna Flagg is that she graduated from Pentwater High School and married Arthur B. Flagg, a pharmaceutical representative and the grandson of H.C. Flagg, who managed Charles Mears business operations in the early days of Pentwater.   Anna was a member of the Women’s Literary Club.  She was also the chairperson of the 1930 Pentwater Homecoming which showcased the new Village Community Center, a special project of the Women’s Club.  The 1930 Homecoming honored that first Pentwater graduating class of 1880 that included Minnie Stebbins who wrote her graduation essay on suffrage.   

CREDITS: Timeline by Pam VanderPloeg, copyright 2020. This is a work-in-progress. Sources include the Pentwater Historical Society, Women’s Club archives, the Grand Rapids Press, Pentwater News, Ludington Daily News, Women’s Who’s Who of 1914-1915, Susan B. Anthony Papers-Library of Congress. Special thanks to Dick Warner, President of the Pentwater Historical Society, Larry Konopka (grand-nephew of Anna Flagg), and Ruth Stevens, Greater Grand Rapids Women’s History Council.

Email questions, thoughts, information to pamvanderploeg@gmail.com or use the “contact form” on ArchitectureGrandRapids.org.