Appalachian History

Mountain Advocate
Barbourville KY
Fri, Aug 5, 1910

Jackson County.
Great Rejoicing Among the Edwards People.


Last Monday being county court day in McKee, there was quite a large crowd gathered in from different parts of the county.

This brought together in all including the 4 or 5 living in McKee about 1 dozen Edwards men, an unusually large crowd of Edwards friends, while there were some 300 or more Powers men in town.

McKee, KY at court day, early 20th century.

This being the largest crowd of Edwards followers that have yet been gotten together on any occasion in Jackson County and when joined by a few of their Democratic allies, and putting their heads together for a while and listening to each other talk, and listening to the wise counsel of their Democratic friends and seeing the crowd of themselves so much larger than usual they naturally took courage and became very enthusiastic and as a result a period of great rejoicing followed the Edwards camp. They naturally felt under such circumstances like Mr. Edwards had somehow or other made great gains, though they could not tell just how or why.

But the Powers men being possessed of great liberality of thought, and generally good feeling toward his fellow man that attaches to almost all true Republicans everywhere, and are willing to see the Edwards men and their Democratic allies have their good feeling and periods of rejoicing while they may, such as would naturally follow, after so large a gathering as this one was; for the time is surely not far distant, and not later than the 15th day of Sept, next, when their enthusiastic will be running at a very low ebb, and their joys will all cease, and their sun of hope will forever refuse to shine upon them and their Democratic allies and Edwards their man will be buried so deep beneath the great flood of Powers ballots that will pour down upon them on that good day which will roll up majorities that will look like mountains to them with old Jackson county in line with her thousand or twelve hundred majority for Powers, that they will never be able to rejoice again, though they view the crowd of Edwards men ten times as the one that assembled in McKee on last county court day.

A Jackson County Republican

Rebecca Latimer Felton, in her customary way, saw right through the political machinations that led to her officially becoming the first woman to serve in the United States Senate.

When Georgia Senator Thomas E. Watson died on September 26, 1922, Governor Thomas Hardwick appointed a replacement to serve until a special election could be held. Hardwick noted that his appointee would not actually "serve" because Congress was not in session when Watson died, and the next session would not begin until after the special election.

Hardwick himself wanted to be a senator, and he knew that the person he appointed would have a real advantage (as incumbent) in the special election. So rather than give an edge to a potential opponent, and to get on the good side of Georgia's newly enfranchised women voters (whom he had offended by opposing the Nineteenth Amendment), Hardwick appointed the eighty-seven-year-old Rebecca Latimer Felton (1835-1930) on October 3. To this day she holds the record for the oldest freshman senator to enter the Senate.

Felton sitting at the Senate Office Building desk she occupied for 24 hours.

Hardwick lost the special election two weeks later to Walter F. George. When the session opened George allowed Felton to present her credentials before he claimed his seat so that she might make history. She was sworn in at noon on November 21.

In one sense it was a meaningless, perhaps even condescending parody; Felton herself called it a “joke.” But it acknowledged her years of political activism and set the stage for women to become serious participants in the political process. Minutes after being sworn in, Felton rose to address her temporary colleagues: “Mr. President, the women of this country are going to come and sit here. There may not be very many the next few years, but in time they will come. When they do I pledge that this body will get ability, integrity and unstinted usefulness.”

The next day Senator-elect George was sworn in. Felton's term had lasted for just twenty-four hours.

Rebecca Latimer Felton is worthy of our attention for far more than this passing episode in her long life. A writer, lecturer and reformer who had a special interest in agricultural and women’s issues, she did not accept the popular belief during that time that a woman’s proper role was a housewife and instead had an active role outside the home.

As a columnist for the Atlanta Journal for twenty-eight years, Felton contributed various articles under the titles "Mrs. Felton's Timely Talks" and "The Country Home," their format being a cross between a modern "Dear Abby" and "Hints from Heloise."

Late in her life, Felton campaigned tirelessly for Progressive Era reforms. Through speeches and her writings, she helped to effect statewide prohibition and to bring an end to the convict lease system, a system of leasing cheap labor to private companies, which often maintained the convicts in substandard and even inhumane conditions. Both were achieved in 1908.

She supported the state university against its opponents—the church-affiliated colleges and those who felt that the state's limited funds should be directed toward improving public schools below the college level. In 1922 Felton received an honorary doctorate from the University of Georgia.

She also spoke out for vocational education opportunities for poor white girls in the state. Not until the early twentieth century did Felton embrace the reform with which she is most associated: women’s suffrage. She became the South's best known and most effective champion of women's right to vote. Hence the symbolic importance to Georgia’s women voters of her Senate seat appointment.

Felton published her Memoirs of Georgia Politics in 1911, Country Life in Georgia in the Days of My Youth in 1919, and The Romantic Story of Georgia Women in 1930, shortly before her death. In her preface to Country Life in Georgia… she stated: “[The readers of Georgia’s newspapers] write to me and touch my heart, and some of them say further – ‘You have a large following in the State of Georgia who are devoted to you, especially among the rural citizens, the plain people of the State. They always feel assured you will state facts and furnish proof if your statements should be questioned.’”


Sources: www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2005_06/house/kids/famous/rebeccafelton.htm
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=F000069
www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-904
www.roselawnmuseum.com/history%5Cfelton.html
www.georgiawomen.org/_honorees/feltonr/index.htm



Rebecca+Latimer+Felton womens+suffrage Georgia+politics Appalachian+politics appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

On June 8, 1948, the town election in Clintwood, VA drew national and international attention when the voters elected an all-female town council and mayor. The Petticoat Government consisted of Mrs. Minnie "Sis" Miller, mayor, and Mrs. Ferne W. Skeen, Mrs. Buena H. Smith, Mrs. Ida M. Cunningham, Mrs. Kate Friend, and Mrs. Marion Shortt, town council.

Letters poured in from around the world wishing them luck and expressing amazement that an all woman government could be elected anywhere. The State Department featured the story in its Voice of America broadcast.

The idea shouldn’t have seemed so far-fetched. It had already happened twice before in US states.

In Oregon, women gained suffrage in 1912, eight years before much of the nation, and by 1916 the women of Umatilla, OR took control of city government through their electoral option. Mrs. C.G. Brownell held a card party and the women attending decided what roles each could take in city government.

They did not inform the men of the community and the elections proceeded quietly. Since candidates did not have to declare themselves, E.E. Starcher and C.G. Brownell confidently expected re-election. But the town of 198 people elected Laura Starcher as mayor, Lola Merrick as treasurer, Bertha Cherry as recorder, Florence Brownell, Gladys Spinning, Anna Means and Stella Paulu to council positions.

In her acceptance speech, Laura Starcher promised to provide Umatilla a progressive administration, replace failing electric street lights, install sewers, and clean up the town. The womens' administration accomplished Starcher's promises and more, installing warning signs at railroad crossings, adding a library to the community budget, and framing ordinances for speed limits, parking regulations, and fire protection.

By 1920, the women of Umatilla, "Having accomplished what they had set out to do four years earlier," bowed out of the political scene.

And in 1925, shortly after the 19th Amendment was passed, the voters of Winslow, AR elected an all female government consisting of Mayor Maude Duncan and Council members Lyda Cole, Florence Marley, Audie Crider, Bee Chervery, Daisy Miller, Etta Black, Martha Winn, Virginia C. Dunlap and Stella Winn. It worked so well that every single woman was elected to a second term.

By all accounts, Clintwood's Petticoat Government, which took the reins in September 1948, was highly successful. Miller's administration undertook many important improvement projects, including: clean-up campaigns, expanding parking in town, installing parking meters in the downtown area, purchasing a fire truck, organizing a systematic garbage disposal plan, and improving traffic hazards throughout town. Six of the women served only one term, however, Mrs. Ferne W. Skeen and Mrs. Buena H. Smith successfully sought re-election.

Sources:
www.ccrh.org/comm/umatilla/women.htm
http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mtnties/petticoat.html
www.oldstatehouse.com/exhibits/arkansas-women/organizations/petticoat_politics.asp


Petticoat+Government Clintwood+VA Dickenson+County+VA Minnie+Miller appalachian+politics appalachia appalachian+mountain+history appalachian+history

"I never spoke a word until I was nine years old. I only clucked and motioned for what I wanted. Lots of people thought I was an idiot because I could not talk. I may have looked like one, for I was a little old country boy that never cut my hair in those days only about twice a year, and I wore a big checked cotton shirt and old jeans pants made by my mother and old yarn socks, and 70-cent stogie shoes with brass toes. This was my winter suit and my summer suit was only a big yellow factory shirt and no hat or shoes.

"At the age of ten I was taken by my mother and uncle, Gid Hogg, to Whitesburg, Ky., the county seat of Letcher County, a distance of about eighteen miles. We rode an old mare named "Kate," without any saddle, and when I was taken off I could not walk I was so stiff, and that made everybody think I was an idiot sure enough.

"So when Judge H. C. Lilley opened court on Monday, February 12, they taken me before the judge. The judge ordered old Black Shade Combs, then the sheriff, to summon twelve jurors and two doctors. One doctor thought I had been born an idiot, and Dr. S. S. Swaingo, of Jackson, held out that I was all right of mind, and so the case was put off until 10 a. m. Tuesday.

"Then Dr. Swaingo got old Dr. McCray and gave me a thorough examination. The doctors found by examining my neck, where the small tits in one's neck are, that the tit in my neck had grown together. After the doctors cut the tit loose in my neck I began to talk and to have a good joke. The doctors took me to a one-horse barber shop and had my hair cut and fixed me up and presented me on Tuesday morning to Judge Lilley, and he was surprised beyond reason that I was Fess."

History of Corporal Fess Whitaker
Louisville, Ky, The Standard Printing Co., 1918.

Whitaker's claim to fame is his run for U.S. Congress in 1926, in which he was narrowly defeated. Fess Whitaker (1880-1927) began his career as a politician in 1917, when he was elected county jailer in Letcher County, KY. He likely held this office until 1921, when he decided to run for county judge. The New York Times reported that sometime around 1921 Whitaker participated in a street fight, a disturbance of the peace that led to his incarceration in the very jail he supervised and earned him the nickname "The Jailed Jailer." While imprisoned, Whitaker continued his campaign and was eventually elected. In 1922, Whitaker was again jailed, this time for possessing and transporting whisky for illegal sale. Nevertheless, he was re-elected Letcher County jailer in 1925. He died in a car crash in 1927.


source: http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/whitaker/whitaker.html