Brookline Women and the Suffrage Cause

Exhibit by Greer Hardwicke

Brookline Village Library, First Floor: Emery and Lobby Cases

On view through September 15, 2021

“Many Brookline women played central roles in the major events and policy battles of the suffrage cause, both for and against. Using their class, wealth and domestic standing, and education, these women were able to marshal resources, employ their social connections and skills of organization, and develop new tools of persuasion, marketing and legislative acumen in the struggle for votes for women. The more organized local effort began in 1895 when Mary Hutcheson Page organized the Brookline Equal Suffrage Association. In the same year, other Brookline women formalized their opposition to the vote with their involvement in the Massachusetts Association to Oppose Further Extension of Woman Suffrage (MAOFEWS). The exhibit explores the activities of these women.

This exhibit is the initial phase of a larger plan to develop a Brookline Women’s Heritage Project which I have been developing over the past decade to record and chronicle the impact of Brookline women and their contributions over time.”

— Greer Hardwicke, Brookline Preservation Planner (1983-2016)

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