From http://www.wvculture.org/history/journal_wvh/wvh49-8.html
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West Virginia suffragists whose narrative biographies can be pieced together allow a closer look at the experiences and backgrounds of a few political activists. Suffrage leaders for whom narrative biographical sketches can be constructed include Lenna Lowe Yost, Dr. Harriet B. Jones, Julia Walker Ruhl, Irene Broh, Izetta Jewell Brown, and Beulah Boyd Ritchie.
Among these leaders, the life of Lenna Lowe Yost, president of the WVESA during both the state woman suffrage referendum campaign of 1916 and the national amendment ratification campaign of 1920, has been most fully documented. Yost's personal papers were donated to the West Virginia and Regional History Collection at West Virginia University by a cousin, Mrs. Virginia Brock Neptune. These papers, supplemented by interviews with Mrs. Neptune and Betty Boyd, former Dean of Student Life at West Virginia University, who worked with Yost on women's education issues, allow for the most complete biography of any West Virginia suffrage leader.
Born in 1878, Yost was raised in Basnettville, a small town in Marion County, and graduated from West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon, Upshur County. She married in 1899 and lived in Fairview, Clarksburg, Morgantown, Huntington, and Washington, D.C. Active in the Morgantown WCTU soon after her son's birth in 1902, Yost became president of the state WCTU by 1908. In 1918, she left the presidency to accept a national WCTU role as Washington correspondent of that organization's journal, the Union Signal.
At the same time, she developed an interest in the suffrage movement and joined the WVESA in 1905. Paralleling her rise to leadership in the state WCTU, Yost became president of the state suffrage organization in 1916; conducted a vigorous, although unsuccessful, state referendum campaign; and served the organization again in 1920 as leader of its campaign to secure ratification by the West Virginia legislature of the Federal Woman Suffrage Amendment. Following the success of this amendment, Yost joined the Republican party, in which her husband, an attorney, was also active throughout his life. She served on the West Virginia platform committee, as the West Virginia Women's Activities Director as an active campaigner during the presidential races of the 1920s, and eventually as Director of the Women's Division of the national party.
Yost continued her activism in the temperance movement, attending international conferences on alcoholism in 1921 and 1923. She also accepted an appointment to the West Virginia State Board of Education, which oversaw administration of all state educational institutions, including the state colleges and university. Always concerned with women's issues, she championed the establishment of a women's physical education building at West Virginia University, worked for the recognition of West Virginia colleges by the American Association of University Women, advocated equal salaries and rank among women and men faculty, and served on the board of directors of the federal women's prison at Alderson.
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From Effland's article in "Missing Chapters: West Virginia in History":
Also in 1920 she served as a teller at the National Republican Party Convention, and she presided over that year's state convention. She served on the West Virginia state platform committee during 1920 and as chairman of that committee in 1922. None of these offices or their equivalents in other states had ever been filled by women before.
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West Virginia suffragists whose narrative biographies can be pieced together allow a closer look at the experiences and backgrounds of a few political activists. Suffrage leaders for whom narrative biographical sketches can be constructed include Lenna Lowe Yost, Dr. Harriet B. Jones, Julia Walker Ruhl, Irene Broh, Izetta Jewell Brown, and Beulah Boyd Ritchie.
Among these leaders, the life of Lenna Lowe Yost, president of the WVESA during both the state woman suffrage referendum campaign of 1916 and the national amendment ratification campaign of 1920, has been most fully documented. Yost's personal papers were donated to the West Virginia and Regional History Collection at West Virginia University by a cousin, Mrs. Virginia Brock Neptune. These papers, supplemented by interviews with Mrs. Neptune and Betty Boyd, former Dean of Student Life at West Virginia University, who worked with Yost on women's education issues, allow for the most complete biography of any West Virginia suffrage leader.
Born in 1878, Yost was raised in Basnettville, a small town in Marion County, and graduated from West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon, Upshur County. She married in 1899 and lived in Fairview, Clarksburg, Morgantown, Huntington, and Washington, D.C. Active in the Morgantown WCTU soon after her son's birth in 1902, Yost became president of the state WCTU by 1908. In 1918, she left the presidency to accept a national WCTU role as Washington correspondent of that organization's journal, the Union Signal.
At the same time, she developed an interest in the suffrage movement and joined the WVESA in 1905. Paralleling her rise to leadership in the state WCTU, Yost became president of the state suffrage organization in 1916; conducted a vigorous, although unsuccessful, state referendum campaign; and served the organization again in 1920 as leader of its campaign to secure ratification by the West Virginia legislature of the Federal Woman Suffrage Amendment. Following the success of this amendment, Yost joined the Republican party, in which her husband, an attorney, was also active throughout his life. She served on the West Virginia platform committee, as the West Virginia Women's Activities Director as an active campaigner during the presidential races of the 1920s, and eventually as Director of the Women's Division of the national party.
Yost continued her activism in the temperance movement, attending international conferences on alcoholism in 1921 and 1923. She also accepted an appointment to the West Virginia State Board of Education, which oversaw administration of all state educational institutions, including the state colleges and university. Always concerned with women's issues, she championed the establishment of a women's physical education building at West Virginia University, worked for the recognition of West Virginia colleges by the American Association of University Women, advocated equal salaries and rank among women and men faculty, and served on the board of directors of the federal women's prison at Alderson.
-----------------------------
From Effland's article in "Missing Chapters: West Virginia in History":
Also in 1920 she served as a teller at the National Republican Party Convention, and she presided over that year's state convention. She served on the West Virginia state platform committee during 1920 and as chairman of that committee in 1922. None of these offices or their equivalents in other states had ever been filled by women before.
From http://www.wvculture.org/history/journal_wvh/wvh49-8.html
---------------
West Virginia suffragists whose narrative biographies can be pieced together allow a closer look at the experiences and backgrounds of a few political activists. Suffrage leaders for whom narrative biographical sketches can be constructed include Lenna Lowe Yost, Dr. Harriet B. Jones, Julia Walker Ruhl, Irene Broh, Izetta Jewell Brown, and Beulah Boyd Ritchie.
Among these leaders, the life of Lenna Lowe Yost, president of the WVESA during both the state woman suffrage referendum campaign of 1916 and the national amendment ratification campaign of 1920, has been most fully documented. Yost's personal papers were donated to the West Virginia and Regional History Collection at West Virginia University by a cousin, Mrs. Virginia Brock Neptune. These papers, supplemented by interviews with Mrs. Neptune and Betty Boyd, former Dean of Student Life at West Virginia University, who worked with Yost on women's education issues, allow for the most complete biography of any West Virginia suffrage leader.
Born in 1878, Yost was raised in Basnettville, a small town in Marion County, and graduated from West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon, Upshur County. She married in 1899 and lived in Fairview, Clarksburg, Morgantown, Huntington, and Washington, D.C. Active in the Morgantown WCTU soon after her son's birth in 1902, Yost became president of the state WCTU by 1908. In 1918, she left the presidency to accept a national WCTU role as Washington correspondent of that organization's journal, the Union Signal.
At the same time, she developed an interest in the suffrage movement and joined the WVESA in 1905. Paralleling her rise to leadership in the state WCTU, Yost became president of the state suffrage organization in 1916; conducted a vigorous, although unsuccessful, state referendum campaign; and served the organization again in 1920 as leader of its campaign to secure ratification by the West Virginia legislature of the Federal Woman Suffrage Amendment. Following the success of this amendment, Yost joined the Republican party, in which her husband, an attorney, was also active throughout his life. She served on the West Virginia platform committee, as the West Virginia Women's Activities Director as an active campaigner during the presidential races of the 1920s, and eventually as Director of the Women's Division of the national party.
Yost continued her activism in the temperance movement, attending international conferences on alcoholism in 1921 and 1923. She also accepted an appointment to the West Virginia State Board of Education, which oversaw administration of all state educational institutions, including the state colleges and university. Always concerned with women's issues, she championed the establishment of a women's physical education building at West Virginia University, worked for the recognition of West Virginia colleges by the American Association of University Women, advocated equal salaries and rank among women and men faculty, and served on the board of directors of the federal women's prison at Alderson.
-----------------------------
From Effland's article in "Missing Chapters: West Virginia in History":
Also in 1920 she served as a teller at the National Republican Party Convention, and she presided over that year's state convention. She served on the West Virginia state platform committee during 1920 and as chairman of that committee in 1922. None of these offices or their equivalents in other states had ever been filled by women before.
---------------
West Virginia suffragists whose narrative biographies can be pieced together allow a closer look at the experiences and backgrounds of a few political activists. Suffrage leaders for whom narrative biographical sketches can be constructed include Lenna Lowe Yost, Dr. Harriet B. Jones, Julia Walker Ruhl, Irene Broh, Izetta Jewell Brown, and Beulah Boyd Ritchie.
Among these leaders, the life of Lenna Lowe Yost, president of the WVESA during both the state woman suffrage referendum campaign of 1916 and the national amendment ratification campaign of 1920, has been most fully documented. Yost's personal papers were donated to the West Virginia and Regional History Collection at West Virginia University by a cousin, Mrs. Virginia Brock Neptune. These papers, supplemented by interviews with Mrs. Neptune and Betty Boyd, former Dean of Student Life at West Virginia University, who worked with Yost on women's education issues, allow for the most complete biography of any West Virginia suffrage leader.
Born in 1878, Yost was raised in Basnettville, a small town in Marion County, and graduated from West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon, Upshur County. She married in 1899 and lived in Fairview, Clarksburg, Morgantown, Huntington, and Washington, D.C. Active in the Morgantown WCTU soon after her son's birth in 1902, Yost became president of the state WCTU by 1908. In 1918, she left the presidency to accept a national WCTU role as Washington correspondent of that organization's journal, the Union Signal.
At the same time, she developed an interest in the suffrage movement and joined the WVESA in 1905. Paralleling her rise to leadership in the state WCTU, Yost became president of the state suffrage organization in 1916; conducted a vigorous, although unsuccessful, state referendum campaign; and served the organization again in 1920 as leader of its campaign to secure ratification by the West Virginia legislature of the Federal Woman Suffrage Amendment. Following the success of this amendment, Yost joined the Republican party, in which her husband, an attorney, was also active throughout his life. She served on the West Virginia platform committee, as the West Virginia Women's Activities Director as an active campaigner during the presidential races of the 1920s, and eventually as Director of the Women's Division of the national party.
Yost continued her activism in the temperance movement, attending international conferences on alcoholism in 1921 and 1923. She also accepted an appointment to the West Virginia State Board of Education, which oversaw administration of all state educational institutions, including the state colleges and university. Always concerned with women's issues, she championed the establishment of a women's physical education building at West Virginia University, worked for the recognition of West Virginia colleges by the American Association of University Women, advocated equal salaries and rank among women and men faculty, and served on the board of directors of the federal women's prison at Alderson.
-----------------------------
From Effland's article in "Missing Chapters: West Virginia in History":
Also in 1920 she served as a teller at the National Republican Party Convention, and she presided over that year's state convention. She served on the West Virginia state platform committee during 1920 and as chairman of that committee in 1922. None of these offices or their equivalents in other states had ever been filled by women before.
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