It’s History Trivia Tuesday!

Historic Jacksonville shares tidbits from Jacksonville history every Tuesday on our Facebook and Instagram pages. “Like” us on Facebook at Historic Jacksonville (historicjville) or “follow” us on Instagram (historicjacksonville) and enjoy our tales and stories of the people and places that made Jacksonville the major hub of southern Oregon in the late 1800s.  And visit the Southern Oregon Historical Society Library and Archives for access to the historical images included in our posts.

It’s History Trivia Tuesday, and we’ve come to the end of Women’s History Month, or as Historic Jacksonville, Inc. prefers to call it, Women’s Her-story Month. It was 1920 when the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified giving (white) women the right to vote. But did you know that Oregon had an 8-year jump on the nation? The state granted women voting rights in 1912!

One of the foremost leaders of the suffrage movement in the West was Oregon’s own Abigail Scott Duniway—teacher, author, newspaper publisher, and lecturer. Because of her efforts she was given the privileges of drafting the state’s Equal Suffrage Proclamation and being the first woman in Oregon to vote.

Duniway made multiple trips to Jacksonville during her voting rights campaigns, but her strong determination and outspoken manner were not always well received by the local menfolk. During an 1879 tour, when an inflammatory editorial she had written was made known, she was burned in effigy and pelted with eggs. Abigail laughed it off saying, “Only one egg hit us and that was fresh and sweet.”