Your TR Source
President Roosevelt writes Eleanor Brooks Saltonstall to tell her that he does not have time to fully state his opinion on the suffrage question.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-05-23
Frances Kellor asks Theodore Roosevelt to direct women who would like to participate in the Progressive Party to Room 601 at National Headquarters. Kellor also asks Roosevelt to “speak for suffrage.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1912
Jane Addams has received the forwarded telegram from Millicent Garrett Fawcett and is pleased with Fawcett’s commendation of the Progressive Party. She has sent the telegram to Frances Kellor for distribution to the press. Addams will be writing several articles on the party’s social economic planks drawing on her “experience with poorer people.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1912-08-24
Welles Cone did not attend Theodore Roosevelt’s address at Carnegie Hall but did help advertise it. He asks if the enclosed editorial about suffrage is accurate. Cone also requests that Roosevelt see if he still has the book Cone gifted him during his time as governor of New York.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-12-06
Frank W. Coolbaugh appreciates Theodore Roosevelt for his speech at the Women’s Conference stating his position on women’s suffrage and the judiciary and also expresses his support for universal suffrage.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-10-23
Maud Nathan informs Theodore Roosevelt that he is surprised to see Roosevelt be so unwilling to male a public statement on equal suffrage and recalls a luncheon where Roosevelt was firm on his belief on women’s suffrage. Nathan inquires why Roosevelt did not make recommendations for equal suffrage as Governor to the New York legislature and why he is still unwilling to make a public statement.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-10-23
Harriet May Mills writes Theodore Roosevelt about his upcoming speech at Carnegie Hall on the Conservation of Women and Children, stating that women cannot advocate for themselves on this subject if they cannot play a role in lawmaking. She urges Roosevelt to use his influence and make his stance on suffrage known so that New York can join California in allowing women to vote.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-10-17
Alice H. Chittenden writes to Theodore Roosevelt about his upcoming Carnegie Hall address on “The Conservation of the Lives of Women and Children.” She is opposed to the suffrage movement, which she knows Roosevelt supports, and wants to emphasize her believe that the conservation of women should be focused on improving economic conditions so that women need not work outside the home and can preserve their health and energy, subsequentially raising birth rates.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-10-16
Inez Milholland has heard about Theodore Roosevelt’s upcoming Carnegie Hall lecture on “The Conservation of Womanhood and Childhood” and writes to tell him she hopes he uses this opportunity to publicly state he supports women’s suffrage.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-10-16
Olive S. Gabriel is interested in the betterment of juvenile court systems but reflects that women do not hold political power. In light of this, she begs Theodore Roosevelt to speak in favor of women’s suffrage during his upcoming speech at Carnegie Hall.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-10-17
Mrs. Alex McKenzie asks Theodore Roosevelt to please speak on suffrage during his upcoming speech in New York in order to help the movement.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-10-17
Hazel Lucile Reed’s class at Indiana University is discussing women’s suffrage. She remembers reading an article in The Outlook in which Theodore Roosevelt said he was against the movement. However, Reed recently read a statement in the newspaper saying he was for it. Reed asks for clarification on his views.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-07-17
Anna Roosevelt Cowles tells her brother, Theodore Roosevelt, about a man who would like to meet him and invite him to the opening of a new library. She greatly enjoyed Roosevelt’s recent visit, and hopes to be able to see him at Sagamore Hill sometime soon. Cowles shares some of her opinions on women’s suffrage with him, remarking that many of the best women she knows are against it.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-06-28
Miriam M. Greeley asks for Theodore Roosevelt to endorse the use of drawing rooms as they relate to women’s suffrage.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-06-06
Marie M. Stevenson responds to Theodore Roosevelt’s views on Catholicism, Protestantism, and Rome. She likewise counters his claims on women’s suffrage, admitting that she had not read up on his perspective prior to his previous letter.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-05-29
After briefly remarking on her surprise that Theodore Roosevelt would have put Catholics in positions of power while president, Marie M. Stevenson asks for Roosevelt’s opinion of women’s suffrage.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-05-20
Ruth Heywood Whitman Sears agrees with Theodore Roosevelt’s views on the family. However, Sears is troubled by his “tepidity” regarding women’s suffrage. She argues it is “a duty to share the responsibilities of citizenship.” The issue is to be submitted for a vote in California. While Roosevelt is in California, Sears requests Roosevelt state, in his “own forceful way,” his reasons for voting in favor of suffrage.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-04
Cecil G. Rhodes greatly appreciates Theodore Roosevelt’s article “Race Decadence.” He believes willful sterility is criminal and shows a perversion of natural instincts. He requests Roosevelt write a follow-up article discussing “right living in nature-up through the animal kingdom till man.” As an aside, Rhodes supports women’s suffrage and believes it has a role in the issue of right living since the home is the foundation of the nation. However, reproduction is vital to the world.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-04-11
Missouri T. B. Hanna, the editor of The New Citizen, sends Theodore Roosevelt a copy of the magazine that “won suffrage in Washington.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-04-06
Fanny Rastall tells Theodore Roosevelt of a pending legislative bill in Illinois granting suffrage to women, which as of yet still has several obstacles to its being enacted into law. Rastall recalls Roosevelt having expressed support for both genders being able to vote, and she asks if he would be willing to deliver an address in Chicago on his return trip from the Pacific coast. The letter is signed by a number of Illinois suffragists, in addition to Rastall.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-03-29