Laura Clay: Early Kentucky Suffragist

"I feel rebellious sometimes...I think I have a mind superior to any boy my age and equal to many others." - entry in Laura Clay's diary, age 15

Laura Clay, one of the most prominent women of Kentucky and suffrage leader was born in 1849 at the White Hall estate (near Richmond, Kentucky). Raised into a highly political family, Laura was surrounded by activism: grandfather Gen. Green Clay was a representative of the Kentucky district in the Virginia legislature, a member of the convention that ratified the Federal constitution, and a leading member of the Kentucky constitutional convention of 1799; father Cassius was the publisher of an emancipationist newspaper, The True American, friend of Abraham Lincoln and ambassador to Russia during the purchase of Alaska; and cousin Henry Clay was considered one of the great orators of the century and held congressional offices as well as being Secretary of State under John Quincy Adams and an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency in 1824, 1832, and 1844.

However, it was her mother, Mary Jane Warfield Clay, who made the greatest impact. Mrs. Clay made sure to instill in Laura and sisters Sallie and Annie that it was up to a woman to be as strong and resourceful as she wanted to be. For years at a time, Mrs. Clay ran the 300 acre estate, raised 10 children, oversaw the remodeling of the mansion and handled the family's accounts, while husband Cassius was pursuing his political career. She sent daughter Laura to Lexington's Sayre School, placing her on intellectually equal footing with male classmates -- an unusually powerful position for a southern girl in the 1860's when any woman demonstrating intellect was considered a "bluestocking" doomed to spinsterhood. After graduation, Laura studied at Mrs. Sarah Hoffman's Finishing School in New York, and at the universities of Michigan and Kentucky.

In 1869, when Laura was 20, her parents separated. Their resulting divorce in 1878 was the turning point in all of the Clay women's lives. According to laws at the time, a woman held no claim to house or property; this left Mrs. Clay homeless after 45 years of being the caretaker of the vast White Hall estate. Confronted with the vast inequality between the legal and property rights of men and women, the Clay women turned to the equalizing of women's rights. Sallie Clay Bennett began writing a column on women's activites for the Richmond Register; Annie Clay became a contributor to the Kentucky Gazette. But it was Laura whose decision changed Kentucky history.

 

"For as long as women are dependent upon men for bread, their whole moral nature is warped." - Laura Clay

After considering careers in teaching, law, and the missionary field, Laura decided to lease White Hall from her father; the 300 acre farm granted economic independence and freedom of speech denied to those with jobs who served the public. She then collaborated with Susan B. Anthony to organize suffrage societies across the Commonwealth. In 1888, Clay, with Josephine Henry, founded the Kentucky Equal Rights Association. Clay served as the organization's president from its inception until 1912.

During this same period, Clay became the best-known southern suffragist and the South's leading voice in the councils of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). While chair of the association's membership committee, she introduced recruiting innovations that almost tripled the number of members, from 17,000 in 1905 to 45,501 in 1907, and succeeded in establishing associations in nine southern states.

Like her father, Clay was an emancipationist; one who believed that it was up to each state to grant freedom/rights to citizens. She opposed the enactment of the 19th amendment by the federal government: "victory for women at the expense of the states remained for her ever a bitter pill." (Kraditor, The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement, 1890-1920) Clay was also a believer in Anglo-Saxon superiority but was paternalistic in her attitudes. A product of her time and region, this hearkening back to Southern pre-Civil War beliefs caused some critics to castigate her as a racist. At this same time, Clay lost her bid for re-election as NAWSA auditor. Contrary to some accounts, neither the race question nor the issue of the federal amendment versus the state route figured into her removal from the official board of the NAWSA. Clay for a number of years chaired association committees, contributed to fund drives, and worked in state suffrage campaigns.

As a women's activist, Clay was able to enact Kentucky legislation for the following:

• the protection of married women's property and wages during divorce
• a woman's right to joint guardianship of children in case of divorce
• a woman's right to make a will
• a woman's right to control her own real estate
• a woman's right to make contracts and sue and be sued as a single woman
• requirement for women doctors in state female mental institutions
• raising the age of consent for girls from 12 to 16
• establishment of juvenile courts and detention homes
• establishment of the first women's dormitory at the University of Kentucky
• entrance of women into male-only colleges
• equal pay for women teachers at the University of Kentucky
• passing of Kentucky legislation guaranteeing women the right to vote

 

"It is absurd to think that this country has only one man capable of being president... There are even some Republicans capable of holding the office, but I don't want them to." - Laura Clay, in response to Franklin D. Roosevelt running to a third term.

After the ratification of the suffrage amendment, Clay continued to work for women's rights and the involvement of women in both political and civic life. She was one of the founders of the Democratic Women's Club of Kentucky. She also worked to promote the involvement of women in politics, advocating that women not silently accept the party affiliation of their husbands, but instead form and act upon their own beliefs.

At the 1920 Democratic National Convention, she was the first woman to receive a vote for the presidential nomination; she was given this honor as a tribute to the many years of service she rendered in political and suffrage movements. In 1923, she had an unsuccessful run for the Kentucky Senate. Despite the fact she ran in a Republican district only three years after women attained the right to vote, Clay ran a good race, doing well in the election returns. (A woman would not hold a KY Senate office until 1949, with the election of Sen. Caroline Conn Moore.)

A firm believer in women's church rights, Clay was instrumental in winning vestry and synod eligibility for women in the Lexington diocese of the Episcopal church. In the 1928 presidential campaign, she made a number of speeches for the Democratic nominee, Alfred E. Smith, and vigorously condemned national prohibition. When Kentucky voted for the repeal of prohibition in 1933, Clay served as a member and temporary chair of the ratifying convention in Frankfort.

Even into her 90's, Clay remained active in advocating women's causes. She was known for her sharp wit and intellect, and often wrote letters to the editors of Kentucky newspapers on current political and/or gender issues. An avid contract bridge play, Clay's downtown Lexington home was the site of regular bridge games and political debate until her death. Clay died on June 29, 1941, and was buried in the Lexington Cemetery. Clay's family estate, White Hall, was purchased by the state of Kentucky in 1967 to ensure its preservation. In 1968 it became a state historic site and shrine to Clay the family's impact upon the history of the Commonwealth.

"This extraordinary woman, who dared step out of the programmed role of her day, who sacrificed personal life to serve her sisterhood, did not roar as her famous father, "the Lion of White Hall," but with calm persistence, altered life for every Kentucky woman. Laura Clay's courage, strength and vision are legendary and will always be remembered." - G.L. Tolar

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Sources

"Kentucky Milestones: Laura Clay." Lexington Herald-Leader, August 17,1992, B12.

"Cassius Clay... A Forgotten Man." G.L. Tolar. Kentucky Monthly.

"Laura Clay... A Woman Remembered." Edwina Doyle. Kentucky Monthly.

"Laura Clay." Woman's Who's Who of America: 1914-1915.

"Miss Laura Clay, 92, Early Suffragette, Dies." Louisville Courier-Journal, June 30, 1941, Obituaries.

"Daughter of Cassius" Gerald Griffin. (Interview) February 4, 1940.

"Suffragist Vanquished: Laura Clay and the Nineteenth Amendment." Paul E. Fuller. Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, vol. 93, no. #1, Winter, 1995.

"Women in Kentucky: Our Legacy, Our Future." Kentucky Commission on Women. http://www.womeninkentucky.com/

"Laura Clay Fights for Women's Rights." Kentucky Tales. http://www.kytales.com/lclay/lclay.html

Laura Clay Photographic Collection. Kentuckiana Digital Library. http://digilib.kyvl.org/dynaweb/kyvldigs/pa46m4/@Generic__BookTextView/229