Women's History Month: Voting Enfranchisement

Courtesy of the Arkansas Senate

Arkansas' women legislators, 2019.

Arkansas enfranchised women in 1917, three years before the 19th Amendment was added to the U.S. constitution. By limiting the voArkansas enfranchised women in 1917, three years before the 19th Amendment was added to the U.S. constitution. By limiting the vote to primary elections only, most Black women were excluded together with Black men. In addition, Arkansas powerbrokers declared women still ineligible to stand as candidates for office.

Finally, in 1922, Governor Thomas McRae appointed Arkansas's first women legislators, Frances Hunt (Pine Bluff) and Nellie Mack (Warren), to the Arkansas House. Later that year, Hunt and Erle Chambers (Little Rock) were the first women elected to the Arkansas Legislature.

To date, 146 women have served in the Arkansas General Assembly, 21 in the Senate and 137 in the House, still a tiny fraction of the institution's alumni.

For more information, see Lindsley Armstrong Smith and Stephen A. Smith, Stateswomen: A Centennial History of Arkansas Women Legislators, 1922-2022. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, forthcoming 2022.