Draft:Phoebe Jordan

• Comment: The draft would need to be rewritten in a neutral tone, and with inline citations showing where each piece of information comes from. Some of the sources in the draft are not reliable, e.g. amazon. bonadea contributions talk 19:16, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

• Comment: The style of this with all the odd line-breaks makes it look like this has been copy-pasted form some place. What this just authored some place else, or is this a copyright-violation? KylieTastic (talk) 17:39, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
  UPDATE: author said on talk page created in Word and copy-pasted. So appeasrs to be no copy-vio issue KylieTastic (talk) 18:46, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

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Phoebe Jordan (February 26, 1864 - January 14, 1940) was the first woman to legally vote in a national election in the United States following the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Early Life

Born on February 26, 1864, in Washington, Massachusetts, Jordan was the daughter of Emily Middlebrook and Sidney Deloss Jordan. She attended school and her parents encouraged "book learning".

At seven years old, Jordan was sent to live with her aunt, Josephine Jordan, in New Ashford, Massachusetts. She attended the schoolhouse at New Ashford, studying with both boys and girls, without the differentiated curriculum that was predominant at the time.

Phoebe Jordan house

Phoebe's grandfather, Francis Jordan had made New Ashford his home at the beginning of the 19th century when the town's farmers gathered to help him "raise" his house and barn in May 1831. When Phoebe arrived, the home, barn, and the farmland belonged to her Aunt Josephine who was mistress of the farm, an unusual occupation for a woman in the 1870s. Though she had not realized it at the time, under the tutelage of her Aunt Josephine, Phoebe grew more intelligent, self-confident, and independent and thus began her drive to challenge the conventional wisdom of the day which left women unable to vote, without personal wealth or property, limited their professional opportunities, and forced them to work for lower wages than their male counterparts.

Adult Life

Phoebe Jordan

With her Aunt Josephine's passing, Phoebe found herself as mistress of the farm. She was successful thanks to her Aunt Josephine's guidance, her tenacity, and her thirst for knowledge, ultimately growing the farm to more than 400 acres. There were those who saw her as "only a woman" but she proved herself, doing much of the work on the family farm with never more than two hired hands, having learned not only from her Aunt but from several neighbors who deemed her worthy. She was a marksman, who as a teenager killed a fox trying to raid her chicken coop with a single shot from 102 feet. She also operated the farm's horse-drawn mowing machine in summer and snow plow in winter.

She remained at the New Ashford school until it had nothing left to teach her. The townspeople often encouraged her to pursue teaching and take over the school. She knew it was not her calling for it would mean leaving Berkshires to pursue a career elsewhere because, at the time, New Ashford was the lowest-paying area in the state for teachers, paying only a fourth of what Boston and others paid. Instead, Phoebe grew her farm successfully, raising turkeys, as well as supplying firewood to the school and running her charcoal kiln. Phoebe never married. No one knows for sure, but the long-held New Ashford rumor says Phoebe had been in love once, with a sweet young man who drowned in nearby Phelps Pond when she was only 30 years old.

Suffragist

Jordan's rise as a suffragist was likely inspired by Susan B. Anthony, a fellow Bay Stater but also by others who had gone before. Phoebe could see the roots of the suffragist movement in the efforts of abolitionists like Abigail Adams and Frederick Douglas. Both movements were founded solidly in the desire for freedom and equal rights for all citizens.

Phoebe knew the story of Lydia Chapin Taft, the first woman who legally voted in New England in 1756 in Uxbridge, Massachusetts. As an adult, Phoebe heard about Maud Malone who had organized the first women's suffrage march in 1908, though the news came late because the local newspaper carried very little in the way of efforts of the suffrage movement, beyond running cartoons contrary to cause.

The Historic Day

poll box

On the morning of November 2, 1920, Phoebe awakened early. She dressed warmly and lit her lantern, making her way along the rugged dirt path through the woods and into town. The early morning air and the darkness sent a chill over her as she made the 2.5-mile trek from her farmhouse to the small schoolhouse to vote. The terrain was rough, and the temperature had already dipped below freezing, but Phoebe, unlike others in town who were hitching a ride with reporters from Pittsfield, made the walk as she often did into town. With the help of The Berkshire Eagle and The Pittsfield Journal, the polls would open early as New Ashford hoped to again be the first place in the country to cast and record its ballots. The newspapers had shuttled many to the polls by automobile for the publicity stunt. Their plans, which Phoebe supported, was designed to help New Ashford beat the previous record set in 1916 when they were first in the nation to record their vote at 10:02 a.m. When Phoebe arrived at 5:53 a.m., she made her way to form the "line" behind Mr. Walter Smith. Following Mr. Smith, Phoebe Jordan filled in her ballot with her choice for President and cast her vote, making her the first woman to legally vote in a presidential election in the United States of America.

The Aftermath

Jordan continued to work her farm, follow the news and use her influence as much as possible – even running for a seat on the New Ashford Board of Selectmen. She only received a single vote – women were finally welcomed to vote, but seats in elected political arenas remained difficult to attain.

Phoebe remained a Republican until she "became dissatisfied with the manner in which the Republicans were running the state and the nation and left the party flat" and became "as firm a Democrat as she was a Republican." She cast her vote in subsequent presidential elections – 1924, 1928, and 1932.

When Phoebe Jordan passed on January 14, 1940 in Dalton, Massachusetts. Her obituary, printed on January 15 in the North Adams Transcript read: MRS. JORDAN DIES, OFTEN FIRST VOTER New Ashford Woman Who Marked First Presidential Ballot in Four Elections, Succumbs Miss Phoebe Jordan, 75, of New Ashford, the first person in the United States to vote for President in four successive national elections died yesterday in Dalton where she had been ill since Jan. 4. In the elections of 1920, 1924, 1928, and 1932 when New Ashford got all its voters to the polls at 5:45 o'clock in the morning so as to be the first town in the nation to reports its results, Miss Jordan was the first in line and the first to cast and mark a ballot, and she was proud of the distinction thus gained. Living 2 ½ miles from the schoolhouse where the voting was done she insisted on walking "cross lots" from her home to the polling place. Phoebe Jordan never realized she was the first woman to vote legally in a national election and would have likely been surprised when in 1992, she was publicly identified as such. Always one to buck convention, Phoebe Jordan pushed the boundaries – mistress of a farm, owner of a charcoal kiln, and the first woman in the United States to legally vote in a national election.