Voting Down the Rose: Maine’s Fight for Woman Suffrage

Date: Thursday, April 29, 2021

Time: 4:30 pm - 5:30 pm

**Advance registration is required for this event.  Please register HERE.**

Join us for a Zoom talk with Anne Gass on Thursday, April 29 at 4:30 PM entitled “Voting Down the Rose: Maine’s Fight for Woman Suffrage.”  The talk is based on Anne Gass’s great-grandmother, Florence Brooks Whitehouse. Florence was a novelist, painter, vocalist, and mother of three sons when she first joined the suffrage movement in 1914. During the talk we will explore Florence’s life up to 1914 and her leadership in moving suffrage forward in Maine, joining forces with national leader Alice Paul in a desperate, last-ditch effort to ensure that the legislature ratified the 19th Amendment that would give women voting rights. Slides of historic photos accompany this lively talk, which lasts about 50 minutes.

Anne B. Gass is the author of Voting Down the Rose: Florence Brooks Whitehouse and Maine’s Fight for Woman Suffrage, published in 2014. Gass, who is Whitehouse’s great-granddaughter, speaks regularly on Florence Brooks Whitehouse and women’s rights history at conferences, historical societies, libraries, high schools, and for other groups.

She helped advise the Maine State Museum on developing an exhibit in honor of the 100-year anniversary of Maine’s ratification of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote in 2019. She serves as the Maine Coordinator for the National Votes for Women Trail, a project of the National Collaborative for Women’s History Sites. She’s also served on the steering committee for the Maine Suffrage Centennial Collaborative to help coordinate and encourage suffrage centennial activities in 2020.  Gass received her BA degree from Reed College in 1982 and a MA from the University of Maryland in 1987.

Pre-registration is required, which can be done by clicking on this LINK.