- Scandal, Litigation, and Women’s School Suffrage in KentuckyAnderson County Superintendent Lee Davis Maddox Campbell
The 1913 elections were an important milestone for women in Kentucky. In 1912, the General Assembly had granted all literate women in Kentucky (who met the same qualifications as men) the right to vote in school elections. The 1913 elections would mark the first time all such women would have the opportunity to exercise this right. At most points since 1838, when an act was passed giving female heads of household in Kentucky the right to vote for school trustees and on school tax measures, a few narrowly defined groups of women—primarily widows and single women with school-age children—had been able to vote in school elections. After the US Civil War, the qualifications for women to vote in school elections repeatedly changed as the Kentucky General Assembly replaced, amended, and combined the school laws. These changes focused on qualifications related to marital status, race, payment of property taxes, and the presence of school-age children in the family. In 1894, the General Assembly granted all Covington, Lexington, and Newport women who were at least twenty-one, Kentucky citizens, and residents of the city for at least six months, the right to serve on school boards, vote for city school officers, and vote on school measures. Foreshadowing the threat that women would represent in the 1913 elections, women’s voting rights under the 1894 law were repealed in 1902 after the Democratic Party’s control of Lexington was threatened by the female vote—particularly the predominately Republican, African American female vote. Widowed women were subsequently disenfranchised in 1908, leaving women in Kentucky entirely disenfranchised until 1912.1
At the start of 1912, twenty-six states allowed women to vote in school elections (in some cases, this was restricted through certain voter qualifications), but women only had full suffrage in six of those states. School suffrage was often viewed as a step toward full suffrage, because it entailed lower political or constitutional barriers than full suffrage did. In Kentucky, school suffrage could be passed with a simple majority vote of the General Assembly. Full suffrage, [End Page 59] however, would require a state constitutional amendment, demanding both a legislative supermajority and the majority support of an all-male electorate.2
Closely related to the right to vote, but not always coincident with it, was the right to hold office. In Kentucky, women had been allowed to serve as school superintendents since 1886. The first female superintendent was Amanda T. Million, in Madison County. Judge John C. Chenault appointed Million to fill the office after the elected superintendent, her husband, died. She was subsequently elected and reelected to the office. There were other female superintendents elected in ensuing years: four in 1889, nine in 1893, eighteen in 1897, twenty in 1901, nineteen in 1905, and eighteen in 1909. With the exception of the few women who were enfranchised, these female superintendents were elected by men. Twenty-five women were elected county superintendent in 1913, thirteen for the first time, but women still met opposition as the 1912 school suffrage law was implemented. Superintendents managed large budgets, over-saw teacher licensing examinations, and, in collaboration with the school board, awarded contracts and made hiring decisions. Such power afforded them the opportunity to reform ailing school districts, but it also provided opportunities for political patronage and corruption. In many counties, the superintendent race was one of the most hotly contested, because of the spoils it could bring to the winner and the winner’s party.
In the wake of a scandal in Anderson County, in which the incumbent superintendent was implicated in the illegal sale of teacher examination questions, Lee Maddox Campbell ran for the seat. Following her announcement, county officials tried to suppress the female vote. This precipitated a precedent-setting court case that cleared the way for women throughout the state to vote for superintendent. The tactics that male party leadership was willing to employ to maintain control of the superintendency show how important the office was to local partisan machines. Campbell’s candidacy stands out from that...