This year marks a century of women on the Cambridge City Council

When the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1920, ostensibly giving all American women the right to vote, it seemed to many that the next logical step would be for women to enter politics in a more formal way – by running for office. Women had long sought to influence the political process through their husbands, fathers and brothers, who already had access to the vote, and through their involvement in political organizations and causes, supporting male candidates and lobbying for issues they cared about. But because they did not enjoy formal suffrage rights, they had to rely on secondhand influence rather than direct representation by the vote.

It is important to note that, despite its inclusive language, the 19th Amendment did not effectively enable all women to vote. In many places in the United States, poll taxes, literacy tests and other obstacles excluded poor women, women of color and women from immigrant communities from exercising their suffrage rights for decades to come. But the amendment’s passage did allow many women to go from indirectly influencing the political system to having a direct, personal voice in how local and national affairs were carried out. Local elections often seemed the most accessible at first, and it was not long before women began to throw their hats into the ring for elected positions in city and town governments.

Even before national suffrage, Cambridge women had a presence on certain city boards, most notably the School Board. Because the majority of teachers in Cambridge in the early 20th century, particularly at the primary level, were women, it was considered reasonable and “natural” that women would also hold leadership positions in the realm of education. Teaching was, in many ways, considered an extension of the mothering role for which it was believed women were best suited, and women’s concerns about the city’s schools and its students were taken seriously because caring for children was a “female” domain.

In addition to education, areas such as social reform, temperance, public health and moral uplift were also ones in which women were active, leading local organizations that provided direct services to the Cambridge community and also lobbied on the local, state and even national levels for reforms. Like education, many of these causes also fell into the traditional realm of women because they affected children, families and the moral fiber of society. Although women were informed about and interested in a much wider range of issues, they often gravitated toward these types of organizations because the perceived moral authority afforded them by their gender allowed them to assume leadership positions that they would not have been able to hold in more overtly political or economic causes.

In 1922, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that, following the passage of the 19th Amendment two years earlier, “women shall be eligible to election or appointment to all state offices, positions, appointments and employments,” and that this ruling would also apply to county and local positions. In the lead-up to the 1923 local election cycle, Cambridge newspapers were abuzz with the question of whether one or more women would appear on that year’s ballot. A Cambridge Chronicle article in January 1923 noted, “They say…that it would not be surprising to see one or two women candidates for the city council next fall, [and] that a woman member might do a heap of good.”

Again, it was women’s roles in the home and in public life as social and moral advocates that made them particularly suited to this new realm of elected office. Cambridge women had flocked to the polls once they were enfranchised, and male and female leaders understood the power of what they saw as a women’s voting bloc. Whereas women had previously needed to exercise political power by influencing the men in their lives, they could now participate directly in the electoral process, even diverging from the opinions of their husbands or fathers in the privacy of the voting booth. Candidates courted women voters in earnest, hoping to harness their enthusiastic participation in elections for their own ends. While leading Cambridge women spoke in generalities in 1923 about the newfound power of women voters and their support for female candidates for City Council, no woman emerged as a contender in that year’s election, leading the Cambridge Tribune to comment in its “Election Post Mortem” that

The intelligence, industry, and keen interest manifested by the women voters of this city in this latest campaign is another bright spot in the horizon which was not altogether dazzling on the morning after. The unusually heavy vote was largely attributable to their energy and to the fine spirit of service which permeated all of their work in the campaign. In our opinion the presence as a member of one or more of them in the City Council would be an influential factor in elevating the morale of that body. Perhaps two years hence such a result may be obtained.

The editors of the Tribune got their wish in June 1925, when Florence Whitman announced her candidacy for the council. In their coverage of Whitman’s announcement, the Tribune reported that, “urged by a group of prominent citizens, Mrs. Edmund A. Whitman, who has in all been a member of the school board of this city for ten years has consented to run as councilor-at-large in the coming city elections.” Whitman represents the entry of women candidates to the council race, but the framing of her announcement highlights the constrictions under which women were still operating. No candidate – male or female – wanted to appear eager for political power for their own ends, but this was particularly true for women; Whitman is portrayed as reluctant to run for office, but by noting that “prominent citizens” had urged her to run, she was able to frame her candidacy as a public service rather than as a personal power grab. And she is first referred to by association with her husband instead of by her own name, signaling her class status as the wife of a prominent lawyer and her virtue as a “family woman.” The Tribune also highlights her decade of service on the Cambridge school board, again portraying her as a public servant dedicated to the children, families and largely female teaching profession in the city.

We’ve posted a photo here of Whitman that accompanied the announcement of her candidacy in the Tribune in 1925.

Whitman capitalized on these aspects of her personal and professional life over the next several months and emphasized that, as a woman who had previously been excluded from direct political involvement, she was an “outsider” to the council who could help reform it with new ideas and perspectives. This was a common approach used by the first wave of women candidates as well as women voters – the infusion of new blood into the election system would, they argued, shake up the entrenched network of career politicians who worked seemingly for themselves rather than for the public interest. With the help of Cambridge’s newly minted female voters, Whitman easily garnered enough votes to be elected to the council in November 1925. But although she got widespread support from men and women voters and served successfully, another woman was not elected to the council for another 15 years.

Today, women on the council outnumber men 5-4, including a woman mayor, E. Denise Simmons. It is perhaps difficult to imagine that it was only a century ago that the first – and, for a long time, only – woman took her seat at the council table, carrying on her shoulders the weight of exceptional expectations and buoyed by the hopes of thousands of women who had for centuries been excluded from the political process.

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