Frances Jewell McVey, who as a young woman participated in Fayette County Equal Rights Association activities – including the production of a suffrage play; photo from the University of Kentucky’s Portrait Print Collection

Kentucky suffragist, temperance leader and philanthropist

Frances R. Estill Beauchamp of Lexington, reformer and lecturer, served as an important connection between the largest women’s organization in the nation, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), and the Kentucky suffrage movement. In collaboration with the Kentucky Federation of Women’s Clubs (KFWC) and the Kentucky Equal Rights Association (KERA), the Kentucky WCTU under Beauchamp’s leadership brought a depth of scope and political strategies that the KERA needed at crucial points in the fight for women’s right to vote. A writer, philanthropist and popular orator, Beauchamp mobilized both white and black women. Beauchamp’s funeral in 1923 at the First Presbyterian Church featured national celebrities including Charles R. Jones (chairman of the executive committee of the Prohibition Party) and Anna Gordon (world president of the WCTU). She was a speaker of rare quality, uniting eloquence and force in a logical presentation of facts.

Lifetime of successful activism rooted in networking and lobbyist skills learned in Lexington

She was elected president of the Fayette Equal Rights Association and served from 1910-1913, then as first vice-president in 1913. Neville’s work in children’s health, eradicating trachoma and raising the issues associated with sexually transmitted diseases, mobilized women reformers of all kinds as well as male medical professionals. Her success derived from the skills, attitudes and values learned from the leaders of the Kentucky woman suffrage movement with whom she worked after graduating from Bryn Mawr.

After many years of lobbying by the Kentucky Equal Rights Association, women at the State University in Lexington finally got access to campus housing in 1904. Patterson Hall was built for this purpose and was the first of the University’s buildings to be constructed off of the main campus existing at that time. Kate Meriwether Barker (wife of the university’s president at the time) served as theDean of Women and lived in the dormitory when the Philosophian Literary Society organized an Equal Rights Association in March 1915. Mrs. Louis Becker came from the Louisville Woman Suffrage Association to support the students in their creation of the group. Marie Louise Michot of Louisville (photo is from 1916 University yearbook) was elected president of the UK ERA; Julia Van Arsdale, vice-president; and, Jacqueline Hall, secretary.

Dr. Mary E. Britton was the first woman in Lexington to be granted a license to practice medicine 1902, suffragist, orator and educator; photo from Wikipedia attributed to the Hutchins Library, Berea College

Lexington suffragist

While Harrison is remembered for her services as a Christian missionary, she is also a recognized philanthropist and activist who ardently believed in women’s education and women’s rights, including suffrage.  She was a gifted orator who was regularly invited to speak at various functions.  In 1910 she was recruited to serve on the Kentucky Equal Rights Association lecture bureau, and in 1920 Harrison was listed as a member of the “oratorical heavy artillery” for the Speaker’s Bureau of the Kentucky Democratic Campaign. Harrison was the recipient of a number of important awards. She was named honorary president for life of the Kentucky Federation of Women’s Clubs. She became the first woman ever to receive an honorary Doctorate of Law from Transylvania University.