Suffragette Mary Simpson Sperry
by Peter Pike, Jr. and Laurie Thompson
Mary Simpson Sperry (1) was the widow of Austin Sperry and the heir to the Sperry Flour fortune. After her husband’s death, she successfully managed the Sperry Flour milling company.
Mrs. Sperry was the prime organizer of the Susan B. Anthony Club in California and hosted its first meeting at her house in 1896.
[She] was a pioneer in the suffrage movement and worked with Susan B. Anthony, Anna Shaw and Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt. The Susan B. Anthony Club for Woman’s Suffrage was formed at the home of Mrs. Sperry. (2)
In the July 4, 19 09 San Francisco Call , Mrs. Sperry — then President of the California Equal Suffrage Association — wrote:
By unanimous vote, the National American Woman’s Suffrage association agreed at its recent annual convention to make a national petition to congress asking the submission of a federal amendment….
For the first 25 years of the organized suffrage work in the United States such petitions were presented annually to congress.
For the last 20 years no national petition of this nature has been attempted. In 1896 the women of England presented a woman’s suffrage petition to parliament of 257,000 names. The same year the suffragists of New York presented a petition to the constitutional convention of 300,000 individual signatures. Last winter the women of Sweden, a country with a small population, supported their request for full suffrage by a petition of 100,000 names. The petition now undertaken, to be of value to the cause, must not only surpass all previous woman’s suffrage petitions in point of numbers, but it must be the largest petition ever presented to congress upon any subject….
In 1911, when Mary Sperry met Phoebe Hearst, the first woman regent of the University of California and the mother of William Randolph Hearst, she wrote a warm note:
My dear Mrs. Hearst: I wish to acknowledge the pleasure it gave me at our recent Club meeting when you told me that you favored ‘Votes for Women.’ Perhaps you do not realize how much it means to me, who has worked for it so long, to know that women like you are on our side….We need financial aid in this campaign, but far more than that, we need the public utterance of women beloved and respected by all for great goodness and helpfulness — Your influence, dear Mrs. Hearst, will be of untold assistance. (3)
Just a month before women in California gained the right to vote, Mrs. Sperry was interviewed by Mary Fairbrother in an article titled “Pioneer Woman Pleads for Suffrage. Citizen 50 Years, yet Denied a Vote.” Fairbrother writes:
Mrs. Mary Simpson Sperry is one of the most enthusiastic workers in the equal suffrage ranks and though she was defeated with the others of the ‘old guard’ in 1896, she is certain of victory this time, when the question comes before the California men for the ratification on the 10 day of October.
In the interview with Fairbrother, Mrs. Sperry says:
In demanding the right to vote, women are asking only equal rights with men. They are not seeking any advantage not already possessed by men but merely equal opportunities….
I have been a citizen of California for fifty years and yet find myself barred from any part in the decision of questions which affect the welfare of the state and which involve the proper protection of my interests and of my inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…. (4)
In 1911 California voters narrowly approved Proposition 4, amending the State Constitution to enfranchise women, and Mary cast her first vote on March 28, 1912. The San Francisco Call captured the moment in a picture labeled “Prominent society woman casting her first vote….Mrs. Mary Simpson Sperry.”
On August 26, 1920, just a year before Mrs. Sperry died at the age of 88, her dream of National Women’s Suffrage was realized when the 19 Amendment was signed into law.
(1) Mary Simpson Sperry was the younger sister of Asa M. Simpson, Peter Pike’s great-grandfather.
(2) Obituary of Mary Simpson Sperry, San Francisco Examiner, April 14, 1921, p.7.
(3) Letter from Mary Simpson Sperry to Phoebe Hearst (September 30, 1911). Bancroft Library Collection. http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/Exhibits/suffrage/room01_hearstletter_lg.html
(4) San Francisco Examiner, Sept. 2, 1911, p.9.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Pike, Peter Jr. California Bound: A Family Memoir. 2018.
Originally published at https://annetkent.kontribune.com.
