08/19/2026
Huzzah!
Thank you to the generations of women who fought for my right to vote!
I am so excited to be working with Three Sisters Theater company on a suffrage Chautauqua performance slated for October 2027!
How apropos that today, on this anniversary, my young Chautauqua students, (5th through 8th graders) enthusiastically decided to work on their own suffrage portrayals! 
I love sharing history with the next gen!
Today in American history, the fight for women’s voting rights came down to a single, suspenseful roll call in the Tennessee House. After decades of marches, arrests, and organizing—from Seneca Falls to Silent Sentinels—Tennessee became the crucial 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment, clearing the constitutional threshold. On the 106th anniversary, it’s worth recalling how close it was: a 24-year-old legislator, Harry T. Burn, famously flipped to “aye,” reportedly after reading a note from his mother urging him to “be a good boy” and back suffrage.
What many don’t know: anti-suffrage forces had already arranged train tickets to challenge the vote and even tried to flee the state to block a quorum. Governor Albert Roberts rushed certification before court maneuvers could unwind the result, and Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby signed the proclamation at dawn without ceremony—no speeches, just a quiet pen stroke that changed the electorate overnight.
The amendment didn’t finish the work—racist laws kept many women of color from the polls for decades—but it redrew American democracy and powered every reform movement that followed.
