28 Facts About Laura Clay

Laura Clay, co-founder and first president of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association, was a leader of the American women's suffrage movement.

Laura Clay was one of the most important suffragists in the South, favoring the states' rights approach to suffrage.

The youngest of four daughters, Laura Clay was raised largely by her mother, due to her father's long absences as he pursued his political career and activities as an abolitionist.

Laura Clay's parents divorced in 1878, leaving her mother Mary Jane Warfield Laura Clay homeless after she had managed White Hall for 45 years.

Stone convinced the younger sister Laura Clay to make a presentation at the convention.

Laura Clay kept copies of the original constitution, which included a list of charter members.

Laura Clay was again elected president and served until 1912.

Laura Clay was succeeded by her distant cousin Madeline McDowell Breckinridge.

Laura Clay traveled nationally speaking on behalf of women's suffrage and established suffrage societies in nine states.

Laura Clay worked closely with Henry Blackwell, who proposed the Southern Strategy.

Laura Clay wanted to convince southern legislators that they could maintain their white supremacy by allowing only educated women to vote.

Laura Clay understood that NAWSA would gain male support only if they accepted the white supremacist politics, so she was eventually able to convince Anthony to accept this racist strategy.

Laura Clay had much influence on the NAWSA Business Committee that set the national organization's priorities.

In 1903 Laura Clay was elected as chair of NAWSA's new Increase of Membership Committee and served in that role for twenty years.

Laura Clay saw that in Kentucky it was difficult to maintain active interest in the rural areas for the movement.

Laura Clay made membership dues optional as long as local groups would keep on file signed pledges for support.

Laura Clay joined the Woman's Peace Party, which had been founded in 1915 by Carrie Chapman Catt, Jane Addams, and others.

Laura Clay served as the party's chairman in Kentucky's 7th Congressional District.

Laura Clay left the party when the United States entered World War I and actively supported the war effort.

Laura Clay opposed passage of the Nineteenth Amendment as she believed that it violated states' rights.

In 1913, Clay broke from the KERA and the NAWSA because of her opposition to the Susan B Anthony Amendment.

Since Laura Clay was a Democrat and favored states' rights, she aligned closely with President Wilson's stance on the issue: suffrage should be up to each individual state, and there should be no national amendment.

Laura Clay furthered her opposition to the federal amendment by saying that the amendment was just the national government supervising state elections, and thus infringing on states' choices in the matter.

Laura Clay wanted the KERA to campaign separately for suffrage and not resort to a national amendment and extend its supremacy over the states.

Laura Clay believed that the Enforcing Clause of the Nineteenth Amendment, and the resulting supervision of state elections, would lead to tyranny and centralized power in Washington, DC Although many claimed that Laura Clay opposed the national amendment on racial grounds, she denied that was the case, insisting that the amendment infringed on states' rights.

In 1920 Laura Clay was a founder of the Democratic Women's Club of Kentucky.

Laura Clay made American history as one of the first women to be put forward as a candidate for the Presidential nomination of a major political party.

In 1928 Laura Clay actively supported the presidential candidacy of Governor Al Smith of New York and opposed Prohibition.