The Century Mark

LWV celebrates local connection to suffrage movement

Dr. Mary Holloway Wilhite, fourth from right, is pictured in a family portrait. Wilhite was a 19th century physician and suffragist.
Dr. Mary Holloway Wilhite, fourth from right, is pictured in a family portrait. Wilhite was a 19th century physician and suffragist.
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A century ago today, most women were granted the right to vote under the U.S. Constitution.

Helping lead the decades-long fight for access to the polls was physician Dr. Mary Holloway Wilhite, whose Crawfordsville home played host to better-known women in the cause like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

The League of Women Voters of Montgomery County is honoring Wilhite’s contributions to both the suffrage movement and the medical profession to mark the anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment.

Wilhite is the subject of a new book written by League member Shannon Hudson, who read the activist’s letters and speeches delivered to suffrage groups in the mid-1800s.

“The more I learned about her, the more I went down that rabbit hole,” Hudson said.

Wilhite was born in 1831 near Crawfordsville and became the state’s first licensed female physician. She saw patients in her home at the corner of West Wabash and Grant avenues, focusing on women, children and people of color.

Part of the original movement of women who demanded the vote, Wilhite co-organized a local suffrage organization and went on to help lead the state’s suffrage association. Crawfordsville hosted the state group’s 1880 convention. She died in 1892.

“It is not human nature to prepare one’s self for a duty he or she does not have to perform,” Wilhite once said. “Men always drill before going into battle. First free the woman, then let them feel the responsibility of government making, and they will spend more time studying political economy than they now spend trying to look pretty.”

Hudson called Wilhite a “renaissance woman” whose views of society were well ahead of her time.

“In this day in age she’d still be considered a rebel, I think,” Hudson said.

The book can be purchased on Amazon and will soon be available at the Carnegie Museum of Montgomery County and the Gen. Lew Wallace Study & Museum.

Crawfordsville District Public Library employee Shelbi Hoover worked with Hudson to design the cover, and Lew Wallace visitor services director Stephanie Cain arranged for the book to be published.

The book was funded by a grant from the Montgomery County Community Foundation, which is also supporting Hudson’s upcoming book about the history of the League.

Members had planned to dedicate a state historical marker on the site of Wilhite’s home this evening in honor of Women’s Equality Day, but the ceremony was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. The marker will be installed later.

The League is also paying tribute to women who have followed in Wilhite’s footsteps in medicine.

A video being posted to the League’s Facebook page,
website and YouTube account features 15 Montgomery County high school graduates in the medical field.

“Just to hear these people talk gives just a real insight into how deeply women have affected the medical field all over this country, just from our little roots here,” said League president Helen Hudson.

Helen Hudson said the League hopes to turn the video into a larger project where other women medical workers record their stories.

During a Zoom meeting this evening, members will also hear a presentation about local podiatrist Blanche Patterson, who died in 1965.

The League’s celebration is one of numerous events being held around the state to commemorate women’s right to vote.

At 10 a.m. today, Indiana Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch will present Women’s Legacy grants to three Indiana communities to preserve places that chronicle women’s contributions to Indiana.

That’s followed at 1 p.m. by the unveiling of artwork created by two Hoosier artists, one from Indianapolis and the other from Delphi, commemorating the ratification of the 19th Amendment.

Both events will be livestreamed on the Indiana Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission’s Facebook page.


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