Madame President 1901-1905
Nellie Fairbanks, Path Finder To Politics for American Women
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In Mrs. Fairbanks’s day, some women had been working actively for voting rights since the mid-nineteenth century, facing verbal and often physical abuse. Others were assuming new roles delicately but influentially. They, too, formed one of the links between nineteenth century women’s organizations and twenty-first-century women elected to state and national office. Marriage and politics continue to be related in complex ways for women. Husbands of female politicians inevitably impact campaigns of women seeking office—for better or for worse. Wives of male politicians are more likely, now, to be accepted as professional women, competent in their own right and not just as subjects for family photo opportunities. Cornelia Fairbanks read law and assisted her husband in his practice. She achieved fame as a charming hostess in Washington, D.C., and was very much involved in his political campaigns. Her husband, Charles Warren Fairbanks, was elected Theodore Roosevelt’s vice president. He described his wife as “a great woman …democratic in manner and thought; a scholar and a speaker of attractive and persuasive power; a friend and wise counselor of the young … eager to exalt her own sex.” A century ago, as the clamor for votes for women was reaching its peak, Mrs. Fairbanks was one of the best known women in the United States She was a complex woman—devoted to family and home, but not to domesticity; feminine, yet a suffragist and proponent of the rights of women.
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About the Book
A powerful woman behind the scenes, gracious and charming in the public eye, she was a progressive operative in political and social circles. From 1901 to 1905 she was the equivalent of female president of the United States, President General of the Daughters of the American Revolution, headquartered in Washington, D.C. One of the best known women in the United States at the time, she was on the National Board of the giant General Federation of Women's Clubs. Club women of her day assumed leadership roles long before professional women would be able to be leaders in many venues. Nellie Fairbanks helped to pave the way for women to be revered as leaders. She believed that women should be able to hold public office although she died before they were even allowed to vote in national elections.
About the Author
Lucy Jane King is a clinical professor of psychiatry, emerita, at Indiana University School of Medicine. She has a special interest in the history of women and is the author of From Under the Cloud at Seven Steeples, 1878-1885, The Pecularly Saddened Life of Anna Agnes at the Indiana Hospital for the Insane.