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Thursday, March 28, 2024 - 12:39 PM

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

First Published in 1994

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF
UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

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LaDonna Ryggs, chairman of the Spartanburg Republican Party, said that “Republican women have given us a great heritage” as she recounted the history of the Republican Party and the National Federation of Republican Women at the Greenville County Republican Women’s monthly luncheon at the Poinsett Club, Thursday.

Ryggs referred to a plank of the 1872 Republican platform that read: “The Republican Party is mindful of its obligations to the loyal women of America for their noble devotion to the cause of freedom. ” This was nearly 50 years before women had the right to vote.

Early women’s rights advocates Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were Republicans, Ryggs said. They were pro-life and pro-family, and supported the right of women to own property, and for women to get out of failed marriages at a time when alcoholism was a huge issue, and they could not get custody of their children. Republican women supported efforts to enact prohibition.

Ryggs noted that Susan B. Anthony voted legally in New York in 1872 after a three person panel approved her, however, a judge sent her to jail for casting an illegal vote, though it was legal at the time she cast it. Not wanting the make her a martyr, the judge released her even though she did not post the $1 bail he sought. Afterward, Anthony told reporters she voted a straight Republican ticket.

Republican women helped black men get the right to vote 40 years before women were given that right, and supported the establishment of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the early 1900s.

In 1938 Marion Martin, co-chairman of the Republican National Committee, founded the National Federation of Republican Women, which was chartered with 14 states, three of which had not ratified the 19th amendment that gave women the right vote in 1920. The NFRW today has more than 1,800 clubs nationally and nearly 100,000 members.

The South Carolina Federation of Republican Women started in 1961 and is celebrating its 50th anniversary. The SCFRW has 27 clubs and a little more than 1,000 members.

The women also heard from past presidents Patricia Haskell-Robinson (1976-1977), Gale Crawford (1994-1995), Anne Danciu (2000-2002), Joanne Meadows (2003-2005), and Geri Warren (2008-2009), and they honored Jane Luthi (1980-1981), Gisela Dales (1984-1985), Betsy Farnsworth (1996-1997) and Betty Spencer (1998-1999), who attended the luncheon meeting. Kathy Davis is the current GCRWC president.

You can watch videos of these speeches online on the Greenville County Republican Women’s website at gcrwc.com.

 

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