The Right to Vote in Municipal Elections

Jessie TURNBULL (McEwen) fought for the right to vote at all levels – municipal, provincial, and federal – as did other suffragists in Ontario and other Canadian provinces:

“In 1877 [McEwen] joined Emily Howard Stowe [Jennings*] and others to form the Toronto Women’s Literary Club, which had as its aim ‘to secure a free interchange of thought and feeling upon every subject that pertains to women’s higher education, including her moral and physical welfare.’ Meeting weekly, the club supported the causes of prohibition, improved working conditions for women, and women’s suffrage. It was instrumental in persuading the legislature of Ontario to allow qualified single women and widows to vote on municipal by-laws. This small concession in 1882 seemed to give the club the impetus in March 1883 to disband and then immediately to announce its reorganization as Canada’s first suffrage society, the Canadian Women’s Suffrage Association, with McEwen as president. In her acceptance speech she noted that she was the ‘first woman who has occupied this or a similar chair in Canada.’”

To learn more about winning the right to vote in municipal elections, we invite you to consult the following lists of biographies: