New Mexico Suffragists
Many women worked hard to obtain the right to vote for New Mexico women. We will be featuring several in the coming months.
Nina Otero-Warren Julia Brown Asplund Cora Armstrong Kellam
image courtesy of Wikipedia
Nina Otero-Warren
Pioneer of Women’s Rights in New Mexico
By: Meredith Machen
Nina Otero-Warren is a pioneering suffragist, political figure, and educator in early twentieth-century New Mexico. Descended from a family with Hispano roots which go back to original colonizing expeditions by Spain of Nuevo Mexico, she was born near Los Lunas in 1881.
For the rest of the story, see Nina Otero-Warren’s bio page
Julia Brown Asplund
Pioneer of Women’s Rights in New Mexico
By Jeanne M. Logsdon, Regents Professor Emerita, University of New Mexico
Julia Brown Asplund was a leader in New Mexico’s fight for women’s suffrage between 1911 and 1920. She served as president of the New Mexico Federation of Women’s Clubs from 1914-16 and helped to organize the automobile parade of more than 150 women to challenge U.S. Senator Thomas Catron’s views on suffrage in October 1915. A few months later in February 1916, she was instrumental in forming the New Mexico chapter of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage and served as a vice chairman. She was nominated to run for governor by the New Mexico Women’s Party (successor of the Congressional Union) in 1920, but declined the nomination. Julia was also a trained librarian who devoted her professional life to expanding library services throughout the state. She lobbied for state financial support and served in many leadership positions to improve library access and quality.
For the rest of the story, see Julia Brown Asplund’s bio page
Cora Armstrong Kellam
Teacher, suffrage and equal rights activist
photo courtesy of Alexander Street Biographical Dictionary
By Philip Koch, Undergraduate, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Cora Armstrong Kellam, a leader in the New Mexico campaign for woman’s suffrage and equal rights, was born in Kansas in 1872. By 1895, Cora Armstrong worked as a schoolteacher and lived in Albuquerque. In 1896, while New Mexico was still a U.S. territory, she began her engagement in suffrage organization activities. The next year, she married Arthur Kellam, a railroad engineer.
For the rest of the story, see Cora Armstrong Kellam’s bio page. (note: this links to the Alexander Street’s Online Biographical Dictionary of the Women Suffrage movement in the United States)