SCARBOROUGH — It might be easy to overlook the anniversary of the passage of a constitutional amendment that happened 100 years ago, but the 19th amendment, which granted women the right to vote, could not be more relevant today.

That’s due in part to the impassioned efforts by one mother, who spoke her mind on the divisive subject to her son a century ago.

That’s the message of “The Voice that Won the Vote: How One Woman’s Words Made History,” a new children’s book by Scarborough author Elisa Boxer, the first book by the longtime journalist and Maine native. It tells the story of the ratification of the 19th amendment on Aug. 19, 1920, and how the fate of women’s suffrage all came down to one swing-vote legislator in one state – and one mother who convinced him to vote his conscience and support ratification.

While the amendment’s ratification occurred a century ago, the movement that led to the amendment’s creation began much earlier, according to Anne Gass, an independent historian who works with the Maine Historical Society. Gass is also a member of the steering committee for the Maine Suffrage Centennial Collaborative. The group is celebrating the suffrage movement with member organizations that include the Maine American Civil Liberties Union, the Girl Scouts of Maine and the Margaret Chase Smith Foundation Library.

“It’s one of the longest and ultimately most successful civil rights movements the country has ever seen,” Gass said.

Officially, the movement dates back to the Seneca Falls Convention, the first women’s rights convention, that took place July 19-20, 1848, in Seneca Falls, N.Y. By 1912, Gass said, lobbying for women to have the right to vote had gained enough ground that 11 states west of the Mississippi River had passed state laws to allow it.

“That was really a turning point,” Gass said.

But there was a long way to go. At that point there were only about 4 million women voting, with an estimated 20 million more still unable to cast a ballot, but on June 4, 1919, the 19th Amendment was proposed to the U.S. Constitution. It required ratification on the state level, and while Maine ratified it in November 2019, the amendment still needed 36 states. Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify it in August 1920, and this, in part, is the story told in Boxer’s book.

Boxer, 49, a native of Cape Elizabeth, said she has always been interested in nonfiction writing. At age 6, she published the “Broad Cove Weekly,” a 10-page “newspaper” consisting mainly of stories from interviews she tape-recorded with her parents’ dinner guests and friends. She mass-produced the publication using the copy machine in her father’s office.

Even though her degree from Bowdoin College was a bachelor’s in romance languages, she worked for newspapers ranging from the Times-Record in Brunswick to the Lowell Sun in Lowell, Massachusetts.

“I’ve always been drawn to (journalism),” she said.

After getting a Master of Science degree in Journalism from Columbia University in 1996, Boxer went on to work for television, first for a station in Bangor, then later for WMTW in Portland as a reporter.

All the while, however, Boxer has been writing children’s books. She said her journalism career usually remained her principal focus, but she has put together many unpublished manuscripts over the years.

“I have drawers full of them,” she said.

She tried to get one published a few years ago, and even got an agent to represent her. While that book didn’t sell, she remembers her agent casually remarking in 2017 that the centenary anniversary of the amendment’s passage was coming up, and should Boxer write a book about that?

“I loved the idea,” Boxer said, and began doing research on the amendment. Through that work, she said, she discovered the story of Febb Burn, mother of Harry Burn, a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1920. Rep. Burn found himself being asked to cast the swing vote in an otherwise deadlocked house, and due to a lack of support from his constituents, he was considering voting against it, even though he believed in it.

That changed when his mother sent him a letter, urging him to “be a good boy” and do the right thing. Burn did, and cast a single vote that wound up changing the country forever.

“It’s about the courage to say what’s in your heart despite what society says to you,” Boxer said.

Boxer said the story is perfect for a children’s book, not just because it’s about a mother and her son, but because the women’s movement is about female proponents refusing to let society make them feel small and insignificant, a plight children of any gender can easily relate to.

“The kids see themselves in these messages,” she said.

Gass said remembering the suffrage movement is critical, considering it took three generations just to get the amendment on the books.

“I think it’s important not to take that lightly,” she said.

Even after the amendment’s ratification, Gass said, the suffrage movement continues in the form of campaigns for equal rights for women that are still active today, in forms such as the #metoo movement.

“There were so many battles that had to be fought even after 1920,” she said.

With a national election coming up in less than three months, and ongoing battles over voting rights for people of color in the U.S., Gass said the suffrage movement should inspire ongoing struggles for equality.

“We’re still seeing efforts to suppress votes, and that should be a concern,” she said.

For Boxer, her book matters because the lesson of speaking your mind, no matter what, still matters, even after 100 years. Sometimes, even one person with that courage can change things, she said.

“You never know who you might be helping, or what history you might be making by speaking up,” she said.

Sean Murphy 780-9094

Email: seanmurphy@theforecaster.net

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