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<\/p>\nBy Carolyn Ivanoff<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mrs. W. T. Hincks, Woman’s Chairman of the Liberty Committee, delivering a large subscription to someone up on a reviewing stand<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Maude Morris Hincks, 1873-1956, was a Bridgeport suffragist and activist.\u00a0 She was reputedly the first woman in Connecticut to receive a drivers license.\u00a0 A talented public speaker and organizer she devoted herself to the fight for women\u2019s suffrage and led the Connecticut Woman\u2019s Suffrage Association as its president.\u00a0 After 1920 she was heavily involved in the League of Women Voters, a non-partisan public education organization devoted to educating new women voters and the public on the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.\u00a0 Throughout her long life she worked for many civic causes, the YWCA, Pure Milk for Babies, Bridgeport Hospital, Visiting Nurses Association, the Central Committee on War Work, Bridgeport\u2019s Liberty Committee helping to raise money for Liberty Bonds and the Bridgeport Minute Women raising funds for the relief of war torn Europe after the First World War. She participated and led Red Cross Relief efforts and was on the Bridgeport Chamber of Commerce.\u00a0 \u00a0In 1936 she worked on Bridgeport\u2019s Centennial Committee to celebrate the 100th<\/sup> anniversary of the city.<\/p>\n Maude Morris was born on January 27, 1873, in Bridgeport to Marshall and Margaret Morris.\u00a0 She completed four years of high school and went on to graduate from Vassar in 1893.\u00a0 On June 15, 1897, she married William Thurston Hincks in the First Baptist Church of Bridgeport in one of the largest weddings held in the city up to that time.\u00a0 Hincks was the eldest son of Major William B. Hincks, who was awarded the Medal of Honor at Gettysburg.\u00a0 The groom was a Yale graduate of the class of 1891 and a lawyer in the firm of Banks & Hincks.\u00a0 Will would go on to be a successful banker and wealthy stockbroker. \u00a0The couple would have two children, John and Mary.\u00a0 \u00a0Mrs. William T. Hincks could have rested on her husband\u2019s laurels and lived the life of a society wife.\u00a0 She did not.\u00a0 The marriage was a successful partnership and Hincks supported his wife\u2019s activism and her involvement in causes, especially in the suffrage movement.\u00a0 He himself was involved in many civic affairs and organizations.\u00a0 The newspapers report them both serving as committee members in various organizations.\u00a0 When Bridgeport formed the Liberty Committee to support Liberty Loan drives during the First World War, Maude was appointed the Woman\u2019s Chairman of the Liberty Committee, indeed, she was the only woman at the time.\u00a0 Maude was an excellent public speaker and organizer.\u00a0 She handled the press skillfully and was able to promote her causes and gain support, especially for women\u2019s suffrage.<\/p>\n In 1911 Maude Hincks would be elected to lead the Connecticut Women\u2019s Suffrage Association as President.\u00a0 The Bridgeport Farmer reported on the convention and her election on October 28, 1911 stating \u201cOwing to domestic ties, President Mrs. Thomas N. Hepburn of Hartford was not a candidate for reelection<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 The Farmer went on to describe the new president as a \u201cgraduate of Vassar.\u00a0 She was married in 1897 to William T. Hincks, a stockbroker.\u00a0 They have two children a boy of 13 years and a girl of 12.\u00a0 Mrs. Hincks is strongly supported in her work for women suffrage by her husband.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 The outgoing president was Katherine Houghton Hepburn the wife of Dr. Thomas Hepburn.\u00a0 They were the parents six children including actress Katherine Hepburn. The line in the Farmer article about Mrs. Hepburn not being a candidate for reelection owing to domestic ties can be translated as Dr. Hepburn being a bit impatient with his wife and wanting her at home more.\u00a0 Mrs. Hepburn would again be elected president of the Connecticut Women\u2019s Suffrage Association after Maude Hincks\u2019 term was completed in 1913.<\/p>\n Maude Hincks\u2019 tenure as president of CWSA was highly successful.\u00a0 Under her leadership membership surged.\u00a0 CWSA pushed hard for the rights of women citizens, especially in the presidential election. The 1912 national election was a crucial one with four candidates: Republican William Howard Taft, Democrat Woodrow Wilson, Socialist Eugene V. Debs and former President Theodore Roosevelt, who bolted the Republican party, to run a progressive campaign as a Bull Moose.\u00a0 Suffragists pushed candidates and the parties hard for a plank supporting women\u2019s suffrage.\u00a0 Debs, the Socialist, and TR, the Bull Moose, candidates did pledge support for the women\u2019s vote.\u00a0 The two major candidates, Wilson and Taft refused.\u00a0 Applauded in the Bridgeport press for a rousing campaign speech during the election, Maude Hincks, pressed the two major party candidates for their negligence in not supporting the women\u2019s vote.\u00a0 Maude Hincks prodded the Republican Taft with the taunt that it seems the \u201cElephant fears the Moose<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 Indeed, Taft leading a splintered Republican party would not be elected.\u00a0 Democrat Woodrow Wilson became president.<\/p>\n In 1913 a new radical suffrage tactic was launched. Marching for the vote.\u00a0 On March 3, 1913, the day before Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated, the Great Women\u2019s Suffrage Parade was launched in Washington, D.C.\u00a0 This became the first Civil Rights parade in American History.\u00a0 Thousands of women gathered and prepared to march in a massive, elaborately orchestrated, and provocative spectacle. In 1913 this was a drastic attention seeking method.\u00a0 Enormous numbers of women took part in the Washington parade. \u00a0It was designed to be a visually striking, live performance.\u00a0 \u00a0The intent was sensational publicity and newspaper photographs to showcase the demand for a Constitutional amendment.\u00a0 In 1913 it was considered shocking for women to gather and march in public display.\u00a0 Such parades were condemned by many women and even by many suffragists.\u00a0 Nevertheless, other suffrage parades quickly followed although it took courage to participate.\u00a0 The Bridgeport Farmer reported on May 5, 1913, \u201cMrs. Maude M. Hincks president of the state association was the only Bridgeport suffragist to march in the big parade in New York Saturday.\u00a0 A number of Bridgeporters were present but did not take part in the parade<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n When the United States entered World War I in 1917 many radical suffragists were infuriated that President Wilson continued to oppose the vote for women.\u00a0 During the Civil War many suffragists put aside their cause to support the Union, only to feel betrayed when the 15th<\/sup> Amendment excluded patriotic women and gave the right to vote only to black men.\u00a0 In 1917 radical elements of the women\u2019s movement vowed to continue the fight despite the nation being at war. \u00a0Women protesters were arrested and sent to jail for protesting and picketing the White House.\u00a0 Maude Hincks\u2019 fellow Vassar alumni, Elsie Hill from Norwalk was one.\u00a0 Elsie was one of the three suffragist Hill sisters.\u00a0 During 1918-19, Elsie Hill was arrested at least twice for her protest efforts. \u00a0In Boston for picketing President Wilson on his return from Europe and again in Washington, D.C. for climbing on a public monument in front of the White House. In total, she spent 23 days in jail.\u00a0 Maude Hincks chose a different route.\u00a0 As the son and daughter-in-law of a Medal of Honor recipient, Maude and her husband William both prominently served on the Liberty Committee and worked hard for the war effort.\u00a0 Maude raised funds and took part in war relief efforts.<\/p>\n In 1920, the same year the 19th<\/sup> Amendment passed, Maude Hincks and other statewide activists hosted a meeting of Democratic women to discuss voting rights.\u00a0 1920 was a presidential election year and the Democratic candidate for president was Governor James M. Cox of Ohio.\u00a0 The vice presidential candidate was Franklin D. Roosevelt.\u00a0 \u00a0On September 18, 1920, the front page of the Bridgeport Times reported that Roosevelt would speak at a mass meeting at Seaside Park.\u00a0 Maude Hincks and her husband William were both appointed to the committee that would meet the candidate upon his arrival in Bridgeport.\u00a0 Other headlines on the front page described women were storming the registrars\u2019 offices in Stratford and Fairfield in a rush to be made voters for the coming election.\u00a0 Reading newspapers from 100 years ago remind us today that violence and terrorism are not contained to our own American era.\u00a0 Printed above the article about Roosevelt\u2019s arrival in Bridgeport was a picture titled \u201cClothing torn off by explosion<\/em>\u201d The photograph showed a police officer standing among items of clothing that were blown off victims when a timebomb exploded on Wall Street in front of the J.P. Morgan offices.\u00a0 The caption noted gruesomely, \u201cSome shoes found here were discovered to contain feet<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Maud Hincks\u2019 activism did not end with the passage of the 19th<\/sup> Amendment.\u00a0 As an extremely effective suffragist and political activist it was natural that she would turn her energies to the League of Women Voters.\u00a0 The League was founded in 1920 by Carrie Chapman Catt, six months before the 19th<\/sup> Amendment was ratified.\u00a0 The League of Women Voters grew out of the women\u2019s suffrage movement to help newly enfranchised women exercise their new responsibilities as voters. Today the purpose of the League continues to encourage voting by registering voters, providing voter information, and advocating for voting rights. The League also supports a variety of progressive public policy positions.<\/p>\n Maude Morris Hincks and other suffragists are little remembered today.\u00a0 So many of us take the hard won rights we possess for granted.\u00a0 The fight for women\u2019s suffrage was a 72 year American struggle.\u00a0 A righteous cause that many of us have forgotten.\u00a0 In 1934 Connecticut Governor Wilbur L. Cross was the guest of honor when Isabella Beecher Hooker\u2019s nine-year old great-grand daughter unveiled a brass plaque at the State Convention of the League of Women Voters.\u00a0 The plaque held the names of 31 Connecticut women who fought and achieved the right of women to vote.\u00a0 The plaque is mounted in the Connecticut State Capitol honoring those women.\u00a0 Maud Morris Hincks\u2019 name is there with the rest of those Connecticut patriots. Great Americans all.\u00a0 Remember them.<\/p>\n BIBLIOGRAPHY:<\/p>\n Barone, Em, Biography of Maude Morris Hincks, 1873-1956<\/em>, Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920, https:\/\/documents.alexanderstreet.com\/d\/1009656357<\/a><\/p>\n Bridgeport History Center World War I Collection and Finding Aid: Women\u2019s Suffrage Research at the Bridgeport History Center<\/p>\n Chronicling America, the Library of Congress National Digital Newspaper Program<\/p>\n