10/26/2023
Officially adopted in 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment states that the “right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” Before this important victory, suffragists in Minnesota had secured the right to vote in school board elections in 1875 and in library board elections in 1898. However, this second triumph would prove bittersweet. In response, the rules for ballot initiatives were changed and women in Minnesota would be officially barred from voting for any higher offices until the passage for the next twenty-two years.
During this period, to accommodate both sexes in the voting booth, special machines were introduced that were equipped with a mechanism that physically blocked women from casting illegal ballots. The ballot box seen here from the collection at Hennepin History Museum is an example of such a voting machine and today it’s one of the last remaining of its kind.
Designed and originally patented in 1899 by St. Paul electrician and inventor James H. Dean, the machine displays instructions on its backside. They state that when a woman enters the booth, the election official must move a lever that blocked ballots from being cast for anything beyond the few low-level elections in which women had won the right to vote.
The voting machine was purchased in 1909 by the city of Minneapolis and was last used for the 1914 gubernatorial election in which Winfield S. Hammond was elected. After the Nineteenth Amendment rendered the technology obsolete, it was donated to Hennepin History Museum in 1938 by Minneapolis Council Member Albert G. Bastis. Since then, this ballot box has become one of our museum’s most infamous artifacts as it represents women’s long fight for suffrage and political equality.
Written by HHM curator, Alyssa Thiede.
Sources:
Dean, James H. Voting Machine. U.S. Patent 622,191 filed May17, 1897, issued March 28, 1899.
Kindy, David. “The Voting Machine That Displayed Different Ballots Based on Your Sex.” Smithsonian. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/voting-machine-displayed-different-ballots-based-sex-180972434/
Stuhler, Barbara. Gentle Warriors: Clara Ueland and the Minnesota Struggle for Woman Suffrage. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1995.