NEW ASHFORD, Mass. (AP) - If they looked out the window of the town hall on Tuesday, voters of New Ashford could see history in the form of the town’s old one-room schoolhouse, where the first woman voted in a presidential election.
Phoebe Jordan cast her ballot in New Ashford on the morning of Nov. 2, 1920.
Active in the women’s suffrage movement, Jordan was the first of 11 local women to vote out of 34 registered voters.
Her significance is well-known to locals, said Chuck Morrone, chair of the town’s historical commission.
“I think it’s important to all the women in town,” said Louise Palmer, former co-chair of the historical commission. Palmer has been voting in New Ashford since she moved to the town in 2000.
Jordan’s legacy is especially important for this election season with Hillary Clinton as the Democratic Party nominee for president, said Lynn Steinhoff, chairwoman of the historical commission prior to Morrone.
“Here we have a woman running for president, and 96 years ago we had the first woman’s vote,” she said.
“(Women have) been fighting to get where we are for so long … this is a step for womankind.”
Marguerite Gigliotti, a resident of New Ashford since 1953, has voted in 18 presidential elections. She is voted for Hillary Clinton this time around.
“I think a lot of people don’t want a woman as a president, but I do,” she said.
Jordan was born in Washington, Massachusetts on Feb. 26, 1864, and moved to New Ashford at the age of seven, Morrone said. She never married, and died in January 1940 at the age of 75.
Of the 34 ballots cast in New Ashford on that day in 1920, 28 were for Republican Warren G. Harding and six were for Democrat James M. Cox. Harding won the election.
All the citizens of the town who wished to vote had done so by 7:15 a.m. on Nov. 2. By 7:38 a.m., the results were on the national news wire.
The town of New Ashford was the first community in the United States to report its election results in five consecutive national elections, beginning in 1916.
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Information from: The Berkshire (Mass.) Eagle, https://www.berkshireeagle.com
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