A Timeline

Anne Dallas Dudley leads the first Parade for Women’s Voting in the South and is the first woman in Tennessee to make an open-air speech. She leads a march of 2,000 women from downtown Nashville to Centennial Park.
Anne Dallas Dudley brings the national convention of the National American Women’s Association to Nashville. The heated debate ends with a resolution to support the Susan B. Anthony Amendment by “every means within its power.”
Anne Dallas Dudley is elected to head the Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association and helps to introduce and lobby for a suffrage amendment to the state constitution. Over 80 local suffrage chapters are organized in the state.
May Day Marches for women’s suffrage in Nashville are held annually from 1914 to 1920 from the Capitol to Centennial Park.

Woodrow Wilson promises that the Democratic Party Platform will endorse women’s suffrage.
For a third time, the U.S. House of Representatives votes to enfranchise women. The Senate finally passes the Nineteenth Amendment, and suffragists begin their ratification campaign.

Mary Cordelia Beasley Hudson of Camden, TN is the first woman in Tennessee to vote.
The Tennessee legislature becomes the 36th and final state to ratify the 19th amendment. The 19th Amendment becomes law.
Anne Dallas Dudley
Revitalized in 1948
After the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920, the League of Women Voters in Nashville lost momentum and remained dormant until the remarkable Molly Todd arrived in the 1940s and revived the organization in 1948. Under her leadership, the LWVN mobilized support for a host of public policy issues, ranging from birth control and the formation of a family service agency to racial integration. The League published the city’s first brochure on voter education, worked to abolish the poll tax, and promoted the consolidation of city and county government services.
Re-energized by a new generation of women leaders, the organization continues to address the pressing public policy issues faced by each generation.
Current LWVN Presidents
Ophelia Doe 2024-Current
Kathryn Anderon 2025-Current
Past LWVN Presidents
2022-2024 | Lara Webb
2020-2022 | Madeline Garr
2018-2020| Barbara Gay
2012-2018 | Debby Gould
2010-2012 | Jo Singer
2008-2010 | Lucy Chism
2007-2008 | Margie Parsley
2006-2007 | Karen Edwards & Margie Parsley
2005-2006 | Karen Edwards
2003-2005 | Deana Claiborne & Karen Edwards
2002-2003 | Luvenia Butler
2000-2002 | Marian Ott
1998-2000 | Margie Parsley
1996-1998 | Brenda Wynn
1994-1996 | Suzie Tolmie
1992-1994 | Mary Frances Lyle
1990-1992 | Peggy Maguire
1988-1990 | Carol Bucy
1986-1988 | Susan Gutow
1984-1986 | Gayle Ray
1983-1984 | Barbara Mann
1982-1983 | Juli Mosley
1979-1982 | Roz McGee
1978-1979 | Silvine Hudson
1978 | Margaret Manning
1975-1978 | Jane Entrekin
1974-1975 | Barbara Housewright
1971-1974 | Mary Wade
1970-1971 | Gale Markus
1968-1970 | Miriam Cowden
1966-1968 | Sally Levine
1966 | Geralyn Clewe
1965-1966 | Betsy Zukoski
1962-1965 | Barbara Kuhn
1958-1962 | Sebby Billig
1958 | Helen Dingley
1957-1958 | Mary Hobbs
1956-1957 | Georgia Benjamin
1954-1956 | Coletta Tesch
1952-1954 | Jean Schwartz
1950-1952 | Martha Wigginton
1948-1950 | Molly Todd
