Like other Hoosier women, Purdue staff, faculty, and students organized and advocated for
women’s suffrage both on and off campus. Students engaged in discussions about suffrage,
formed and participated in university chapters of suffrage organizations, and read and wrote
about the national and international movement. The topic even made its way into campus
entertainment.

The women’s suffrage movement influenced student entertainment at Purdue.
In collaboration with the Lafayette chapter of the Woman’s Franchise League,
the English department directed and cast Purdue students in the plays,
“The Gentle Jury” and “Votes for Women,” depicting suffragists and the
women’s suffrage movement.

As early as 1907, Purdue women students supported women’s suffrage and some went
on to participate in the national movement.

In the 1911 Debris, student Mary Catherine Kennedy is described as “Contrary Mary”
for engaging other students in arguments about women’s suffrage and in 1913, student
Ethel Dyer is quoted as stating, “Tell me one reason why women shouldn't vote.” In 1917,
women students even formed a Purdue chapter of the Woman’s Franchise League on
campus.

Kennedy continued her advocacy after graduation and fought alongside Dr. Alice Paul for
the Equal Rights Amendment. She also co-chaired the National Women's Party committee
that worked on lobbying for the amendment.

This type of student engagement would not have been possible without the support of
faculty and staff sympathetic to the cause. Faculty member Annie Smith Peck was a
professor of Latin and elocution at Purdue from 1881 until 1883. Peck, an accomplished
lecturer, author, mountain climber, and ardent suffragist, planted a “Votes for Women”
pennant atop Mount Coropuna in Peru in 1911.

In 1880, Emma Montgomery McRae, who later served as a professor of English literature
and “lady principal” at Purdue, argued for Hoosier women’s right and overwhelming desire
to vote in front of the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC.

Though not faculty or staff, Anna Kelton married Dr. Harvey Wiley a few years after his
tenure at Purdue. Kelton Wiley was a life-long member of the National Woman’s Party
and advocated for both the 19th Amendment and the Equal Rights Amendment.

In 1917, at the invitation of Alice Paul, Kelton Wiley picketed the White House in support
of women’s enfranchisement, carrying a banner that read, “Mr. President, in your
message to Congress, urge the passage of the Federal Amendment enfranchising women.”
Kelton Wiley was arrested for “obstructing traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue” and held in
jail for five days.

However, women’s suffrage was not universally supported on campus or in the national
landscape. Some students ridiculed the movement and the suffragists who supported it.
Anti-suffrage supporters claimed suffragists were eroding society and the traditional
family structure and portrayed them as unattractive and homely. Purdue students
similarly engaged in these tactics.