Getting to Know Sarah Beyond the Garden

Join us at the David Davis Mansion for a talk by Rebecca Cope!

The mid-to-late nineteenth century in the United States saw its share of political action and change. Sarah Davis’s own life represented an interesting tension between the upheaval of political power for minority groups, especially the rise of female suffragettes advocating for political power, and those who wanted women to remain in the domestic sphere free from political entanglements. Sarah Davis was decidedly an anti-Suffragist. Her stance can best be explained by what the vote represented to Americans in the mid-19th century and by her own agency in her education, marriage, and community involvement. This talk explores why a woman would scoff at the opportunity to vote, even as greater domestic autonomy for middle-class women was expanding.