Dover suffrage leader to be honored with marker

Delaware State News
Posted 6/16/21

DOVER — Mabel Lloyd Ridgely, whose efforts in Delaware helped ensure that women have the right to vote, is being honored with a historic marker.

The first Delaware Pomeroy Marker will be …

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Dover suffrage leader to be honored with marker

Posted

DOVER — Mabel Lloyd Ridgely, whose efforts in Delaware helped ensure that women have the right to vote, is being honored with a historic marker.

The first Delaware Pomeroy Marker will be dedicated at 1 p.m. June 26 at the historic Ridgely House, 7 The Green in Dover.

The National Collaborative for Women’s History Sites and the William G. Pomeroy Foundation recently partnered to launch a historic marker program identifying individuals and events connected to the history of women’s suffrage.

Historic markers awarded through the Pomeroy Foundation’s grant program highlight sites on the National Votes for Women Trail, a project of the NCWHS.

Ms. Ridgely, who was born in 1872, was a woman of many interests including being a clubwoman, Liberty Loan fundraiser during World War I, historic preservationist, founder of Old Dover Days, gardener and keeper of the Ridgely family’s history.

From 1919 to 1920, she led the Delaware Equal Suffrage Association in the group’s effort to convince the Delaware General Assembly to ratify the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Her home, with its strategic location a short walk from the state house, was a hive of suffrage activity throughout the legislature’s special session in spring 1920, a news release states.

Once the amendment achieved ratification, she became the first president of the Delaware League of Women Voters and headed the state’s Women’s Joint Legislative Committee, a bipartisan group advocating for issues related to women’s and children’s welfare.

In 1982, she was inducted into the Hall of Fame of Delaware Women. In recognition of her efforts to preserve Delaware’s history, the research room at the new Public Archives building was named in her honor in 2001.

The National Collaborative for Women’s History Sites is a nonprofit established to support and promote the preservation and interpretation of sites and locales that bear witness to women’s participation in American history, the release states.

The William G. Pomeroy Foundation is a private, grant-making foundation established in 2005. The foundation aims to celebrate and preserve community history; and to raise awareness, support research and improve the quality of care for patients and their families who are facing a blood cancer diagnosis, the release states. To date, the foundation has awarded more than 1,100 roadside markers and plaques nationwide.

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