Anne Martin was born on September 30th, 1875 in Empire City, Nevada to a traditional Bavarian mother and populist politician father. She first became involved in feminism while traveling in Britain, becoming affiliated with the Women’s Social and Political Union (WPSU). She participated in militant feminism and political activism with Christabel and Emmeline Pankhurst, leading to her arrest on the orders of Home Secretary Winston Churchill in 1910 for disturbing the peace. 

In 1910, the Nevada Equal Franchise Society (NEFS) was founded, and Martin returned to Nevada and was elected press secretary and then president of it. She was devoted to her goal of suffrage, earning the nickname of Little Governor Anne after she rode on horseback between mining camps in efforts to reach the dispersed population of the state. Under her guidance, the NEFS was able to secure a state-wide suffrage amendment in 1914. At the same time, she was working to also secure a national suffrage amendment as a member of both the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and the Congressional Union for Women’s Suffrage (CU)’s executive committees. At the NWP’s (at the time Women’s Party of Western Voters) founding convention in Chicago, she was selected as the first national chairman of the organization. After the NWP formally merged with the CU in 1917, she was appointed to be vice-chairman and legislative chairman of the NWP. In partnership with Alice Paul, she integrated some of the militant tactics she had learned from British feminists into the NWP. From 1916 to 1918, she lived in DC and fought for suffrage, arguing with the dawn of World War I that suffrage would allow women to better contribute to the war effort. She was arrested in 1917 for picketing in front of the White House, and argued in court for their right to protest outside the White House, saying:

“As long as the government and the representatives of the government prefer to send women to jail on petty and technical charges to giving American women justice, we will go to jail. Persecution has always advanced the cause of justice. The right of American women to tell the truth about our government, about democracy, and to work for democracy, must be maintained. We stand on the Bill of Rights.”

In 1918, Martin left DC and went back to Nevada, where she became the first woman to run for Senate. She ran as an independent, not declaring as either Democrat or Republican, because they were all male-dominated. Martin wrote in a 1919 Good Housekeeping article that “the question we must have answered in the coming campaign is not ‘What shall women do for the political parties?’ but ‘What shall the political parties do for women?’” She ran in both 1918 and 1920, losing both with about ⅕ of the total vote, likely due to her more controversial policies of supporting the release of all political prisoners and conscientious objectors, less than enthusiastic support towards WWI, and support for federal medical care and welfare for mothers and children. She also helped to build support for the Sheppard-Towner Act for protecting maternal and infancy cases in 1919 and 1920.

After the passage of women’s suffrage, she moved to Caramel with her mother, where she dedicated herself to writing and pacifism. Martin joined the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), where she served as a delegate to the WILPF world congress in 1926 and 1929, western regional director of the US section, and a member of the league’s national board. However, she split with the organization after alleging that they focused too much on socialist and communist ideology over feminism and pacifism. At the same time, she was writing magazine articles about women’s equality, prize winning poetry, articles for Encyclopedia Britannica, and journalistic articles on a variety of subjects. 

Martin split with the NWP in the late 1920s, though she still supported the ERA. She continued to not align with any political party, criticizing the alignment of feminist activists with male political parties, stating that Carrie Chapman Catt, “sounded the doom of feminism for many years to come when she urged the newly franchised American women to ‘train for citizenship’ [by joining] men’s parties.” 

Martin passed away in 1951.

Bibliography

Anne Henrietta Martin Papers BANC MSS P-G 282. (n.d.). https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf1t1n993s/

Anne Martin (1875 – 1951). (n.d.). Turning Point Suffragist Memorial. https://suffragistmemorial.org/anne-martin-1875-1951/

Capace, N. (2001). Martin, Anne Henrietta. In Encyclopedia of Nevada (pp. 126–129). Somerset Publishers, Inc.

Cullen-DuPont, K. (1998). Martin, Anne Henrietta. In Encyclopedia of Women’s History (pp. 154–155). Da Capo Press.

The Weekly Organ of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage. (1917). The Suffragist, 8.

Van Valkenburgh, H. (n.d.). Anne Henrietta Martin. Nevada Women’s History Project. https://nevadawomen.org/research-center/biographies-alphabetical/anne-henrietta-martin/

Woman’s Party Deserts Hoover as “Hoodwinker.” (1928, October 31). The Brooklyn Citizen, 2.