Julia Addington First Iowa Women Elected to a Public Office

Julia Addington

Iowa in 1869 was prairie grass, muddy boots, the smell of wood smoke, and cornfields so wet you could probably grow rice in them. The Civil War was over, the railroads were slicing across the country like a drunk with a butter knife, and women were—well, not running for office. They were mostly running households, running after children, or running out of patience. But in Mitchell County, one small, unstoppable teacher decided she was done grading papers and ready to grade society.

 Julia Addington wasn’t loud, or rich, or politically connected. She didn’t have a campaign slogan. She probably didn’t even have time for one, because she was busy teaching actual children who probably didn’t wash their hands or understand personal space.

 

She’d been born in New York in 1829, which was so long ago that “light” was still a luxury item. Her family just kept moving west until they ran out of trees—Wisconsin, then northern Iowa—places where the “curriculum” was basically: don’t die, and try to spell your own name before winter sets in.

 

Julia loved learning. She taught everywhere—Cedar Falls, Waterloo, Des Moines, Osage—basically, if there was a building and two kids who could sit still for ten minutes, she was there. One of her students later said, “She never raised her voice, yet no boy ever dared to cross her.” Translation: terrifying in the most polite way possible.

 By 1868, she was the best teacher in Mitchell County. When the county superintendent quit, she took over to finish the term—like a sub who accidentally becomes principal. She was so good that when election season rolled around, someone (probably as a joke) put her name on the ballot. You know that moment when people nominate you for something and you laugh but then somehow win and have to pretend you’re qualified? That.

 

Julia didn’t campaign. No posters. No rallies. No handshake photos with babies. Just her name next to Milton N. Browne, a Republican who probably figured it was in the bag.

 

Election night came. 633 votes for Browne, 633 for Addington. A tie. Democracy had a glitch. No one knew what to do. There were no recounts, no lawyers, no CNN touchscreens. The county clerk just sighed and said, “Let’s flip a coin.” Heads for Browne, tails for Addington. The coin spun in the lamplight, hit the wood floor, and—boom—tails. History.

 

Julia Addington was suddenly the first woman ever elected to public office in Iowa.

 

The Mitchell County Press reported, “Miss Julia C. Addington has been declared elected County Superintendent… perhaps the first instance in our State where the fair sex has triumphed at the polls.” Another paper suggested the election of a woman is “a novelty that will not long survive its absurdity.”

 

There was even an official inquiry into whether she could do the job. Iowa Attorney General Henry O’Connor, read the law and said, “Well, it doesn’t say she can’t.” Which is how women have been getting things done since the dawn of time. No protests, no speeches, just “Oops, looks like there’s no rule against it.”

 

So Julia went to work. Seventy-six schools. Three of them still made of logs. Over two thousand students. One hundred twenty-two teachers. And all of it connected by roads so bad you could lose a wagon wheel and a small child in the same rut. She rode those roads on horseback, checking schools, scolding absent teachers, and writing reports that were both businesslike and dryly hilarious. One entry read: “Visited School No. 7. Teacher absent. Pupils industrious but directionless.” The actual surprise was that they didn’t go home or throw a party.

 

She insisted teachers read more, learn more, and think of teaching as something noble—like a calling from God, but with more chalk dust and fewer miracles. She called for “training schools for teachers,” which was the 1860s version of professional certification. Basically, Julia invented continuing education before anyone thought to make it mandatory or boring.

 

“Our children cannot thrive in ignorance,” she wrote in her first annual report. “The farmer who would not leave his field unsown must not leave his child untaught.” It sounds poetic until you realize she probably wrote it after twelve hours on horseback, covered in mud, while holding a lantern with her elbow.

 

The Osage Journal said her “administration is marked by energy, system, and unusual tact. Seventeen new schoolhouses have been built under her supervision.”

 

Of course, the men in neighboring counties didn’t know what to make of her. One delegate at a state education meeting called Mitchell County “experimental,” which was Iowa code for “we’re confused and slightly threatened.” Another editor wrote that “Miss Addington, without seeking it, has become an argument for the enfranchisement of her sex.” Translation: she wasn’t trying to start a movement, but she accidentally did anyway.

 

Julia didn’t give it much thought. She just kept showing up to work—making lesson plans, getting saddle sores, and proving she could do the job. She rode the county’s rutted roads, checking on teachers who were often younger than their students, fixed budgets with fewer numbers than a bingo card, and pushed for better textbooks and roofs that didn’t leak.

 

After two years, it caught up with her. “The work has been good and worthy,” she wrote to a friend, “but my strength no longer keeps pace with my wishes.”

 

She stepped down in 1871 and went back to what she loved—teaching. She spent her last years in Stacyville, quietly mentoring new teachers and grading papers. One colleague said she’d sit by the window “marking lessons and planning work as though the whole county were still under her charge.”

 

When she died in 1875 at just forty-six, The Mitchell County Press published a short obituary: “In the death of Miss Julia Addington, our county loses a faithful friend of education. Few women in this state have rendered such practical service to the public.”

 

When Iowa women finally got the right to vote, the Des Moines Register looked back and wrote, “Half a century ago, Julia Addington of Mitchell County set a precedent by which the women of Iowa may justly feel honored. Her coin toss opened a door that never fully closed.”

 

And that’s the thing—fifty years later, they couldn’t admit a woman won the vote. They brought it back to the coin toss, like maybe it was rigged and someone slipped the county clerk a two-tailed nickel.